Men’s series begins this week, with women’s to follow from 22 June
Sky Sports has revealed the broadcast innovations that it will be using during the men’s and women’s Ashes this summer.
The men’s series begins 16 June, while the women’s starts on 22 June. The on-screen lineups were unveiled back in March, with almost all presenters only doing one series each - except from Mel Jones and Mark Butcher, who will work across both. Every match of the men’s and women’s Ashes will be shown live and exclusively on Sky Sports and NOW.
Broadcast Sport spoke to Sky Sports head of cricket and NFL Bryan Henderson about the broadcaster’s plans for both series, as well as The Hundred, earlier this week. Henderson spoke about how Sky Sports will be aiming to be Albert-certified carbon neutral for both men’s and women’s series, as well focusing on promoting women in its broadcast tech teams.
As for the technology that will be used in addition to the standard broadcast, Sky Sports will be using Quidich Innovations’ HyperView player tracking tech to track fielder movements for analysis, which is captured from cameras on floodlight pylons at the grounds and also allows viewers to see the field from the perspective of the batter. In addition, CricViz is bringing in enhanced stats, including showing which team is “in front” during play, and Hawkeye.
In addition, there will be remote cameras tracking players as they walk through the Lords Pavilion and Long Room, and a spidercam in place at Lords to give a birds eye view of the action. A drone cam has been flown through the Lords Pavilion by a military pilot for more content, and drone and buggy cams will be at all grounds.
For added analysis and presentation options, there will be the Sky Cart for pitchside presentation and Sky Zone net presentation area for masterclasses from commentators such as Michael Atherton, Nasser Hussain, and Isa Guha.
Finally, AE Live has created a new suite of on-screen graphics for viewers to keep track of the action.
No comments yet