Live from Tokyo Olympics: OBS Director of Digital Content Production Matt Millington On Widgets, Athlete Moments, and VR By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Friday, July 30, 2021 - 1:48 am
Print This Story
OBS puts a lot of energy and time into digital fan engagement offerings so what happens when the fans aren't in the stands supporting their nation, and cheering on their friends and family? For OBS it meant filling the gap with a new type of digital experience, one that not only can get virtual fans into the venues but also connect athletes with their friends and families immediately following a competition. Oh, and OBS had to do it quickly.
Matt Millington and the OBS digital team have worked hard to connect athletes with family and friends.
It was a very late project that we basically started working on about four months ago when the announcement was made that international fans would not be allowed into the venues, says Matt Millington, OBS, director of digital content production. So, we started working on three products, two of them are geared towards the fans and one is geared towards the athletes.
The two fan experiences are the Cheer Map and the Fan Video Wall.
They are widgets that can be integrated on any right holder's page or any other partner like federations and national Olympic committees, says Millington. Cheer Map is a widget that allows fans to cheer for their country of choice and while it does default to where the IP is address is based, they can choose another country.
Once in the widget, fans can virtually clap for their favorite nation's athletes.
We have a heat map of the world where you can see bubbles of support for different nations, says Millington. Interestingly, we're getting a lot of traffic from India, a lot from Japan, obviously lot from Australia and we credit that to the time zone. But we have 205 countries or national Olympic committees and all of them have had cheers.
As of July 30, more than 120 million fans had cheered and some also upload a selfie video from their phone or their laptop. Those videos are being placed into a video matrix with 45 fans and those videos are then played out on the big screens at all the venues and made available to rights holders.
It allows fans to virtually be there and the sports presentation teams who control the video scoreboards can utilize both the map and the video, adds Millington.
Athlete Moments
The big addition, however, is the Athlete Moment as it connects athletes with family and friends via video immediately after their competition.
Athletes can celebrate their achievements with friends and family via the OBS Athlete Moment setup. 2021 Olympic Broadcasting Services / Owen Hammon
It's been my favorite part of the project, says Millington. We've set up Athlete Moment viewing stations in selected venues, and we positioned it in a good place right before the mixed zone so it's right in their path.
Millington says there have been some fantastic moments, with the best usually involving a family gathered in a room having a watch party.
It's not the first time that this has been done but definitely the first time at this scale, he says. We have an operations center in Belgium, with a large team who are connecting with families prior to and during the event. And then we link them to the athlete.
Key is making it simple for families at home to use. An athlete signs up to be part of the progam and gets a link that they then share with family and friends.
The family and friends click on that link and are connected to the team in Belgium who tells them what is going to happen and about things like delay, he says.
It also appears to be one of those things born of the pandemic that will stick around.
We think it's here to stay and we haven't been able to cover every venue and every sport but, in the future, that would be our real goal: to cover every sport. But there are some challenges like team sports with 11 or more members. How do you manage that with the time allowed? But we've learned a lot in the last two weeks about how to make the workflow better and what technology works best.
Even the virtual fans could be a keeper.
Clearly the audience within a venue is tiny compared to the worldwide audiences watching on television, says Millington. We'd like to see the technology progress to allow people to not only upload a video, but for us to be able to point to that video so they can get a link some minutes later to the video they are in.
Improvements to the Olympic Video Player
Since the PyeongChang Games in 2018 the OVP has undergone a redesign to not only make it cleaner but to also make the full app available as widgets and modules. Widgets include live sports results, the medals table, the schedule, athlete profiles, and video highlights or interviews. Live video is also available.
We decided to split the OVP into widgets and we've seen huge uptake in those widgets or modules, says Millington. Rights holders can take the live results, the medal count table or schedule as individual widgets. In fact, those three are the most popular as it is an easy way to integrate all the data. For a single rights holder to try and take on the onus of stats is very impractical.
On top of that OBS also offer a simpler version in the I-frame that is slightly less customizable and is in use by more than 80 national Olympic committees and international federations.
VR Offers Production Assist for Rights Holders
VR also continues to be a part of the OBS deliverables, and the sports covered in VR for these games include beach volleyball, basketball, athletics, gymnastics, boxing, and the ceremonies.
We went for sports where we could get pretty close to the action, says Millington. VR doesn't really work very
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
10/06/2026
Production and Development Funding supports the creation of compelling, commercially viable, artistic and culturally relevant South African screen content. Deve...
10/06/2026
Media buyers and sellers can now compare YouTube reach from computer, mobile, an...
10/06/2026
Accedo, Humans not Robots, and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) have announced the launch of Ecoflow X. Formerly an IBC Accelerator project, ...
10/06/2026
Frequency, the engine powering the world's leading streaming television channels, today announced that James Smith has joined the company as General Manager...
10/06/2026
At the 14th World Live Neurovascular Conference (WLNC) in Lisbon, Riedel Communications provided the communications infrastructure for live medical procedures s...
10/06/2026
Globecast, a leading provider of broadcast, media, and entertainment managed services, today announced the launch of its Content Exchange platform powered by Or...
10/06/2026
Klvr will showcase how venues, integrators and production teams are rethinking disposable battery usage at InfoComm 2026 (Las Vegas, June 17-19, booth #N6311). ...
10/06/2026
The Video Services Forum (VSF) has further enhanced the Reliable Internet Streaming Transport (RIST) protocol by incorporating a new feature, RIST Satellite-Hyb...
10/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
10/06/2026
Wuppertal June 10, 2026
Riedel Artist at the Heart of the 14th World Live Neurovascular ConferenceAt the 14th World Live Neurovascular Conference (WLNC) in Li...
10/06/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Showcases New Mobile Experience, Collections and Games Vision in APAC
Product
10 June 2026
GlobalSouth KoreaJapan
Link copied to c...
10/06/2026
Back to All News
Ready to Join? The Netflix Fan Club Arrives at Cannes Lions
Business
10 June 2026
Global
Link copied to clipboard
Download all assets
N...
10/06/2026
Chemists snap together complex 3D molecules from highly reactive radicals-without losing their shape Scripps Research team develops stereoretentive radical-radi...
09/06/2026
Kiswe announces an expanded long-term partnership with ONE Championship (ONE), t...
09/06/2026
SiriusXM will broadcast FOX Sports' English-language commentary for all 104 FIFA World Cup 2026 matches from June 11 through July 19, available to subscribe...
09/06/2026
EVS has announced it is changing its corporate name from EVS Broadcast Equipment to EVS, reflecting the company's expanded portfolio beyond broadcast equipm...
09/06/2026
Fox Corporation and the NFL have announced a multi-year agreement to bring NFL c...
09/06/2026
FOX Sports and ReachTV, an airport media network, have announced an agreement to...
09/06/2026
Cosm Atlanta, a 70,000-square-foot, three-level immersive entertainment venue located within Centennial Yards adjacent to State Farm Arena and Mercedes-Benz Sta...
09/06/2026
NESN captured five awards at the 2026 Boston/New England Emmy Awards, including four program honors and one individual award.
These awards reflect the passion...
09/06/2026
Ateme has announced that its support for Apple Immersive Video workflows was referenced by Apple during its 2026 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC26).
Atem...
09/06/2026
Bitmovin has announced that Axel Springer SE has deployed Player Web X, Bitmovin's web video player, to power audio readouts of news articles and an audio-o...
09/06/2026
Grass Valley and Lawo have announced a technology collaboration to validate orch...
09/06/2026
LiveU has announced a deployment with the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) t...
09/06/2026
Globecast has announced the launch of its Content Exchange platform, powered by ...
09/06/2026
NBC Sports will present live coverage of Overtime's OT7 football league Championship Weekend from Sullivan Field at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angel...
09/06/2026
We're in three different locations, three different production teams. Coveri...
09/06/2026
The intro video for Men's Basketball won Outstanding In-Venue Video in the C...
09/06/2026
Today is match day minus two for FIFA and HBS. On Thursday, there will be two ma...
09/06/2026
Since their debut, the clock-and-score graphic has drawn the affinity and ire of...
09/06/2026
Last month, Spotify hosted PURE FLOWERS LIVE, a special event celebrating the re...
09/06/2026
Last month, RADAR U.K. artist Skye Newman took the stage in East London for a sp...
09/06/2026
Company to cease operating on 30 June 2026
Australian loudspeaker and amplifier manufacturer Wayne Jones Audio have announced that after much consideration,...
09/06/2026
Increases low-end weight and character
The latest plug-in release from Sheffield-based fedDSP aims to offer an all-in-one solution for users in search of mo...
09/06/2026
Introduces AI Studio Assistant, Moises Studio integration & more
Fender Studio have just announced the launch a significant update that brings an array of n...
09/06/2026
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) is a statutory body mandated to spearhead the equitable growth and development of the South African film and video...
09/06/2026
The BBC has found its Hercule Poirot.
After Deadline revealed last month that t...
09/06/2026
Media buyers and sellers can now compare YouTube reach from computer, mobile, an...
09/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
09/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
09/06/2026
A project aimed at modernizing scheduling operations across Mediaset's channel portfolio
Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitab...
09/06/2026
tvONE, an ACT Entertainment brand, debuts its most powerful video processor ever built: the 4RU CALICO PRO (C7-PRO-4200), at InfoComm 2026 (Booth N6813). Engine...
09/06/2026
Composer and Conductor Eric Whitacre to Receive Honorary Doctorate at Berklee Va...
09/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
09/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
Live from Tokyo Olympics: OBS Director of Digital Content Production Matt Millington On Widgets, Athlete Moments, and VR By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
