BROADCAST SPOTLIGHT: NHL FROZEN FRENZY

SMT powers NHL's Frozen Frenzy 2025 with 300 live graphics

What may have looked like a normal Tuesday in October was anything but for SMT. On Oct. 28, the NHL hosted its third annual Frozen Frenzy, a night of wall-to-wall hockey featuring all 32 NHL teams and 16 games staggered every 15 to 30 minutes. With puck drops beginning at 6:08 p.m. and the final game starting at 11 p.m., the event offered nearly eight hours of nonstop action while presenting one of the most complex operational challenges in sports television.

Behind the scenes, SMT’s Operations, Engineering, ROOSTER and Remote Support teams worked in sync to support critical systems such as NHL HITS, NHL TVI+, OASIS, OPTICS and the Puck and Player Tracking (PPT) system.

“Hockey is our biggest client, and it takes a massive effort to be successful night in and night out,” said Hector Millian, Director of League Operations & Technical Services (LOTS) at SMT-JAX. “We were staffed from 9 a.m. until 3 a.m., and I want to thank all the SMT employees from JAX, FRE, DUR, and TOR who helped make the night a success.”

A Coordinated Company-Wide Effort
In total, SMT had over 100 employees involved across multiple locations:

• 18 SMT-JAX LOTS employees on duty
• 8 regional managers overseeing venues
• 48 contracted SMT operators (3 per arena)
• 31 SMT-DUR ROOSTER Operations staff
• 4 support teams in Fremont and Durham
• 6+ management staff coordinating operations

Preparation began about five hours before puck drop, with SMT technicians obtaining ice coordinate information for all arenas to calibrate the 18-24 cameras per venue that power the NHL PPT system. Techs also ensured the more than 260 servers across arenas, AWS, and NHL HQ were operational. 

Two hours before game time, the team conducted check-in calls (twice per arena) with NHL Off-Ice Officials to confirm rosters and scoring systems were ready. Once the action began, SMT technicians monitored more than 10 critical systems per site throughout the night, helping to track every player, every puck, and every one of the 98 goals scored.

Enhancing the Broadcast Experience
All 16 games aired on ESPN+, with three featured on ESPN and the live whip-around show, Frozen Frenzy, debuting on ESPN2 before moving to ESPN+. SMT’s graphics were a central part of the viewing experience:

• 235 live tags aired
• 69 replay packages
• Over 300 SMT graphics on-air

The graphics count was driven by ESPN’s heavy use of the possessor tag and the Bug Hug feature — a fan-favorite enhancement that automatically highlights a player when their stats appear in a slide-out from the score bug. Honorable mentions for live tag use went to Minnesota, Nashville, New Jersey, Carolina and St. Louis.

ROOSTER Operations: Remote Coordination at Its Best
In Durham, the ROOSTER team played a crucial role in powering Frozen Frenzy’s graphics and replays. The operation included 31 ROOSTER operators and four support staff in the control room.

ESPN’s national broadcasts used two operators per game, one focused on live tagging and another on replay packages, while regional shows used a single operator handling both.

Setup for the night began six hours before puck drop, ensuring that all video monitoring, communications, and remote access were fully configured before operators arrived two hours before game time. Those two hours were dedicated to collaborating with production teams to review lineups, key matchups, and storylines, the kind of preparation that enables SMT’s operators to anticipate the night’s biggest moments and deliver them to air.

“It’s truly a special group that can take all these moving pieces and pull it off so well," said Michael Louthan, SMT-DUR's Remote Studio Manager. "When you can look back at the end of the night and realize how smoothly the day went, it shows how much SMT can change the game.”

BROADCAST SPOTLIGHT: NBA ON PRIME

SMT supports Amazon Prime's historic NBA debut with virtual graphics, scoring and stats

Thanks to Chris Hale, FRE Sr. Operations Manager, for contributing to this report and providing images. Thanks to Video Editor Shaun Bales for the highlight reel.

When Amazon Prime Video tipped off its first-ever NBA broadcast on Oct. 24, SMT was behind the scenes providing virtual graphics, scoring and stats. The season-opening doubleheader, featuring the Celtics vs. Knicks and Timberwolves vs. Lakers, marked the start of Amazon’s 11-year, $20 billion global NBA rights deal and drew 1.25 million viewers, a 13% increase over ESPN’s comparable games last season.

While Amazon is no stranger to live sports production, this launch represented a major new chapter. With its newly christened Los Angeles production studio and dedicated East and West Coast mobile units, Prime Video is now producing NBA games fully in-house with SMT helping to make that possible.

SMT brought decades of NBA and broadcast experience to the table, having long supported ESPN with virtual products and TNT with graphics systems.

"For Amazon, the SMT team combined both product suites into one offering, drawing from several years of collaboration on their massive Thursday Night Football show to establish a foundation for the new NBA package," shared Sr. Operations Manager Chris Hale.

The event was supported both onsite and remotely. At Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, four SMT team members were on hand, while another four supported the Knicks game at Madison Square Garden.

Meanwhile, four additional SMT operators were stationed at Amazon’s Culver City studio, operating the OPTICS systems and inserting player-tracking graphics in real time, much like SMT’s ROOSTER operators do for the NHL. 

Among the products deployed were stats prompters, SportsCG, and a suite of virtual enhancements, including the virtual shot clock, shot distance tags, live player-tracking pointer tags, and AR lineups before the game. SMT plans to expand these elements throughout the season to include halftime scores and other in-game features.

DIVISION SPOTLIGHT: SMT-MUNICH

SMT-MUN crew, from left to right: Michael Trost, Markus Michaelis, Harald Renz and Geo Iacobescu.

SMT Munich: Engineering innovation from broadcast to AI

SMT’s connection with Munich goes back long before 2019, when SMT officially acquired Signum Bildtechnik’s broadcast division and founded SMT-Munich. Signum, established in 1995, built a strong reputation for its German-engineered broadcast and streaming solutions, known for reliability, precision and seamless system integration. The partnership was a natural fit: SMT had collaborated with Signum on several projects over the years, sharing a passion for cutting-edge broadcast technology. When the acquisition took effect in August 2019, it ensured continuity for Signum’s clients and opened new opportunities for collaboration across SMT’s global network. Today, SMT-Munich continues that legacy of innovation, developing next-generation broadcast, playout and AI-driven sports analysis solutions.

We caught up with the crew, including Michael Trost, Markus Michaelis, Harald Renz and Geo Iacobescu for this Q&A.

Q. How has the team’s engineering focus evolved since joining SMT, and what new opportunities has that integration created?

A. Since joining SMT, the Munich team has continued advancing the former Signum playout system used by major German broadcasters. A key breakthrough has been its robust container architecture and powerful video render engines. The updated SMT playout system now supports more than 19 video codecs and containers—including XDCAM and AVCHD—offering performance rarely seen elsewhere in the industry.

One of our proudest milestones was integrating NDI technology, which ultimately led to a major contract with state-owned broadcaster WDR. Another was the deep integration with Annova/SCISYS OpenMedia automation and content management systems, positioning SMT as a top-tier provider of high-performance playout infrastructure. These projects reflect how joining SMT expanded our reach and allowed us to scale our engineering expertise globally.

Q. SMT products are known for their reliability and seamless integration. Can you share an example of a recent project that demonstrates this?

A. Reliability is everything in broadcast playout—especially in live environments where even a small failure can stop production. For more than three decades, SMT playout systems have delivered uninterrupted performance, ensuring critical media files play out on time, every time.

A great example is our integration with Annova/SCISYS OpenMedia, one of the world’s most advanced production automation platforms. SMT fully supports the MOS protocol—the gold standard for playlist automation—allowing smooth communication with newsroom and content management systems. Features like file synchronization (covering formats, naming, thumbnails, and numbering) and playlist management form the backbone of this integration.

We also developed ImageGateway, a flexible image archive system that receives and processes photos from major agencies like AP, Reuters, dpa, and Imago. It can be accessed through a web-based interface or directly in SMT’s SigiStudio control software, making it a powerful tool for news production teams.

Q. What collaborative projects has the Munich office undertaken this year with other SMT departments?

A. ​​​​​​​One of our biggest focus areas is applying artificial intelligence to SMT’s sports analysis tools. Our journey with AI began in 2018, before joining SMT, when we saw how rapidly the field was evolving. Since then, collaboration with SMT’s R&D teams has helped turn early AI proofs of concept into product-ready solutions now used in hockey, football, and basketball applications.

Under Hans’ (Weber, Corp. VP, R&D) leadership, the Munich team works closely with colleagues in Durham, Fremont, and Jacksonville to integrate machine learning features into existing SMT systems and explore entirely new capabilities. We’ve developed an in-house application for ML testing, training, and annotation, and we regularly support internal and client-facing AI demos. These collaborations have made AI a central part of SMT’s product innovation across sports and broadcast.

Q. What technologies or innovations is SMT Munich most excited about for the future?

A. ​​​​​​​AI continues to be one of the most exciting and transformative areas in sports broadcasting. The pace of change is incredible, and SMT-Munich is committed to staying ahead by continuously testing and evaluating emerging AI solutions in collaboration with our global teams.

Looking ahead, we’ll keep focusing on proof-of-concept and demo projects that show how AI can enhance SMT’s products—from real-time video analysis to automated highlight generation. We’re proud to have contributed key machine learning components for Amazon’s Friday Night Basketball and delivered ML technologies for the 2023 NHL Seattle Tech Demo Day. These projects demonstrate how our expertise in Munich continues to help shape the future of live sports production.

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Events and Remote Teams

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