Former ESPN executive and 15-time Emmy Award winner Jed Drake has joined SMT (SportsMEDIA Technology) as the company's Executive Vice President of Emerging Technologies. SMT provides live data integration, real-time graphics presentation, and video enhancement solutions for live sports telecasts and live entertainment productions. Drake, who spent more than three decades at ESPN and oversaw several of the network's most innovative sports-production and technology efforts, will oversee the development and implementation of SMT's next-generation sports information, graphics presentation, and player tracking systems.
Drake will work closely with the leaders of SMT's Research and Development, Engineering, and Client Development departments as well as directors of live events and creative teams to build and market SMT's emerging technology platforms. Particular focus will be on SMT's data integration products and graphics visualization tools for NFL's Next Gen Stats. Drake will report directly to SMT founder and CEO Gerard J. Hall and will be one of seven members of SMT's corporate division.
Drake joined ESPN in 1980, just after the cable network's first year of operation. Jed quickly built a reputation for over-delivering on virtually every project and property assigned to him, whether tennis, soccer, or baseball. He rose through the sports production ranks from producer, to coordinating producer, to senior coordinating producer to VP of all remote production at ESPN. In the ensuing years, Drake, as Senior Vice President and Executive Producer, was instrumental in helping to build and solidify ESPN's position as a production leader, driving a variety of innovations for coverage of the 2010 and 2014 FIFA World Cups, Monday Night Football, Wimbledon, The Open Championship, the X Games, MLB and the NBA. Drake is perhaps best known for championing the first on-air production use of a Yellow First Down Line system for football and the ESPN K-Zone system for baseball, both Emmy award winners.
Most recently Drake oversaw development of next generation technology systems as ESPN's Senior Vice President, Product Innovation. This included ESPN Virtual 3, the live virtual three-point line used in NBA and college basketball broadcasts; the Emmy-nominated ESPN Pylon Cam, which debuted August 2015 on Monday Night Football; and live player tracker systems used throughout 2014 season ofMonday Night Football, the 2014 MLS Cup and the 2015 College Football Player National Championship.
Jed Drake has demonstrated time and again, over many years, that he understands how to harness and apply technology to enhance analysis, story-telling, and the viewer experience, said SMT founder and CEO Gerard J. Hall. Jed's background and work history perfectly aligns with SMT's corporate Mission Statement. It will be exciting to watch Jed hit the ground running here at SMT. His innovative thinking, tireless work ethic and uncompromising approach to producing high-quality results will push SMT to create and package the next generation of unique tools and visual presentations for the benefit of our clients.
Gerard and I have shared a great deal of success over the last 20 plus years. This opportunity to expand our relationship to a full-time collaboration comes at a perfect time in my career, Jed Drake, SMT's Executive VP of Emerging Technologies said. SMT has an incredibly talented team of creative thinkers and brilliant engineers, many of whom I've known for some time. SMT is a very special place with an unparalleled track record and reputation for excellence. Our industry is moving very fast, and SMT is going to be the leading disruptor by a large margin. It's an incredibly exciting time, and I am thrilled to be coming on board.
Drake graduated from Boston University in 1978 with a bachelor of science in broadcasting/film. He lives in Rhode Island with his wife, Suzy Leech, and daughter, Nicole, and has two grown children, Jed Ryan Drake and Darby Drake.
Hall and Drake have a 25-year working relationship dating back to 1991 when SMT first began providing services to ESPN.
According to Hall, An accurate history of ESPN would not be complete without at least one chapter dedicated to the positive influence of Jed Drake on the network's growth and success. His fingerprints are all over the early innovations and successes upon which ESPN built its reputation and distinguished itself from its peers. Jed's vision and efforts were essential elements of ESPN's success. Clearly, a person with Jed's deep and valuable experience can write his own ticket in our industry. SMT is honored that of all the opportunities that were presented to him, Jed has chosen to join our team.
SMT built its reputation in the United States broadcast and live event production industries as a pioneer, innovator, and best in class provider of live sports data integration and real-time graphics enhancements. Most recently, SMT is at the forefront of the real-time application of object tracking technology in live sports. In addition, SMT designed, developed and supports the official scoring systems, the official statistics systems, and the official on-site live presentation systems for the NBA, the NHL, The PGA TOUR, NASCAR, the CrossFit Games, all four golf majors and all four tennis slams including The US Open, Wimbledon, Roland Garros, and the Australian Open. SMT has been awarded 20 Emmy Awards, as well as two Telly Awards, a Davey Award and a PromaxBDA award.
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...
Former ESPN executive and 15-time Emmy Award winner Jed Drake has joined SMT (SportsMEDIA Technology) as the company's Executive Vice President of Emerging Technologies. SMT provides live data integration, real-time graphics presentation, and video enhancement solutions for live sports telecasts and live entertainment productions. Drake, who spent more than three decades at ESPN and oversaw several of the network's most innovative sports-production and technology efforts, will oversee the development and implementation of SMT's next-generation sports information, graphics presentation, and player tracking systems.
