SVG Sit-Down: Stats Perform's Brian Orefice on How Player Tracking With AI, Remote-Based Technology Is Possible The company's AutoStats solution is having a big impact this college-hoops season By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Wednesday, March 13, 2024 - 9:20 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Over the past decade, player tracking has become ubiquitous across major sports in the U.S. The hard work and technology behind those systems have ushered in a new era of not just smarter statistics for coaches and players but deep reservoirs of graphical data for live sports broadcasting.
Player (and ball) tracking typically requires a complex infrastructure at stadiums and arenas. However, Stats Perform has been finding success with its newest solution, AutoStats, in enabling remote player tracking with the assistance of AI. It essentially makes it possible to track a game from anywhere without any hardware in the venue.
AutoStats has found success for some NBA teams on the coaching side and is making waves for broadcasters in college basketball. SVG sat down with Brian Orefice, VP, product, U.S. sports, Stats Perform, to get a better understanding of the solution, how it's migrating to broadcast, and what's next for the technology.
How does AutoStats work? What do you provide, and how is it sourced?
The idea of AutoStats is easy to grasp, although the concept belies its complexity behind the scenes. Simply put, it's a broadcast-based tracking solution. Essentially, leveraging our expertise with computer vision and AI, we are able to create outputs that are similar to extremely costly in-venue camera/server systems but [don't come with] the hassle and expense of stadium installations and hardware maintenance.
Our only requirement: standard broadcast video. We run that video through a CV process that automatically tracks all the players and calibrates their position from the screen to the court. From there, we sync it with our play-by-play event data and use positional modeling to automatically determine events like isolations, drives, post-ups, and screens.
When armed with good tracking data, you're limited only by your imagination as to what you want to analyze. Contested vs. uncontested shots? Catch-and-shoot vs. off-the-dribble? Rebounding-crash percentages? And that's to stay nothing of metrics that can be surfaced on defense, where typical quantitative statistics really fall short.
How challenging is it to expand an analytics service initially designed and used for scouting and make it something that the average fan would find engaging and entertaining? What stats or deep analytics have you found to be valuable in parsing?
When we initially pitched ideas to broadcasters and their social teams, the initial feedback was that we were coming in with concepts too advanced for the average fan. For a broadcast in particular, you get only 20-30 seconds to make your point and move on. It's critical that the point is organic to the moment and drives storytelling. We often found ourselves balancing the lure of pushing advanced and differentiated data with the requirement that those insights needed to be digestible.
Perhaps our most successful happy medium was the use of heat maps, which harnessed the power of raw data with sleek visualization. The most obvious difference between standard event data and tracking data is knowing the x/y coordinates of players. We took that information and created various heat maps that are quite insightful, like showing where a player is over the course of a game or season when he or she has the ball. Getting creative with relatively simple concepts leveraging data that has not been collected before - what's the average shot-clock time before a team shoots, what percentage of passes led to a basket, how long does a player hold the ball for before shooting or passing? - solves the broadcast use case.
In your initial trials of expanding the service, what obstacles did the development team need to overcome? How were they overcome?
As with any technical innovation, being able to ultimately operate efficiently, accurately, and at scale is the key to long-term success. The company made a very deliberate pivot to technology-based solutions after being acquired by Vista, but it required a lot of work to get to where we are now.
Basic things like producing flexible but reliable court-calibration models, improving our automated player tracks to more seamlessly handle visual occlusions, and evolving our proprietary tooling so we could better operationalize our pipeline have been critical. You need a lot of data to create good models, and a ton of elbow grease went into that, particularly early on, when we were starting from scratch.
It helps that we've worked closely throughout with the Orlando Magic, who have been with us since the beginning of AutoStats. They've been a great partner, helped us create event definitions, and have put our data through the ringer for half a decade now as an integral part of their scouting process. They've also pushed us to expand our coverage from strictly college games to over 15 different leagues/competitions. Given the various court markings and rules sets, that presented some initial challenges, but we had a strong foundation in place - and learned a lot of lessons as part of the initial build-up - so we had a pretty good idea what we had to do to broaden the offering.
How do you see sports storytelling evolving, and what role does advanced data play?
Data for data's sake is just noise. Storytelling is the true key to engagement. But, if done right, what better way to tell a story - particularly a sports story - than with numbers?
Advanced data offers so much more context and precision than traditional data, and the number of stories and insights
Most recent headlines
16/12/2025
Hawkins has landed on Spotify, just in time for Stranger Things Season 5, Volume...
16/12/2025
Wherever you are, your favorite music and audio content should go seamlessly with you. That's why Spotify has partnered with NAVER Corp, Korea's leading...
16/12/2025
2025 Wrapped arrived bigger and bolder than ever. This year's experience is designed to be ultra personal and shareable, with new features like Wrapped Part...
16/12/2025
Three 12-kilowatt Advanced Electric Propulsion System thrusters, supplied by L3Harris Technologies, form the core of Gateway's propulsion system. Pictured i...
16/12/2025
The challenge facing America's defense industrial base is not just about speed - its about rebuilding the foundation that makes speed possible. Our nations ...
16/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
16/12/2025
SEVILLE, Spain Canal Sur, the public broadcasting service for Andalusia, Spain, has completed a total technology refresh based on Pebble's resilient, softwa...
16/12/2025
NEW YORK Teleprompting hardware provider Telescript International has acquired all software code and intellectual property previously owned by Telescript West. ...
16/12/2025
As cable operators face increased competition from 5G fixed wireless access providers, a new report from Ookla Research finds that T-Mobile is the FWA speed lea...
16/12/2025
Apple has announced a major upgrade to the Apple TV app for device owners outside the Apple ecosystem with news that the Apple TV app for Android now supports G...
16/12/2025
Space42 grows Direct-to-Device partner ecosystem through a Memorandum of Underst...
16/12/2025
16 Dec 2025
VEON Announces Release Date for Full Year and Fourth Quarter 2025 R...
16/12/2025
16 Dec 2025
VEON's Kyivstar Invests in Renewable Energy in Ukraine with Acq...
16/12/2025
Back to All News
Emma Appleton, Fares Fares, Frida Gustavsson and Jakob Oftebro...
16/12/2025
Back to All News
Docu-reality My Korean Boyfriend Gets a Trailer and Premiere D...
16/12/2025
Harmonic's XOS Advanced Media Processor Improves Streaming Video Quality and Boosts Viewer Engagement SAN JOSE, Calif. - Dec. 16, 2025 - Harmonic (NASDAQ: ...
16/12/2025
RT Sport Awards 2025 live on RT One and RT Player at 8:05pm on Saturday 20 December.
On Saturday 20 December live on RT One and RT Player at the earlier t...
16/12/2025
Singer -songwriter Brian Kennedy has been announced as the final celebrity dance...
15/12/2025
Harlem Globetrotters Celebrate 100th Anniversary With New Brand Campaign From Th...
15/12/2025
Top L-R: La Tierra Del Valor (The Home of the Brave), Mangittatuarjuk (The Gnawe...
15/12/2025
L3Harris will leverage 15 years of experience supporting the E-4B Nightwatch and...
15/12/2025
CONWAY, Ark. In a notable example of how the loss of federal funding is forcing public stations to make massive cuts and operational changes, the statewide pub...
15/12/2025
BOULDER, Colo. Public Media Venture Group (PMVG), Venture Technologies Group (VTG), and WQED have completed a multipart agreement that they say will significant...
15/12/2025
Cape Town, November 13, 2025 - SES and International artist and humanitarian, Fo...
15/12/2025
Luxembourg, December 15, 2025 - SES, a leading space solutions company, and Abra Group launched fast and reliable multi-orbit inflight connectivity service on t...
15/12/2025
How Rivian s Design Puts Drivers First-And Why That Matters Published on Dec 15, 2025 Categories: Business Solutions
LinkedIn Corporate Communications
Sha...
15/12/2025
Space42 and Cobham Satcom completed the full range of advanced terminals for the...
15/12/2025
15 Dec 2025
VEON's Beeline Kazakhstan Delivers First Starlink Direct to Cel...
15/12/2025
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor finds himself the topic of year's cracker jokes
Oasis, David Harbour, Celebrity Traitors and Angela Rayner all feature in this y...
15/12/2025
Comscore Expands Cross-Platform Campaign Measurement to Include Audio and Social New capabilities strengthen cross-platform campaign reporting suite; CCR rebran...
15/12/2025
NVIDIA today announced it has acquired SchedMD - the leading developer of Slurm, an open-source workload management system for high-performance computing (HPC) ...
15/12/2025
RT .ie has reached one billion page views this year and is on track to finish 2025 2% ahead of last year. Average time spent on the site is up 3% on 2024, with ...
15/12/2025
Modern workflows showcase the endless possibilities of generative and agentic AI on PCs.
Of many, some examples include tuning a chatbot to handle product-supp...
13/12/2025
Powering Client Growth: Horizon Deepens Nielsen Partnership, Enabling More Effic...
13/12/2025
In a move that will help it offer more flexible and less costly programming options, YouTube TV has announced that it will be launching YouTube TV Plans with mo...
13/12/2025
SINGAPORE Magna Systems has designed, built and completed what is believed to be the first full UHD and IP-based OB truck in Southeast Asia for a Singapore medi...
12/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Everything You Need to Know for Next Week's Big Sho...
12/12/2025
Hailey Gates at the Atropia premiere (photo by George Pimentel / Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)...
12/12/2025
Last month, Spotify announced a new collaboration with the ATP Tour, the global governing body of men's professional tennis, aimed at bringing the next gene...
12/12/2025
CONWAY, Ark. In a notable example of how the elimination of Federal federal funding is forcing public stations to make massive cuts and changes in the way they...
12/12/2025
Wisycom and DPA Microphones announce the appointment of Ren Moerch as Group Product Director, Wireless, a strategic leadership role that will guide the combine...
12/12/2025
SMPTE , the home of media professionals, technologists, and engineers, in conjuncture with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the Entertainment Technolog...
12/12/2025
Keepit, the vendor-independent, cloud-native data protection provider, today announced a strategic go-to-market relationship in Poland with Ingram Micro, a lead...
12/12/2025
Atomos announced the immediate availability of a new firmware update for its Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX monitor-recorders, unlocking Open Gate 48P RAW recording w...
12/12/2025
Professional Wireless Systems (PWS) once again played a critical role in delivering flawless wireless coordination and support at the 2025 Latin Grammy Awards a...
12/12/2025
The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), together with the Video Services Forum (VSF), the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) and the European Broadc...
12/12/2025
DHD audio will demonstrate the latest additions to its range of digital audio production solutions on Booth 321 in Hall B6 at Hamburg Open 2026. The show will b...
12/12/2025
Chaos today announces the release of V-Ray for Blender, update 2, bringing its award-winning rendering technology to even more Blender users by adding support f...
12/12/2025
Lighting specialist UltraLEDs has launched Precision LED Tape, a high-CRI lighting solution designed specifically for professional film, TV, and studio use.
P...
SVG Sit-Down: Stats Perform's Brian Orefice on How Player Tracking With AI, Remote-Based Technology Is Possible The company's AutoStats solution is having a big impact this college-hoops season By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
