Major League Baseball announced a new three-year partnership with Japanese technology company NTT on Wednesday that will bring Ultra Reality Viewing to MLB games.
URV technology uses multiple 4K cameras to offer a 180-degree viewing experience, and it relies on NTT’s Kirari platform that stitches together multiple video and audio inputs and transmits the data with nanosecond latency to create an immersive broadcast. The resulting image is said to be of 12K quality and intended for public viewing, such as at stadiums, movie theaters or other large venues.
“Over the past five years, we’ve worked very hard to make our sport, our game, [available] on platforms that are new, that are innovative, that reach a younger audience,” said MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, adding that the team owners and league office take pride in baseball’s “reputation as a leader in sports technology.”
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NTT has piloted the use of panoramic URV for soccer and other sports in Japan; it will demonstrate the platform in North America for the first time with an MLB game. The expectation is that URV will be used for either an American League or National League division series playoff game this October. “[URV] is a new generation of public viewing technology,” said NTT CEO Jun Sawada. “Viewers can enjoy as if they were in the stadiums. This is the type of technology solution we’ll contribute to the extending of the fan experience.”
Each viewpoint of a game relies on stanchions of six 4K cameras to produce the high-resolution image. Kazunari Moriuchi, executive manager of NTT’s global alliances, said there could be five or six camera arrays to capture the necessary angles for a baseball broadcast. He added that innovative audio technology will help place game and crowd noise in a surround-sound environment.
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NTT’s first foray into MLB came via a virtual reality simulator designed to help hitters train. Japan’s Rakuten Golden Eagles were a founding partner in developing the VR tool, and at least one MLB club has become a client.
“That virtual batting [product] was almost the seed of this relationship,” said NTT VP of global marketing strategy, Vito Mabrucco. “That started with major league teams and brought us into conversations with MLB.”
The URV technology is scalable and adaptable to other sports and other genres of entertainment as well. “We send Ariana Grande concert to Japan—these kinds of things,” Moriuchi said with a laugh.
As part of the agreement, NTT also becomes the title sponsor of MLB Network’s Ballpark Cams, the two permanent views into all 30 ballparks. MLB Network host Brian Kenny, who served as emcee for the announcement, called the Ballpark Cams “a direct connection to the game every day.”
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