SMT (SportsMEDIA Technology) has announced the debut of
real-time speed and gradient graphics for NBC Sports’ broadcast of the 103rd
Tour de France. SMT is in its seventh year providing real- time broadcast
graphics and production support for the Tour de France.
This year marks the first time SMT has provided on-screen
graphics depicting real-time speeds for both individual riders and the peloton
for all 21 stages of the race. The graphics display the ever-changing road
gradients and the speeds of multiple riders at one time or a single rider.
SMT continues to provide its ISO Track System that allows
broadcasters to identify and track key riders with an on- screen pointer
graphic that interfaces and displays names, rankings and headshots, allowing
viewers to easily follow the cyclists in the tightly packed peloton. For this
year’s race, ISO Track now features real-time speeds and gradients alongside
riders’ information.
SMT’s live race crawl provides a wide range of information
and statistics, including live data tracking and the position of the leaders,
peloton and other groups during each stage. Competitors’ bios and quotes also
scroll across the ticker, as well as social media that is interfaced via SMT’s
social media publisher. The crawl also showcases stage winners, the standings
of top American cyclists and other notable riders, and jersey standings.
Other broadcast features from SMT include full-screen
data-rich graphics with race stage profiles showing the layout of the current
stage and rider progression; lower-thirds with riders’ names, headshots, team
logos and other race statistics; leaderboard graphics; a production
telestrator; and onscreen clocks and time trial graphics.
For the NBC talent commentating the 23-day event, SMT
created a secondary prompter to complement the primary prompter that displays
the leaderboard. This new prompter displays climb winners, sprint winners, and
tracks riders for each group based on the stage profile of that given day in
the race.
“The Tour de France is a unique event for SMT from a
production standpoint as well as logistically. Production-wise, our team is
responsible for interfacing to three different data providers, then seamlessly
incorporating that data into NBC’s production to give viewers and commentators
the insight they need to follow cycling’s most grueling race,” says Lee
Brinson, Director of Special Events for SMT. ”Along with relatively
straight-forward information such as race results, we are now interfacing
complex feeds of real-time speed and gradient, something fans have been hungry for years. Combine this with the fact that our on-site operators move with
the compound every day to a different finishing city, and it’s a challenging
and fast-paced event that puts a premium on efficiency and time management.”