Sony and the NFL Announce New Technology Partnership Hawk-Eye tech, new official coach's headset, Sony's Beyond Sports tech are components By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Wednesday, July 31, 2024 - 10:28 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The National Football League has named Sony Corp. an official technology partner and the new official headset provider for the league. The partnership covers an expansion of Sony's Hawk-Eye Innovations sports technology to support league officiating and development of on-field and sideline technologies.
One major element of the deal is a new coach's sideline-headset design, supporting coach-to-coach communication on the field and debuting for the 2025-26 season. The NFL and Sony will work jointly to develop the headset, which will be powered by Verizon Business's Managed Private Wireless Solution running on Verizon's 5G network.
Other partnership elements include greater involvement of Sony's Beyond Sports AI-based data-analysis and visualization technology using digital animation for real-time fan engagement.
Opportunity for Fan Engagement It's a broad collaboration, says Maya Wasserman, director, marketing. personal entertainment, home entertainment, and brand marketing, Sony. We have been working collaboratively with the NFL already. [Besides] expansion of the Sony Hawk-Eye innovation, this partnership includes the Sony imaging ecosystem, including [Sony broadcast cameras] and video, to bring fans closer to the game-day action. It also includes Sony's Beyond Sports for real-time visualization, which is a new opportunity to engage a new generation of NFL fans, a new coach's sideline headset, and then future collaborations and developments.
NFL Tracie Rodburg: You will see [the partnership] come to life not only through Hawk-Eye [and] our alt broadcast with Toy Story but also through those headsets on-field and the premium product that Sony will be creating for us.
NFL SVP, Global Partnership, Tracie Rodburg notes that the league has already been using Sony broadcast technology for game production, as have its network-broadcast partners CBS Sports, ESPN, FOX Sports, and NBC Sports.
But this really came about [because] there are so many different areas of our game that we want to continue to grow and innovate, she explains, noting that the broadcast partners were consulted during development of the new partnership. Since we had already been working with Sony in some of this capacity, it just made sense for us to make a commitment to continue this innovation and to make it encompass even more of our ecosystem, including our coaches, the players, the fans, and all of our clubs.
That's what really expands this partnership, she continues. You will see it come to life not only through Hawk-Eye [and] our alt broadcast with Toy Story but also through those headsets on-field and the premium product that Sony will be creating for us for the 2025 season. Everybody will understand that Sony is our technology partner and really advancing our game.
Hawk-Eye for Officiating and More Sony's Hawk-Eye tracking services will be deployed to further enhance the accuracy of game-critical items, along with development of new on-field sideline technologies. Hawk-Eye's technology has supported the NFL Officiating Department in reviewing and making critical rulings on plays. For coming seasons, Hawk-Eye and NFL will develop a next-generation officiating technology based on Hawk-Eye's state-of-art line-to-gain optical tracking technology.
NFL's Aaron Amendolia: We are continuing testing of our virtual measurement system: six cameras used to measure the ball for a moment, like the line-to-gain.
According to NFL Deputy CIO Aaron Amendolia, enhancements planned for the league's deployment of Hawk-Eye include the number of cameras in NFL stadiums. The first tests took place at the Las Vegas Raiders' Allegiant Stadium last season. The enhanced camera deployments will be rolled out in four stadiums for preseason play next month and are expected to be brought into full use for the 2025-26 season.
This year, 12 cameras will be dedicated to boundary lines to improve replay officiating. Those will be NFL-dedicated cameras to look at the boundary lines when they come into scope for a specific play review, he explains, adding, We are continuing testing of our virtual measurement system: six cameras used to measure the ball for a moment, like the line-to-gain.
Additionally, pairing the technology and the Hawk-Eye-captured data with player-tracking data from the NFL's Next Gen Stats powered by AWS and Sony's Beyond Sports visualization technology will create new avenues for real-time content creation, such as ESPN, Disney and the NFL's Emmy Award-winning Toy Story Funday Football alternative game presentation during the 2023 season. That effort brought a younger, more global audience to the game and has been the biggest live event on Disney+ streaming to date.
An Ecosystem and Opportunities for Development Sony products and technologies are already used extensively in many NFL stadiums across the country. Additionally, the new NFL Network studios in Inglewood, CA, have recently shifted many key operations and cameras to Sony technology.
Enhanced camera deployments are part of the partnership between Sony and the NFL.
Sony and the league expect the components of the deal to act synergistically. Matthew Parnell, senior director/head of brand and community marketing, and imaging solutions, Sony, calls it an ecosystem opportunity with continued development.
We're going to continue testing the Skelet track system, he says. This may unlock the opportunity for an official to have something like a wearable on their wrist and that wearable would receive data fro
More from Sports Video Group
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
28/05/2026
FOX Sports' MLB coverage dominated the night at the 47th Annual Sports Emmy ...
28/05/2026
One of the most memorable postseasons in baseball history would have had no memo...
28/05/2026
NBC's Sunday Night Football is among the most-decorated and most-watched pro...
28/05/2026
The 2026 Sports Emmys marked a watershed moment for Prime Video Sports. After bu...
28/05/2026
Hosted by ESPN Senior Writer Ryan McGee, the ceremony honored winners from athletic departments, conference offices, professional networks, production companies...
28/05/2026
Major rights-holders rolled out their 2026 college football slates today, offering a first look at marquee windows, kickoff partners, and conference distributio...
28/05/2026
The 4 Nations Face-Off, an international competition that launched in February 2...
28/05/2026
Soccer is a truly global sport, and, to match the U.S. viewing audience's in...
28/05/2026
The NFL Today, CBS Sports' top-of-the-line NFL studio show, has a storied hi...
28/05/2026
Prime Video is no stranger to innovation, and, within the realm of live streamin...
28/05/2026
The crack of the bat, the pop of the glove, and the cheer of the crowd: those are three prime examples of the glorious sounds fans hear on televised baseball ga...
28/05/2026
Every year, March Madness captivates the entire sports world. Nonstop action, un...
28/05/2026
NBA on NBC was an integral part to live sports production in the 1990s, and, when the league made these media rights available, NBC Sports saw an opportunity to...
28/05/2026
UmpCam is a technological wrinkle that has given fans unprecedented views of wha...
28/05/2026
T-Mobile and the United States Golf Association (USGA) announced a multi-year partnership, making T-Mobile the Official 5G Network Partner of the U.S. Women'...
27/05/2026
Telestream has announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Benjamin Desbois as Chief Executive Officer, effective July 1, 2026. Desbois, currently Teles...
27/05/2026
ESPN garnered 10 awards; NBC's Sunday Night Football received the Outstandin...
27/05/2026
Matrox Video is celebrating its 50th anniversary, marking five decades of operations from its headquarters in Montreal, Canada. Founded in 1976, the company has...
27/05/2026
Major League Baseball has announced a series of initiatives tied to America's Semiquincentennial, including a national marketing campaign, Fourth of July br...
27/05/2026
Advanced Systems Group (ASG) has announced that Brian Gross has joined the company as an Account Manager on its Audio team, based in the Burbank office. He will...
27/05/2026
Nielsen has released new research on soccer fandom ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2...
27/05/2026
ESL FACEIT Group (EFG) has unveiled a new partnership with TikTok to bring broad...
27/05/2026
FIFA's Oscar Sanchez gives a deeper look to how this tournament will be cove...
27/05/2026
The soon-to-be senior from Charlottesville is building her skills in replay, TD, and even creative content for HokieVision and its ACC Network productions
In t...
27/05/2026
FOX Sports' Mike Davies breaks down the vision for this summer's showcas...
27/05/2026
HBS's Paul King, FIFA's Oscar Sanchez preview how the masses at home wil...
27/05/2026
FOX's MLB coverage dominated the night at the 47th Annual Sports Emmy Awards...
27/05/2026
One of the most memorable Postseasons in baseball history would have had no memo...
27/05/2026
NBC's Sunday Night Football is among the most decorated and most watched programs in the history of television. It added to its jam-packed trophy case on Tu...
27/05/2026
The 2026 Sports Emmys marked a watershed moment for Prime Video Sports. After bu...
27/05/2026
With the Opening Match just over two weeks away, the entire sports-production-te...
Sony and the NFL Announce New Technology Partnership Hawk-Eye tech, new official coach's headset, Sony's Beyond Sports tech are components By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
