NBA Summer League Once Again a Breeding Ground for Tech Innovation By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Friday, July 19, 2024 - 2:55 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The temperature isn't the only thing heating up in Las Vegas this week during the annual NBA Summer League festivities; the level of technological innovation is sizzling as well. The league's basketball strategy and broadcast ops teams are collaborating on a bevy of experiments that aim to enhance the quality of gameplay, officiating, live production, and the viewing experience.
From a broadcast operations and engineering perspective, Summer League is an invaluable opportunity to try out new technologies and continue to evolve, says Barney Carleton, Senior Director, Broadcast Planning and Strategy. The best piece of the Summer League for us is the fact that not everything necessarily has to make it to air. That opportunity to do offline testing is something that's absolutely really critical to us. It enlightens us and provides us the opportunity to try new things that we can either hold on to or throw away. We can also go back to it in future seasons and continue to develop, iterate, and improve.
Summer League is a critical R&D lab for us for two main use cases, says Tom Ryan, VP, Basketball Strategy, NBA. The first is tactical in that it gives us some final reps and a chance to tune up before the upcoming season. And the second is experimental where we can throw out some new ideas that you might see in the NBA in 3-4 years. It's an amazing forum for experimentation because we have NBA-caliber buildings and there's a lot of games, so it just allows us to get a lot of data and a large sample size in a 10-day stretch, which is pretty unique.
From Vegas to Secaucus and beyond: The HSAN and the Cloud The league has rolled out two of its portable remote HSAN transmission kits - one for each arena in Vegas - and secured additional connectivity from Verizon to create a robust network to connect both the Thomas and Mack Center and Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas with the NBA Replay Center in Secaucus, NJ. This network not only serves the NBA's content creation and international-distribution needs, but it also provides a backbone for the plethora of tests taking place in Vegas.
The NBA is also working with MediaKind and a handful of other vendors to test JPEG XS encoding on the HSAN in an effort to enable more efficient video transmission and overall flexibility in the future.
As was the case last year in Vegas, the NBA continues to test out new cloud-production workflows for both alternate feeds and multi-language broadcasts. As part of this testing, the league is working with Microsoft Azure on running Evertz' DreamCatcher BRAVO production suite in the cloud.
We're really excited by the maturation that we've seen in cloud production when it comes to versioning and scaling up the quantity of feeds that we've been able to produce, as well as streamlining our distribution, says Carleton. This is a continuation from last year and we're taking another step this year that will give us more scalability and flexibility in the future.
The NBA is working with a number of other partners on cloud-based production workflows in Vegas, including Tagboard on their HTML5 graphics platform.
Next-Gen Viewing Experiences: Cosm, C360, and Quintar For the second consecutive year, Cosm (which inked a multi-year deal with the league last year to create 8K shared-reality experiences for fans) is in Vegas testing both immersive and VR capture systems.
We're working with Cosm on a number of different exciting experiences both in the broadcast space as well as some of these emerging markets, says Carleton. The goal of their testing is to look at some new camera angles and continue its development as it relates to creating the best possible user experience for basketball.
Cosm's C360 crew is also collaborating with the league on a proof-of-concept that integrates Hawkeye player tracking data into C360's CX Video Hub platform to create automatically-generated ISO shots.
It's early days so you may not see in the broadcast, but that continues to be of great interest to us here at the league, says Carleton. We view it as an opportunity to create more content and explore how we can use AI in conjunction with our player tracking data to create a better experience for fans.
The NBA is also collaborating with Quintar creating spatial video content for platforms like Apple Vision Pro.
We are working with them to just figure out new ways to create new types of content so that we can reach fans where they are, says Carleton. It's unclear if we'll be publishing any content from this event specifically, but it's an amazing opportunity to experiment and refine the way we can tell stories.
Working with ESPN: New cameras, Mics, and Data Visualizations ESPN continues to produce all of the Vegas summer league games (including broadcasts on NBA TV) this season, but for the first time, all game broadcasts from both the Thomas & Mack and Cox Pavilion are being produced back in Bristol, CT using REMI-production models.
ESPN and the NBA are testing new, smaller digital Q5X player mic transmitter/receiver systems that include various types of lavalier mic capsules and transmitters. In addition, ESPN and Riedel are working with the league on two-way in-game conversations with players similar to what viewers have seen in MLB coverage in recent years.
We continue to work really closely with ESPN on a lot of our testing initiatives and one of the key initiatives is finding opportunities to improve our player access opportunities, says Carleton. That includes getting better player sounds with the Q5X microphones and experimenting with two-way interv
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
09/10/2026
September 10 2026, 06:00 (PDT) Dolby Expands Dolby OptiView Platform with New Capabilities at IBC 2026
New Sports Intelligence helps providers better unders...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
29/09/2026
Oak View Group (OVG) has announced Cisco as an Official Technology Partner, with plans to standardize infrastructure across its venue network on Cisco solutions...
29/09/2026
SportsNet Pittsburgh (SNP) won three honors at the 2026 Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards.
Program awards went to Bucs BP in the Sports Program Live category (produced ...
29/09/2026
The Professional Women's Hockey League has announced home openers for all 12 teams for the 2026-27 season, along with a broadcast partnership with CBC under...
29/09/2026
Manifold technologies has been recognized as a contributor to the Media eXchange...
29/09/2026
FuboTV has announced My Local Sports, allowing subscribers in select markets to add their local regional sports network (RSN) as an add-on to a Fubo Sports subs...
29/09/2026
Asian News International (ANI), a wire agency and video news provider based in India, has deployed Grass Valley's AMPP Media Operating System and Framelight...
29/09/2026
South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has deployed Ikegami UHK-X600 cameras as part of an upgrade to IP-based production infrastructure. The deployment ...
29/09/2026
REMI, REMCO models will drive the bulk of the broadcaster's NHL productions ...
29/09/2026
Three years in, the facility is supporting more centralized race production, com...
29/09/2026
NBC, Peacock, and NBSN are carrying all four Wild Card series with a production ...
29/09/2026
19 Nonfiction Projects Across All Stages of Production to Receive More Than $1 million in Support as Documentary Film Program Approaches 25th Anniversary
LOS ...
29/09/2026
Two new plug-ins launch alongside updated bundles
Zynaptiq have just announced the launch of two new plug-ins, alongside new and improved versions of two of...
29/09/2026
All-in-one bus processor revealed
Wes Audio's ng product range has come a long way since it was first introduced, and now includes a tasty selection of ...
29/09/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Ikegami announces that the South African Broadcasting Corporation, SABC, has chosen Ikegami UHK-X600 camera systems as part of an advance to IP-based operation ...
29/09/2026
Blendkit Offers 20% Discount to Celebrate Crossing 150K Asset Milestone
Brie Clayton September 29, 2026
0 Comments
Blendkit, the largest 3D asset libr...
29/09/2026
Interactive streaming specialist Ease Live supported more than 76.5 million fan sessions across three major European media operators during this summers FIFA Wo...
29/09/2026
Ease Live has added support for VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) to its graphical overlay technology, opening up new ways for broadcasters, streamers and rights...
29/09/2026
Rise AV has announced the launch of the inaugural Rise AV Awards, a new global awards programme celebrating the women, advocates and organisations across the AV...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Clear-Com announced that First Baptist Nashville has upgraded its production communications with a Clear-Com intercom solution as part of a comprehensive sanct...
29/09/2026
Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K Captured Action Shots for Sketch
Brie Clayton September 28, 2026
0 Comments
Camera's portable design and dynamic range...
29/09/2026
Kean Production Services Deploys AJA ColorBox to Deliver Consistent, Accurate Co...
29/09/2026
Berklee Alumni and Faculty Nominated for the 2026 Latin Grammy Awards A total of 28 Berklee alumni and faculty earned nominations across 20 categories this ye...
29/09/2026
Berklee's K-Pop & Beyond Explores Connections Between K-Pop and Hip-Hop Now in its fifth year, the series brings together artists, industry leaders, and s...
29/09/2026
We tend to think we live in a digital world, with hopes and fears around artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, data centres and the next big technolo...
29/09/2026
Today, in partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Apple relea...
29/09/2026
Final Cut Camera, the professional filming app for iPhone, receives a major upda...
29/09/2026
RT lyric fm is proud to announce the annual Choirs for Christmas competition callout. Warm up those vocal chords and join us on RT lyric fm for a celebration ...
28/09/2026
The NHL has announced Adobe as an Official Creative, Marketing and AI Partner beginning with the 2026-27 season. The partnership will provide the league and its...
28/09/2026
MultiDyne will exhibit at CABSAT 2026 (October 5-7, Dubai Exhibition Centre), showcasing an expanded technology portfolio following its June 2026 acquisition of...
28/09/2026
ARRI and HONOR have announced the HONOR Magic9 Pro Max, a flagship smartphone carrying ARRI branding on the device and packaging as the first product-level expr...
28/09/2026
Net Insight has added the Nimbra 1020G to its pan-Asian live media trial network, giving customers and partners in the region a way to evaluate ST 2110 and JPEG...
28/09/2026
Vindral has been named a recipient of a 2026 Technology and Engineering Emmy Award by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in the category of We...
28/09/2026
Interra Systems will exhibit at CABSAT 2026 (Stand B2-37, Dubai Exhibition Centre, October 5-7), demonstrating its BATON QC platform, ORION monitoring solutions...
28/09/2026
Two years into its new production facility, the TOUR is expanding centralized wo...
NBA Summer League Once Again a Breeding Ground for Tech Innovation By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. 
