By Juliane Pettorossi, Editorial Assistant, SVG
Earlier this year, SVG launched the Sports Asset Management (SAM) Committee, dedicated to advancing the sports-media industry's content-management and -storage capabilities and tools. This group, comprising asset-management leaders from each of the major U.S. professional leagues and college-sports entities, spearheaded last month's Sports Asset Management Forum and will contribute in-depth content to the upcoming online SVG Sports Asset Management Playbook (to be unveiled later this year). SVG is profiling the careers of all eight SAM Committee members.
It was just a regular Sunday morning 17 years ago when Keith Horstman came across an advertisement in the New York Times that changed his career: an opening at the National Basketball Association caught his eye. With a why not attitude and a solid r sum , he applied, was offered the job, and has been working for the NBA ever since, currently as VP of digital media management systems.
Growing up in Staten Island, NY, Horstman dreamed of one day becoming a professional athlete, specifically in the NHL. In high school, he discovered an interest in technology, mainly thanks to a teacher who introduced him to programming and worked with him on developing systems.
While attending The College of Staten Island, he traded his newspaper-delivery job for one in the college's Academic Administration Department, mainly working in IT and developing applications. He went on to earn his M.S. in computer science there and also worked for at the international nickel company INCO as a programmer analyst.
In 1993, with INCO closing its New York office, Horstman went to work for Bankers Trust as assistant treasurer and, after less than a year, followed his manager to Chase Manhattan. By 1996, he had found his way to the NBA, where he is now responsible for all the technology that runs the organization's entertainment division.
Some of my friends from high school - we all played hockey together - were like, What are you doing? Why are you going to work for the NBA,' he says. It was a little bit of a joke for a while, but it's been a lot of fun and a great company to work for.
Although Horstman never picked up a basketball after elementary school, he was drawn to the job at NBA by the idea of integrating technology and the love for sports. When he first came into the job, his role was to help with the design of the Statistics system, which he found very intriguing.
The Stats system was really the carrot in front of me at that moment in time, he says.
Once his team started building the Stats system, the thought was immediately, Ok, how to we integrate video into this thing? We had all this videotape in our archive that was underutilized, he says. That was the introduction to video and how it originated.
However, the video aspect didn't develop substantially until Horstman started doing design for NBA TV in Secaucus, NJ, and the company began to reap a benefit from the way the statistics were being designed and the immediacy in which live clips were able to air.
Because we designed Stats the way we did, the data was already back here, says Horstman. All we had to do was align it, and everybody had a full definition of our content immediately.
He believes that video content is going to continue to thrive and the integration and storage of new video formats is going to be a huge challenge for the industry. The files are going to get bigger and longer, and you're going to need faster processors to create them.
Along with the challenge of successfully integrating video into the content, Horstman and his team at NBA constantly deal with changes in every area. Since it is a cutting-edge environment, it is crucial to keep up with everything that's evolving daily.
Everything from distribution to changing data formats, our Stats feed alone has changed drastically over the years, let alone video formats and other technologies, he points out. It's all been very difficult, but it's also the most fun part.
When Horstman started his job with NBA, he wasn't the biggest fan of basketball. When he happened to catch a game on TV, he wouldn't focus on the guys scoring points on the floor. Instead, he zoomed in on the referee, stats system, and graphics - everything else going on. I probably couldn't even tell you the score of the game, he says.
Even so, he still watched some of the game and was ultimately sucked in to becoming a fan. Now I am a fan of the game itself and especially how these athletes are able to do the things that they do.
From a career standpoint, Horstman respects NBA Senior Executive VP Steve Hellmuth for his understanding of technology and how it is used in their environment.
From an overall life perspective, Horstman's main mentor has been his father, Kenneth. My dad taught my three siblings and me the value of hard work and commitment, he says, And my best advice to give is that hard work always pays off.
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...
By Juliane Pettorossi, Editorial Assistant, SVG
