Major League Baseball’s revolutionary Statcast technology has earned a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award for its collection and broadcast of advanced tracking statistics.
The Emmy will be jointly presented to all three members of the Statcast triumvirate: TrackMan, which provides its Doppler radars; ChyronHego, which offers both an optical-tracking system (called TRACAB) and broadcast visualization tools; and MLB Advanced Media, which oversees the final product and, among other roles, applies statistical algorithms and data.
Statcast proliferated baseball language and strategies for its insights into the game. Some have argued that its new hitting metrics like exit velocity and launch angle — which include the speed and direction of the baseball after contact with the bat — have crystallized long-standing teaching philosophies and contributed to the sport’s home run surge. The calculation of pitching stats like spin rate and release point have opened new areas of research and recruitment. Furthermore, a whole new set of defensive metrics such as catch probability, route efficiency and first-step quickness are helping refine a previously nebulous field.
TRACAB consists of two stanchions each with three stereoscopic cameras about 30 to 50 feet apart and typically placed on the third-base side of a ballpark. The TrackMan radar is a large black box elevated behind home plate. Statcast merges this information, and ChyronHego’s Virtual Placement system overlays visualizations for TV coverage, meaning the system has benefited club insiders and fans alike.
Get The Latest Sports Tech News In Your Inbox!
“The Emmy Award, our fourth, is a fantastic honor and a continuation of our company’s long history of influence in the industry,” Johan Apel, president and CEO of ChyronHego, said in a statement. “Not only is it a huge validation of our TRACAB technology, but it’s tremendous recognition of the hard work of our own engineering teams as well as those of our partners TrackMan and MLBAM.
“Emmy Awards are awarded to a very small and select group of organizations whose innovations have been deemed to have a material impact on the television viewing and entertainment experience. Statcast definitely fills this bill, since it powers advanced statistics and visuals that give commentators additional material for storytelling.”