NBC Sports, Peacock Scale Vertical-Video Production Across Sports - and Beyond - Ahead of FIFA World Cup 2026

NBC's 9:16 live-production workflows power Courtside Live, Rinkside Live, Visi n de Campo, and other features on mobile

The move to vertical video is among the hottest topics in the media industry these days, but live sports coverage presents a challenge when it comes to producing a quality 9:16 product. NBC Sports Group and Peacock have blazed the 9:16-production trail throughout the first half of 2026 with streaming options like Rinkside Live for the Milano Cortina Olympics, Courtside Live for NBA, and, coming soon for Telemundo's coverage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Visi n de Campo (aka Pitchside Live).

Vertical video is foundational to Peacock's mobile strategy, says John Jelley, SVP, product and user experience, NBCUniversal Media Group. Delivering experiences like Courtside Live and Rinkside Live required tight collaboration across product, engineering, and production, and it has set a new bar for what live sports can look like on mobile.

This same vertical-video philosophy sits behind Peacock's coverage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, he says, including Visi n del Campo and real-time vertical highlights. With Visi n del Campo, fans will have a vertically optimized view of the main game as part of a 9:16 multi angle mobile viewing experience for selected matches.

Although the specific production workflows vary from sport to sport, all NBC Sports/Peacock vertical-video live offerings rely heavily on FOR-A/Nippon TV's viztrick AiDi AI-based technology for automatic 9:16 cropping with auto-tracking.

An on-device AI solution developed by Nippon TV and sold globally by FOR-A, AiDi delivers real-time player tracking, face tagging, object recognition, 2.5D telestration, auto-score graphics, and motion-data analytics - without internet connectivity - and enables incremental streaming business for mobile phones.

The 9:16 Challenge: Faster Turnaround, Fewer Resources

Much like the rest of the industry, NBC Sports and Peacock had been on the lookout for a viable automated 9:16 cropping solution for several years. Previously, an NBC Sports or Olympics 9:16 highlights-focused project relied on manual keyframing in Avid Media Composer to reposition the crop window - an extremely labor-intensive approach that wasn't viable for live productions like an NBA game.

However, as NBCUniversal scaled its vertical highlights for Olympics, NBA, and more, NBC Sports SVP, Engineering, Tim Canary and his team were on the lookout for solutions that enabled faster turnaround with fewer production resources.

Peacock integrated the 9:16 switched game feed into Courtside Live, a viewing experience that provides fans a variety of angles on NBA games.In August 2025, Canary and company were introduced to the AiDi system during a FOR-A product-review session. They quickly began defining Olympic use cases through whiteboard sessions and tested an early prototype shortly after IBC in September. In October, FOR-A shipped a more fully featured production system, which NBC put through extensive testing while providing feedback.

Key areas of focus included reliably following action across camera cuts, refining the model to avoid artifacts during certain motion scenarios, and implementing a more fluid head style of movement to smooth framing transitions.

A significant amount of development was driven by the Nippon TV engineering team in close coordination with FOR-A teams in both the U.S. and Tokyo. As with any beta deployment, Canary notes, learning was a primary goal, and we've been providing detailed feedback to the FOR-A/Nippon TV team to continue refining the AI model and operational workflows. They've been a strong collaborative partner throughout the process and worked closely with us at every step of this first deployment.

From NBA to Olympics: Customizing the 9:16 Workflow

For the Courtside Live mobile experience, a clean feed of the switched game is processed and cropped to 9:16 using FOR-A/Nippon TV's AiDi AI-based technology, which provides automated tracking of the basketball within the live cut. The NBC Sports production team adds the score graphic to that output and passes it to the Peacock team for encoding and distribution.

When the Peacock product team came to us with the Courtside Live concept, Canary says, it required us to build an entirely new workflow for vertical video at scale while also incorporating additional angles and cameras to support experiences that could be delivered only through NBCUniversal's combined production and technology capabilities.

This 9:16 switched game feed was integrated into Courtside Live, which launched on the Peacock mobile app for the 2026 NBA All-Star Game and delivers a differentiated viewing experience that shows fans a variety of angles on the game, including a courtside seat at the scorer's table.

Peacock saw strong engagement signals for Courtside Live during this initial test. It gives us early signals that multiview in new formats like Courtside Live resonates with fans, says Jelley. We'll continue exploring how to extend and scale these experiences alongside the NBC Sports production team. A key focus remains maintaining low latency, with mobile-optimized graphics, while delivering unique fan-first experiences that make Peacock a leader in livestreaming.

For Rinkside Live at the 2026 Winter Games, NBC Olympics had to support two very different Olympic sports - hockey and figure skating - each with distinct storytelling needs.

Notes Jelley, That meant close collaboration with NBC Sports production to identify the right angles: player benches in hockey and coaches along with pre- and post-performance spaces in figure skating. Making all this work from across the world depended on our engineering teams, production partners, and the right vendor tools, including AiDi, all working together

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2026/05/07/nbc-sports-peacock-scale-vertic...
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