How to Turn a Live Hockey Broadcast Into a Cartoon

Leagues and broadcasters have an ocean of similar tools available. Betting-focused stream features are growing in popularity as more leagues partner with sports gambling entities; the NBA, for example, offers an optional betting function within its NBA League Pass streaming product.

Showing live stats on the screen is another big trend. NESN, namely, is one of several networks to build in numbers-based overlays as part of a stat-heavy altcast offering for app subscribers. These kinds of alternative broadcasts increasingly feature live inputs from player tracking systems, such as the “Clippervision” broadcast from the NBA’s LA Clippers that overlays data from camera tracking systems present in NBA arenas. These displays range from basic player information and “expected” shooting percentages for each shot to an overlaid diagram of the court that displays each player and the ball as a moving dot. (As a basketball obsessive with a love for stats and data, take it from me: Clippervision is a nerd’s paradise.)

These digitalized features are proving popular with fans.

“We’ve seen increases in every overlay that we’ve launched after we’ve launched it,” says Sara Zuckert, senior vice president of content strategy and innovation for the NBA. “Each one, year over year, has increased in what percentage of fans are using it. One of the things we’ve found that’s interesting is, generally speaking, fans who use these overlays watch longer.”

Ease Live is able to put actual numbers to those trends. Within just months of their initial launch with YES Network in 2021, they tracked a 26 percent increase in time spent per unique streamer per game—a massive jump in this industry. The company claims a 50 percent average increase in viewer duration and a 56 percent overall engagement boost across all their sports overlays.

The types of things viewers will see on Tuesday night’s STEMcast from Boston are especially unique.

For one, as the NHL’s executive vice president of business development and innovation Dave Lehanski tells me, the layer of material added to the onscreen action can’t technically be called a “broadcast overlay.” NESN and the NHL aren’t applying graphics on top of an existing stream; they’re creating an entirely new animated version of events.

Key here is the NHL’s player- and puck-tracking system, NHL Edge. The program uses infrared emissions from the puck and player jerseys to map the game, aided this season by a dozen or more cameras from Hawk-Eye Innovations that provide a computer vision component. By aggregating those two feeds, league partner Beyond Sports creates an entire virtual 3D world using the x-, y-, and z-coordinates of the puck and each player on the ice.

“As these data points become live, they plop it on this arena,” Lehanski says. “We basically build this animated experience that operates in near-real time.”

“For this audience, younger people and families, our goal was to build a cartoon version of a hockey game. And that’s exactly what we’ve done.”

The team has animated not just a hockey rink but an entire snowscape of sorts to mimic the iconic Boston Commons area, complete with Boston landmarks and other locally-inspired Easter eggs throughout. Blades, the Bruins’ mascot, is animated into the program and will be part of various cutaways that highlight STEM themes.