NBC Sports' New Real-Time Player Tracking Lets Viewers Focus on Favorite Athletes

2026-01-15

NBC Sports has unveiled a new AI-driven player tracking system that enables mobile viewers to zoom in and focus on their favorite athletes. This marks the first adoption of the viztrick AiDi technology, originally developed by Japanese broadcaster Nippon TV, by another network. According to Nikkei Asia, NBC Sports plans to implement its features for live event broadcasts starting this year.

The viztrick AiDi system uses facial recognition to identify and track individual player movements, featuring a simplified interface where operators merely click on the athlete they wish to follow on screen. In Japan, Nippon TV has utilized it to overlay player names and statistics, but NBC Sports intends to employ it for delivering customized content in a vertical format on mobile devices.

Fans can watch the original horizontal broadcast of a game or event via the NBC Sports app, or use the viztrick AiDi technology to concentrate on star players. This technology "automatically extracts footage of athletes in real-time and crops it from the horizontal broadcast into a vertical orientation for mobile viewing." It remains unclear which events or broadcasts will feature this option this year, but NBC Sports will be covering the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina.

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comma voice

Comma is a voice input and speech-to-text app for iPhone, iPad, and Android. Hold to speak, slide out to pause without ending the note, and slide back when the thought returns. On-device recognition keeps working offline.