Hawk-Eye tech, new official coach’s headset, Sony’s Beyond Sports tech are components
The National Football League has named Sony Corp. an official technology partner and the new official headset provider for the league. The partnership covers an expansion of Sony’s Hawk-Eye Innovations sports technology to support league officiating and development of on-field and sideline technologies.
One major element of the deal is a new coach’s sideline-headset design, supporting coach-to-coach communication on the field and debuting for the 2025-26 season. The NFL and Sony will work jointly to develop the headset, which will be powered by Verizon Business’s Managed Private Wireless Solution running on Verizon’s 5G network.
Other partnership elements include greater involvement of Sony’s Beyond Sports AI-based data-analysis and visualization technology using digital animation for real-time fan engagement.
Opportunity for Fan Engagement
“It’s a broad collaboration,” says Maya Wasserman, director, marketing. personal entertainment, home entertainment, and brand marketing, Sony. “We have been working collaboratively with the NFL already. [Besides] expansion of the Sony Hawk-Eye innovation, this partnership includes the Sony imaging ecosystem, including [Sony broadcast cameras] and video, to bring fans closer to the game-day action. It also includes Sony’s Beyond Sports for real-time visualization, which is a new opportunity to engage a new generation of NFL fans, a new coach’s sideline headset, and then future collaborations and developments.”
NFL Tracie Rodburg: “You will see [the partnership] come to life not only through Hawk-Eye [and] our alt broadcast with Toy Story but also through those headsets on-field and the premium product that Sony will be creating for us.”
NFL SVP, Global Partnership, Tracie Rodburg notes that the league has already been using Sony broadcast technology for game production, as have its network-broadcast partners CBS Sports, ESPN, FOX Sports, and NBC Sports.
“But this really came about [because] there are so many different areas of our game that we want to continue to grow and innovate,” she explains, noting that the broadcast partners were consulted during development of the new partnership. “Since we had already been working with Sony in some of this capacity, it just made sense for us to make a commitment to continue this innovation and to make it encompass even more of our ecosystem, including our coaches, the players, the fans, and all of our clubs.
“That’s what really expands this partnership,” she continues. “You will see it come to life not only through Hawk-Eye [and] our alt broadcast with Toy Story but also through those headsets on-field and the premium product that Sony will be creating for us for the 2025 season. Everybody will understand that Sony is our technology partner and really advancing our game.”
Hawk-Eye for Officiating and More
Sony’s Hawk-Eye tracking services will be deployed to further enhance the accuracy of game-critical items, along with development of new on-field sideline technologies. Hawk-Eye’s technology has supported the NFL Officiating Department in reviewing and making critical rulings on plays. For coming seasons, Hawk-Eye and NFL will develop a next-generation officiating technology based on Hawk-Eye’s state-of-art line-to-gain optical tracking technology.
NFL’s Aaron Amendolia: “We are continuing testing of our virtual measurement system: six cameras used to measure the ball for a moment, like the line-to-gain.”
According to NFL Deputy CIO Aaron Amendolia, enhancements planned for the league’s deployment of Hawk-Eye include the number of cameras in NFL stadiums. The first tests took place at the Las Vegas Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium last season. The enhanced camera deployments will be rolled out in four stadiums for preseason play next month and are expected to be brought into full use for the 2025-26 season.
This year, 12 cameras will be dedicated to boundary lines to improve replay officiating. “Those will be NFL-dedicated cameras to look at the boundary lines when they come into scope for a specific play review,” he explains, adding, “We are continuing testing of our virtual measurement system: six cameras used to measure the ball for a moment, like the line-to-gain.”
Additionally, pairing the technology and the Hawk-Eye–captured data with player-tracking data from the NFL’s Next Gen Stats powered by AWS and Sony’s Beyond Sports visualization technology will create new avenues for real-time content creation, such as ESPN, Disney and the NFL’s Emmy Award–winning “Toy Story Funday Football” alternative game presentation during the 2023 season. That effort brought a younger, more global audience to the game and has been the biggest live event on Disney+ streaming to date.
An Ecosystem and Opportunities for Development
Sony products and technologies are already used extensively in many NFL stadiums across the country. Additionally, the new NFL Network studios in Inglewood, CA, have recently shifted many key operations and cameras to Sony technology.
Enhanced camera deployments are part of the partnership between Sony and the NFL.
Sony and the league expect the components of the deal to act synergistically. Matthew Parnell, senior director/head of brand and community marketing, and imaging solutions, Sony, calls it “an ecosystem opportunity with continued development.”
“We’re going to continue testing the Skelet track system,” he says. “This may unlock the opportunity for an official to have something like a wearable on their wrist and that wearable would receive data from this virtual measurement system and from these other camera systems.”
In fact, he adds, “the broadcasters are excited about this because it unlocks further opportunities to innovate with things that the data stream powers, like AR, VR, new experiences. Further innovation will come from this, and different broadcasters are already contacting us about different ideas and concepts they have.”
A Headset ‘Very Specific’ to NFL Needs
The NFL’s headsets have become iconic over the decades and, for eight years until 2022, were billboards for Bose, whose SoundComm B30 headset succeeded the 13-year reign of Motorola’s model RLN5238B. Parnell emphasizes that the entry into this universe by Sony, whose brand is already ubiquitous in music and film monitoring, is being designed completely from scratch.
“It’s not a modified off-the-shelf component,” he says. “This is a completely bespoke new model. Our detailed conversations with the Sony engineers are going down to feel texture, colors, touch but then also looking at a variety of microphones: for example, how they’re weather-sealed and what type of power components are used.
“Every element is being considered, and every element has multiple paths weighed,” Parnell continues. “These headsets need to work in the most extreme of environments: noise canceling, extreme cold rain, humidity, all of these things. This is why, from the beginning, our engineering team [and] NFL football operations are trying to build the best headset that they’ve ever had and make sure that the impact on the game on the field is very positive. We are known and recognized for our sound quality and our noise canceling already, so we’re excited to integrate all of our knowledge and technology in audio for a headset that’s very specific to the needs of the NFL.”
These new and enhanced elements will be rolled out over the next two NFL seasons. Both Sony and the NFL forecast an extended and positive affiliation.
“Building on a long-established relationship,” says NFL CIO Gary Brantley, “the NFL looks forward to embracing prominent industry leader Sony as an official technology partner. Advancing technology on and off the field is a top priority for the NFL, and this partnership will fortify Sony’s role in the NFL’s ever-growing technology ecosystem, elevating various dimensions of our sport and bringing fans closer to game-day action.”
Adds Sony Electronics North America President/COO Neal Manowitz, “We are committed to creating the future of sports with technology and constantly driving innovation to positively impact the world of athletics for players, coaches and fans alike.”
