In Memoriam: Andrew Lorenz - Sportvision and SMT Vet, Emmy Award-Winning Innovator, Beloved SVG Community Member Friends and colleagues gathered to celebrate his life on March 5 By SVG Staff
Wednesday, March 13, 2024 - 1:20 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Longtime SMT and Sportvision vet Andrew Lorenz
Andrew Francis Lorenz - a longtime vet of Sportsvision and SMT, an Emmy Award-winning member of the sports-broadcast community, and an integral part of enhancing the live sports viewing experience - died peacefully on Feb. 20 at his home in Campbell, CA.
Lorenz, 44, played a key role in a variety of groundbreaking technical innovations, including virtual-advertising insertion for MLB and NHL; KZONE for ESPN; virtual-offside-line technology (SMT-VOL) for the Portuguese Football Federation and FIFA; and Synthetic Video for the Triple Crown races and Australian Rules Football. His latest projects were implementing virtual-graphics enhancements (NITRO) for NHRA and team and broadcast analytics for NASCAR.
On March 5, friends and colleagues of Lorenz gathered in Campbell, CA, to pay their respects and celebrate his life. Mike Davies, SVG chairman and SVP, technical and field ops, FOX Sports, recounts the event:
If you were at the service, it would have been obvious as to what Andrew did for his living - and what kind of passion he had for it.
Around the room where the service and reception took place was a shocking variety of credentials (a couple from only a few months ago). There were hats and other swag from every network, as well as balls, bats, uniforms, and, in the corner of the room, a green board.
Some of the credentials that Andrew Lorenz accumulated during his career
You see, Andrew worked on and loved a lot of sports, but his favorite by far was baseball. And the green board complicated that love. The green board, of course, is the ubiquitous chromakey green panel used to key virtual ads on TV.
On one hand, the green board was the key to going to the game and, while there, going to places on the ball field no one gets to go: behind home plate, in the dugout, even on the field itself. But, on the other hand, it could be an infernal frustration: when the lights or the paint wasn't just right, when the gaff tape that framed it frayed or came loose, or when the whole virtual-ad system was simply just not performing the way it ought to.
I've even heard that technicians who worked for the company, particularly in the early days, had nightmares about different things going wrong with it.
Nevertheless, Andrew never complained about it. In fact, he had a sense of humor about it. He had a sense of humor about everything; I guess those of us in this business have to have that. His was particularly acute, to say the very least.
In fact, he never complained about anything, even in illness. In the last text I got from him, perhaps a week before he passed, he asked if there was anything he could do for me.
He was well taken care of by his family, especially in his final weeks: his amazing mother, Patricia, and Carissa and their sons, Ethan and Henry. I know he wished he had more time with his sons - the unifying regret of those who work in our business.
More of Lorenz's industry credentials
At the service, I learned a lot about him. I learned he was a musician, that he considered joining the priesthood while in high school. I also learned that he had an old-school typewriter he would write friends with. He used this typewriter to write his best friend, Jim, as to how he might have seen his own funeral service - all the way back in 2013. He was joking, of course, which those who knew him would understand.
Nevertheless, requests were honored so hot dogs were served; a bagpiper played (as specified, for dramatic effect ) a drawn-out version of Scotland the Brave, as I recall; and Take Me Out to the Ballgame was played (the most traditional version available), along with a polka ( Roll Out the Barrel ) in a strange juxtaposition given the circumstances.
He was a member of our Sports Video Group family. I remember he enjoyed seeing everyone at the events and embodied so many of the things that we try to live up to: a passion for the business, an unwaveringly good attitude while performing it, and a unique ability to care for everyone with whom he interacted.
We will miss him and will celebrate the indelible mark he made on the business he loved so much. SMT should be recognized for the same qualities for taking such good care of him and standing by him consistently over the years.
Lorenz is survived by his two sons, Ethan, 19, and Henry, 9; his former spouse, Carrissa; his mother, Patricia; and half-siblings Fred, Gregory, Harry, Jay, Jeaneen, Jeanne, Julia, and Michael. He is preceded in death by his father, Harold, and his half-sister, Jennifer. To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in his memory, CLICK HERE.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
In Memoriam: Andrew Lorenz - Sportvision and SMT Vet, Emmy Award-Winning Innovator, Beloved SVG Community Member Friends and colleagues gathered to celebrate his life on March 5 By SVG Staff 
