Genius Sports’ player tracking and alternative streams change the game experience

Genius Sports

Genius Sports’ 2023 was highlight-filled in two critical areas of its business: developing next-generation technologies for data tracking and augmented viewing.

Second Spectrum, which Genius acquired in 2021, introduced its Dragon tracking system last March in partnership with the NBA, promising to increase the capacity and quality of player tracking data — and in a cost-efficient manner — by capturing the entire surface of the human body as opposed to a few dozen points.

Genius also continues to pioneer with its streaming offerings. In 2023, it rolled out data-rich alternative streams for the Premier League (Premier League Data Zone), NFL (NFL+ Vision Stream and NFL+ Stats Stream for every live game on NFL+) and FIFA Women’s World Cup, each augmented by Second Spectrum’s tracking capabilities.  

“There’s starting to become this ubiquity of different ways to experience the game that we’re really bullish on,” said Mike D’Auria, Second Spectrum’s chief commercial officer. “We think that’s the future.” 

Genius’ BetVision, a product offering fans the ability to stream and wager on games within a betting app’s video player, also launched ahead of the 2023-24 NFL season and is used by Caesars, FanDuel and Fanatics. 

“The end state is that everyone should have a control panel that dictates how they want to watch the game,” D’Auria said. “You’re moving from a place where I’m giving a broadcaster five alternate feeds that they can push through their ecosystem and they can figure out how to distribute those — to actually starting to put the control into the fan’s hand.”