Over the last two weeks, NBC Sports Group’s SportsEngine has formed partnerships with Blast Motion, a provider of wearable motion sensors for baseball, softball, and golf, and with Pixellot, which handles video production and distribution. Those deals should help enhance SportsEngine’s suite of services offered to youth sports programs nationwide.
Blast Motion‘s movement capture technology includes an array of training, analysis, and coaching tools, and can be seamlessly integrated with existing programs implemented by SportsEngine users. Blast Motion’s golf technology is already the official technology partner of the NBC-owned Golf Academy. Users of the bat and golf club sensors are able to visualize the motion analysis on automated video clips that will be viewable within SportsEngine-powered apps used by many youth teams.
Pixellot will be available for Sports Engine users to integrate into their websites and digital properties. The app employs a robotic camera system that captures a panoramic view of a game and can detect highlights and insert ads automatically, giving fans a way to watch their team on the web, and providing teams a way to add another revenue stream.
“We are thrilled to welcome Pixellot as a SportsEngine Marketplace partner,” said Justin Kaufenberg, SportsEngine’s CEO, in a statement. “With the amateur sports production market growing rapidly, we are excited to be able to offer an affordable and easy-to-use automatic sports production solution that will allow organizations to effortlessly webcast their events directly to their SportsEngine website.”
SportTechie Takeaway
With these recent partnerships, SportsEngine users will be able to take advantage of an increasing suite of products that work within the company’s existing performance tools and digital properties. While neither motion sensor technology or automated video production are new to the sports tech scene, they both offer teams more enhanced capabilities on the player and fan side.
Pixellot could rival Reely, another video production outfit that uses AI to generate and distribute highlights. Reely is in use by the St. Louis Blues and Kansas Jayhawks, but Pixellot will gain exposure quickly thanks to SportsEngine’s vast network of amateur sports teams.