NBC Sports Teams Up With AE Live

Thanksgiving football on NBC Sports is a staple of the holiday season for NFL fans, and AE Live was delighted to play a part in helping NBC Sports entertain its millions of viewers with some technically ambitious, yet fun, AR content during its coverage of the final Thanksgiving night game in Seattle, as the Seahawks hosted the San Francisco 49ers.

Working closely with NBC's Sunday Night Football production team, AE Live's creative agency, Ignite, designed a traditional Thanksgiving table spread, with team-themed objects that could be used to present key information at different points during the show.

Once the creative direction was agreed, the AE virtual team built the table model in Unreal Engine and, using StypeLand, were able to virtually 'place' the table on the playing field in the stadium. The AE operational team, onsite at Lumen Field, generated live tracking data from SkyCam, using Pixotope’s Fly solution, and worked with the NBC Sports and SkyCam teams to choreograph camera moves that introduced different aspects of the table spread. This included the reveal of the game score from a silver cloche!

AE Live's Chief Commercial Officer, Stuart Coles, said: "We are genuinely thrilled to be working with the NBC Sports’ team and to be contributing to a property as iconic as Sunday Night Football.
"When we first pitched the idea of reintroducing AR to Coordinating Producer, Rob Hyland, he was clear that he wanted original and impactful ideas.
"The vision of Rob and his team has been crucial, and really pushed our creative and technical teams to reimagine what is possible. It’s been a great start, but we feel like we've just scratched the surface and there is plenty more to come, which is so exciting."

Creative brainstorming has already begun on a series of ideas to use AR to help elevate SNF’s coverage of the NFL playoffs in the New Year.

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