The Hundred: Sky Sports and the ECB Turn to Gamification as Cricket Is Freshened Up' for a New Audience

21/07/2021

The Hundred: Sky Sports and the ECB turn to gamification as cricket is freshened up for a new audience By Will Strauss, Editor

Monday, July 19, 2021 - 11:16

Print This Story

Player avatars for presenter analysis and a new way of displaying on-screen broadcast graphics will both be part of Sky Sports' gamified live coverage of the new family friendly' cricket tournament The Hundred which starts on Wednesday (21 July).

The Hundred is a professional franchise 100-ball-per-innings format involving eight men's and eight women's teams located in major cities across England and Wales.

With the sport looking to attract new fans, it's not cricket for dummies' but it is very much a TV-friendly format, with accessible start and end times and shorter matches, that has been devised to be more entertainment-focused and inclusive than other forms of the sport.

As such, alongside some of the world's best cricketers, The Hundred will feature a mixture of music, DJs, fan participation and more in an effort to attract more female and child viewers, attendees and participants.

Sky Sports is the host broadcaster for the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB)-owned competition and will show all 68 games with the BBC broadcasting 10 matches free-to-air, doing its own coverage but taking Sky's world feed.

It's been a challenge but when is innovation not a challenge? We've gone into the unknown we do believe it is a broadcast world first

The family-friendly approach will be reflected in Sky Sports' output which, in conjunction with the ECB, will use gamification to appeal to younger viewers.

That gamification comes in two main forms: player avatars that will be used for analysis during presentation elements of Sky's coverage; and on-screen broadcast graphics with a gaming' or esports' feel that have been designed to help simplify the game for viewers.

Sky Sports director of cricket Bryan Henderson, speaking to SVG Europe ahead of the tournament, explained the premise behind the tournament and what they are setting out to achieve.

Cricket as a sport is doing really well and has had some incredible moments over the last few years, with both the England women's and men's World Cup wins and some amazing international and domestic cricket, he said.

The issue though, concerns demographics. Cricket's audience on and off-screen is typically, quite middle-aged ABC1 men. And although they are an important segment, we need to engage new fans if we are going to grow and future-proof the sport. At the same time, society is evolving. People's lives are changing, people want shorter formats that are easier to understand and they want formats that are affordable to watch with the family.

Cricket has recognised this and the issues that it has in its appeal and relevancy. And so The Hundred has essentially been born out of that and our commitment to it and to growing the game.

The upshot of this from a TV perspective will be a new way of broadcasting the sport, he added. We are going to freshen things up and present things in a slightly different way

Player avatars

Created in conjunction with the ECB, the player avatars are part of the gamification of The Hundred, with Sky Sports on-screen talent and pundits due to present around them during pitch-side presentation elements within the coverage.

The avatars will help viewers to get a little bit closer to the players , said Henderson, and make the graphics more gamified and in tune with the target audience .

They were created using facial recognition and motion capture technology rather than the volumetric technique that Sky has used to great effect on its golf coverage with Sky Scope.

The decision to go with avatars rather than volumetric capture was purely practical, according to Sky Creative creative director of innovation Jason Landau, who was invited to talk to the ECB after it saw the impact of Sky Scope.

What is right for one sport isn't necessarily right for another, he said. With the cricket bowling [motion] it wasn't going to be feasible [to do volumetric]. At the same time, we'd been talking a lot about avatars. We'd seen how they were getting better in the overall look so we examined the pros and cons of doing a hyperreal avatar, and then capture the motion data. We thought it would be different but also engaging.

Using avatars rather than volumetric capture will also make it easier to re-skin if someone changes hairstyle or bat sponsor , Henderson added. Plus we can touch up hair, alter facial expressions and change things as we wish.

We were always worried about the motion capture shoots, but once the players had seen what we were trying to achieve, they really bought into it

The avatars themselves have been created using MetaStar, Dimension Studio's hyper-real avatar solution and the Augmented Reality experience created by Arcade (an immersive experience creative agency, using Unity).

Dimension Studio created the avatar faces using images from 19 stills cameras that captured a scan of each player's head. Those pictures were then animated, processed and stitched together before skin texture and detail was added.

Motion capture techniques were then used to generate the sporting action for each avatar body.

For this, Target 3D positioned 30 optical micro tracking cameras around each player. These triangulated the position of 50 optical markers that were placed on a bodysuit worn by the cricketers as they played different shots or went through their bowling action.

Motion capture gloves were also used to capture movement for bowling wrist and finger position, providing an extra level of detail.

The position of the markers was then used to calculate a skeleton that then drives the animation. The data capture session took

LINK:	https://www.svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/the-hundred-sky-sports-and-th...
	See more stories from svg

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

01/06/2026

Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026

January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026 Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...

02/05/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Search, Faster Editing, and an AI-Ready Foundation for Modern Media

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

01/05/2026

NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to Integrate Dolby's Full Suite of Premium Picture and Sound Innovations

January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...

01/04/2026

DOLBY AND DOUYIN EMPOWER THE NEXT GENERATON OF CREATORS WITH DOLBY VISION

January 4 2026, 18:00 (PST) DOLBY AND DOUYIN EMPOWER THE NEXT GENERATON OF CREATORS WITH DOLBY VISION Douyin Users Can Now Create And Share Videos With Stun...

18/03/2026

Net Insight Names Larissa GrnerMeeus CPO

Newly named chief product officer (CPO), Larissa G rner Meeus will return to Net Insight on May 4. Larissa G rner Meeus will become CPO of Net Insight on May 4...

18/03/2026

SVG Europe's The Football Summit 2026: Select Sessions Now Available to Watch on SVG PLAY

SVG Europe's The Football Summit 2026 explored how the sports broadcasting i...

18/03/2026

SVG's SportsTech@NABShow Blog Goes Live as Countdown to Vegas Heats Up

The 2026 NAB Show kicks off one month from today and SVG is once again set to cover the show from every angle. SVG's SportsTech@NAB Show Blog is now live - ...

18/03/2026

The Premiere of Dead Lover Showcases Grave Robbing and Sex With a Giant Finger

(L-R) The cast and crew of Dead Lover at The Ray Theater for its premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. (Photo by Robin Marshall/Shutterstock for Sundan...

18/03/2026

Music Row Piano from Wiltone Productions

Yamaha C7 captured in Nashville Wiltone Productions have announced the release of Music Row Piano, a deeply sampled Yamaha C7 piano library that's been ...

18/03/2026

Techivation introduce T-Warmer Mk2

Bass-enhancement plug-in upgraded Along with a steady stream of new releases, Techivation have recently been revisiting some of the older plug-ins in their ...

18/03/2026

Tonal Balance Control 3 from iZotope

Mix-reference plug-in overhauled iZotope's powerful mix-referencing plug-in has just reached its third major version, and now boasts a new capture proce...

18/03/2026

Toontrack Transistor Organ EKX

Latest EZKeys 2 expansion arrives Toontrack's staggering collection of EZKeys 2 expansions has grown once again, and the latest instalment delivers a on...

18/03/2026

Jess Ho explores the politics of food in new SBS Audio podcast For The Culture

Jess Ho explores the politics of food in new SBS Audio podcast For The Culture 18 March, 2026 Media releases New SBS Audio podcast For The Culture, hosted ...

18/03/2026

Future-ready broadcasts with ATSC 3.0 and enhanced services from Rohde & Schwarz at NAB 2026

Future-ready broadcasts with ATSC 3.0 and enhanced services from Rohde & Schwarz...

18/03/2026

LCTWS 2026

London Calling - When The Industry Convened to Help Streaming Find its MoJo In this blog, Laura Rognoni reflects on key discussions from the Connected TV World...

18/03/2026

SMPTE Unveils 2026 NAB Show Educational Presentations

SMPTE Unveils 2026 NAB Show Educational Presentations Brie Clayton March 18, 2026 0 Comments SMPTE , the home of media professionals, technologists, a...

18/03/2026

Auditel Ad Campaign Shot on Blackmagic PYXIS 12K

Auditel Ad Campaign Shot on Blackmagic PYXIS 12K Brie Clayton March 18, 2026 0 Comments LED wall virtual production blends 12K open gate acquisition w...

18/03/2026