# Sportvision

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Not to be confused with [Sportsvision](/source/Sportsvision) or [Sports Vision](/source/Sports_Vision).

**Sportvision** was a private company, launched in January 1998, that provided various [television](/source/Television) viewing enhancements to a number of different professional sporting events. They worked with [NFL](/source/National_Football_League), [NBA](/source/National_Basketball_Association), [NASCAR](/source/NASCAR), [NHL](/source/National_Hockey_League), [MLB](/source/Major_League_Baseball), [PGA](/source/PGA_Tour) and [college football](/source/College_football) broadcasts.[1] Sportvision was co-founded by CEO Bill Squadron, CTO Stan Honey and COO Jerry Gepner, who had all worked together at Fox Sports and its parent company, News Corporation.

The Emmy-award winning technology company introduced numerous groundbreaking innovations for sports broadcast, including the 1st & Ten yellow line for football and the K Zone pitch-tracking system for baseball, both done with ESPN. Sportvision's inventions paved the way for increased use of technology across sports and sports media.

By way of background, in 1996, Rick Cavallaro, working for [Stan Honey](/source/Stan_Honey) at Etak (then owned by Fox/News America) developed a way to track [hockey pucks](/source/Hockey_puck) with a blue halo as seen by television viewers. It was assumed at that time that viewers had a hard time keeping track of the puck. Released as the [FoxTrax](/source/FoxTrax) puck, it was not a success but led to the 1998 formation of the Sportvision company and later that year the development of the [1st & Ten](/source/1st_%26_Ten_(graphics_system)) computer system, which generates and displays the yellow [first down](/source/Down_(American_football)) line that a TV viewer sees during a live football broadcast. The system became a major hit with television viewers when used during a broadcast of the [Super Bowl](/source/Super_Bowl). It has since become part of all standard [American professional](/source/American_football) and [college football](/source/College_football) and [Canadian pro football](/source/Canadian_football) broadcasts.

Another popular Sportvision product is seen in broadcasts of [NASCAR](/source/NASCAR) races. It is called [RACEf/x](/source/RACEf/x), and creates virtual flags above the cars to make them easier to follow by the viewers.

Sportvision also created the [PITCHf/x](/source/PITCHf/x) system used by [Major League Baseball](/source/Major_League_Baseball) to provide pitch data to users of [MLB.com](/source/MLB.com) [GameDay](/source/GameDay_(software)) and viewers of [Fox](/source/Major_League_Baseball_on_Fox), Fox Sports Net, Rogers Sports Net and TBS, until its replacement by [Statcast](/source/Statcast) in 2017.[2]

The latest attempt for hockey was tested for deployment during the [2015 NHL All-Star weekend](/source/60th_National_Hockey_League_All-Star_Game). The new system used [computer chips](/source/Computer_chip) to standardize and increase the volume of data tracked during the course of a game.[3]

In a deal finalized on October 4, 2016, Sportvision was acquired by [SMT](/source/SMT_(media_corporation)).[4]

## See also

- [SMT (media corporation)](/source/SMT_(media_corporation))
- [PVI Virtual Media Services](/source/PVI_Virtual_Media_Services)

## References

1. ["Company Profile"](http://www.sportvision.com/about.html). *Sportvision*

1. Braff, Carolyn (8 October 2010). ["TBS, Sportvision Offer HD Viewers New Angles With PITCHf/x"](http://sportsvideo.org/main/blog/2010/10/08/tbs-sportvision-offer-hd-viewers-new-angles-with-pitchfx/). *Sports Video Group*. Retrieved 31 March 2011.

1. ["NHL to unveil player-tracking for All-Star Game"](http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/nhl-to-unveil-player-tracking-for-all-star-game/). *Sportsnet.ca*. 5 January 2015. Retrieved 7 January 2015.

1. ["Industry Powerhouse SMT Acquires Sportvision"](http://www.sportvision.com/SMT). *Sportvision*. 5 October 2016. Retrieved 4 December 2017.

## External links

- [http://www.sportvision.com/](http://www.sportvision.com/)

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Sportvision](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportvision) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportvision?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.