LONDON—ESPN Brazil’s coverage of the “beautiful game” is getting scientific, as the broadcaster recently announced that it has selected RT Software’s tOG-Sports system to help provide on-screen graphics, as well as statistical and positional data for its soccer coverage.
Integrated into ESPN Brazil’s OPTA data feed, the tOG-Sports system powers on-screen presentation graphics before, during and after broadcasts of soccer matches. The live feed from OPTA is captured by RT Software’s tOG media watcher module and then converts the data to send to tOG-Sports, which converts it into a graphic. RT Software has also provided ESPN Brazil an interface that allows the broadcaster to pull up a menu to look at stats of the current or previous games. It also enables graphic packages to be easily uploaded on-air.
New graphics features that ESPN Brazil will institute with the RT Software include the heat map, which went live in October 2015, and touch maps to plot the location of touches on the pitch, pass maps, and routes to a goal. These new capabilities are scheduled to launch later in March.
ESPN Brazil will use the tOG-Sports system for its broadcasts of the Copa do Brasil league and recently announced deals for Spain’s La Liga and the English Premier League.
