NBC Sports is turning to AI to give mobile viewers more control over how they watch live sports. The broadcaster has introduced a new player tracking system that’s designed to allow fans to zoom in on the action and follow their favorite athletes during live events, offering a more personalized viewing experience.
According to Nikkei Asia (via The Verge), the system is powered by viztrick AiDi, a technology developed by Japan’s Nippon Television Network that uses facial recognition to track players. While the tool has already been used in Japan, this marks the first time it will be deployed by another broadcaster. NBC Sports reportedly plans to begin rolling it out across select live event coverage later this year.
The viztrick AiDi system can identify and track individual players in real time, allowing viewers to tap on an athlete on screen and follow their movements throughout the broadcast. Nippon TV previously used the technology to add overlays showing player names and stats, but NBC Sports is taking a different approach.
Turning horizontal broadcasts into vertical feeds
Instead of adding overlays to the main broadcast, NBC Sports plans to create new mobile-first viewing options by extracting footage of a selected athlete from a standard horizontal broadcast and reframing it into a vertical format optimized for smartphones. In effect, this would give viewers the choice of watching the full game as usual in the NBC Sports app or switching to an AI-generated portrait view focused on a specific athlete.
Tim Canary, SVP of Engineering at NBC Sports, explained how the technology makes this possible: “We were looking for the right tool for streaming live sports that would automatically crop athletes to a 9:16 aspect ratio with auto tracking. AiDi is that tool… AiDi was designed and developed by broadcasters, so it solves the specific challenges we face every day. It easily switches between AI mode and manual mode. This is particularly useful when the scene switches from a tight to a wide shot. If AI can’t grab the right athlete instantly during a camera switch, you can easily re-track them manually with AiDi. You never lose the athlete you’re tracking, which is a very important detail for our live coverage.”
NBC Sports has yet to confirm which sports or events will support the feature when it rolls out later this year. However, the broadcaster is set to cover the 2026 Winter Olympics, which could serve as a high-profile showcase for the new technology.
