This application was built as a showcase for the "deconstructed broadcast." This is a term we used internally to describe clean video feeds programmatically overlaid with UI panels on the client side. The data displayed on the panels is fed from an API and synced with the video as close to real time as possible, with an artificial delay introduced for a buffer. This is revolutionary because of the client side rendering of data over clean video, as opposed to a production side "dirty" feed with the graphics baked in from the truck. This unlocks the potential for many user-specific customizations, client-side interactions and yes, also targeted ads. This was also the approach used for the mobile client experience in MVX, our interactive player for Chelsea FC as available in the main Chelsea app.
In this product demo for the brass attending Superbowl LVII, not only do we have a classic "Fox Box" which is the scoreboard you're used to seeing on TV, but from this scoreboard we added extra controls for a streaming environment. These include: a filterable list of plays, an interactive 2D player tracking graphic, picture-in-picture clip players (multiple can be enabled at once), and even AI commentary based on the game situation using a text-to-voice generator sampling celebrity voices and personalities.
Since we had already been working on a project for professional soccer, we were able to use the live video and data setups for it to start testing UI overlays with dynamic data. Once this was established as successful, we moved on to adapting the system for use with gridiron football and the NFL.
At this point we knew that we were targeting the Super Bowl as the prime showcase opportunity to demo this reference application. The main task became defining features to show and which would lead to longer term reusability for this application as a platform. We iterated several times and landed on a scope and general look and feel.
Once we had a feature set and a visual language defined we pushed forward quickly to launch and successfully demoed HUD for Super Bowl LVII. We hit all of our feature goals and even a stretch goal of an AI commentary demo for stakeholders at CBS, the broadcaster of that Super Bowl.