Fletcher Redefines Sports Broadcasting with AI at US Open and Wimbledon

Innovating how live sports are filmed and experienced by fans

Fletcher provides high-end specialty camera and capture solutions that facilitate top-tier live broadcasts around the world. Over the past 25 years, Fletcher has captured iconic moments from sports leagues including the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and developed technologies that allow viewers to witness live events from exciting new angles and perspectives.

With a long history of adopting new technology to enrich the viewing experience, Fletcher recognized an opportunity for AI to enhance their camera system’s ability to track quickly moving players, recognize where the most exciting action was happening on the field, or help the team speed up the delivery of highlights and instant replays.

Capturing sports from new angles with AI-powered cameras

To realize that goal, Fletcher built an AI-powered camera system capable of automatically recognizing and tracking action across simultaneous live feeds. During the most recent Wimbledon and US Open tennis tournaments, the system was employed across a fleet of cameras to automatically track players on the court.

This automated camera tracking technique offers solutions for operational challenges of large-scale live events. It’s now possible to get coverage of games that were previously deemed physically or economically infeasible using traditional broadcast methods.

For example, during the Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the AI camera system enabled all-court coverage for the first time in the tournaments’ history. And at the US Open, Fletcher’s technology, with the help of AI solutions made in Roboflow, controlled 56 cameras across 14 tennis courts as part of a system that replaced a fleet of production trucks with a single operations center.

Modern AI systems run at high speeds and without internet connectivity

At the high-profile events covered by Fletcher Sports, the action happens in fractions of a second and is viewed by tens of millions of people. The team needed an AI system capable of keeping up with fast-paced action while running local devices without internet connectivity.

To achieve this, the team at Fletcher Sports turned to Roboflow, a platform for developing and deploying enterprise AI solutions. Built with modern development tools, the AI-tracking camera system runs with edge workstations, which are easily deployed at sports venues, and can analyze multiple live streams simultaneously, processing more than 20 frames per second from each stream.

Leading the way in AI specialty capture solutions

Since rolling out the new system, the team at Fletcher has observed several benefits:

• AI-powered camera automation reduced complexity for crews covering top-tier sports events
• Ability to run the AI solution on high-speed edge devices without internet connection
• Comprehensive AI training toolset streamlined development and ensured high accuracy for critical live event

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