Durham, N.C., July 18, 2017 –SMT (SportsMEDIA Technology), the leading innovator in real-time data delivery and graphics solutions for the sports and entertainment industries, announces its eighth year providing real-time broadcast graphics and production support for NBC Sports’ broadcast of the Tour de France. This is the eighth year SMT has supported cycling’s most grueling race.
SMT’s 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.
This year, SMT has added some new features for the time trial stages, including predicted finish times, the time each rider must finish to take the yellow jersey, and a comparison of two riders to determine who is fastest on specific sections of the course.
SMT continues to provide its ISO Track® System that allows viewers to easily follow the cyclists in the tightly packed peloton. Broadcasters can identify and track key riders with an on-screen pointer graphic that interfaces and displays names, rankings, headshots, real-time speeds and gradients.
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 provides prompters with a leaderboard display that features climb winners, sprint winners, and tracks riders for each group based on the stage profile of that given day in the race.
About SMT
SMT is the leading innovator in real-time data delivery and graphics solutions for the sports and entertainment industries, providing clients with scoring, statistics, virtual insertion and messaging for broadcasts and live events. SMT’s solutions have been used at the world’s most prestigious live sports events, including the Super Bowl, Indy 500, Triple Crown, Roland Garros, Tour de France, The Open Championship, Wimbledon, and the Olympics. SMT’s clients include sports governing bodies; major, regional and specialty broadcast networks; event operators; sponsors; and teams. The 20-time Emmy Award-winning company is headquartered in Durham, N.C., with divisions in Jacksonville, Fla., and London, England.