SMT's Q3 Top 10 Highlights

The third quarter of 2026 saw SMT powering coverage across the globe, from the streets of Washington, D.C., to the grounds of Royal Birkdale and the stadiums of the FIFA World Cup. In this issue, we spotlight IndyCar's Freedom 250 broadcast for FOX, our role at The Open Championship, and our dual presence on air and on site at the World Cup. We also feature the US Open, where CARAT, RAZOR and CIS reached more users than ever; NFL football in Melbourne for Netflix; and LED builds at the Cincinnati Open and TOUR Championship. Rounding out the quarter's spotlights are the Tour de France, SMX and an Emmy nomination for Prime Vision with NFL Thursday Night Football.

As always, SMT's mission remains clear: to provide innovative data solutions, compelling graphics and unparalleled support that enhance the way fans experience the world's greatest sporting events.

BROADCAST SPOTLIGHT: INDYCAR FREEDOM 250

1. SMT brings IndyCar's Freedom 250 to air from the nation's capital

When IndyCar raced through the streets of the nation's capital, with the U.S. Capitol and national monuments as a backdrop, SMT's technology helped FOX Sports deliver a broadcast that gave viewers a completely new way to experience the sport.

Street courses are always demanding: layouts can change late, access is limited, and telemetry coverage has to be confirmed across the entire circuit. In D.C., the Secret Service, National Guard, Metro Police, Park Police and TSA added further complexity. The biggest unknown was invisible to viewers: the radio frequency environment. A dense urban setting and heavy communications traffic raised the risk of interference with SMT's vector tracking system.

SMT worked with IndyCar, Indy Motorsports Productions, the FCC and the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate frequencies and secure authorization. A spectrum-analyzer walkthrough a month before the race caught an interference source early, and joint "War Games" testing during race week ruled out further conflicts. 

The broadcast also debuted something new. FOX asked whether SMT's optical pointers could call out monuments and landmarks around the course, not just the cars. ISO Track was built to identify cars, so the feature required new design and functionality, and the timeline was about two weeks with the landmark list still evolving. SMT's creative, product, engineering and QA teams worked in parallel, building multiple pointer templates to match FOX's direction and adding an operator dropdown so landmarks could be selected quickly during the live show.

The pointers went to air days later, helping viewers orient themselves along the D.C. circuit, including on aerial camera shots. Ghost Car, with recent enhancements, ran cleanly, and SMT's internal compound trackmap gave FOX's production crew a clear view of camera locations, restart zones and car positions all weekend.

"Working with SMT to bring landmark pointers and Ghost Car Live to a street race through the heart of Washington gives our viewers a completely new way to experience IndyCar. They have been fantastic at getting the pointers not only on the standard broadcast cameras but also on the aerials, where they can make an even bigger splash."

Mike Davies, EVP, Technical and Field Operations, FOX Sports

MEDIA SPOTLIGHT: SPORTS VIDEO GROUP

2. New events at 154th Open Championship give SMT team more ways to shine with data feeds that keep fans updated 

Data feeds — both automated and manual — keep fans on the course and at home updated on every player, every stroke essentially in real time.

By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director, SVG
Posted July 19, 2026

The R&A’s decision to add two new events to Open Championship week — a Last-Chance Qualifier on July 13, the Heroes Classic on July 14 — pushed key production and technology providers to accelerate their setup. It also gave them a chance to show off their technology in new ways.

The Last-Chance Qualifier, for example, turned Monday from a test day into a working one: SMT’s scoring team was out on the course tracking 12 golfers competing for a final Championship slot. SMT Sr. Events Project Manager Matt Ballard had arrived on July 3 to build the on-course network along with the operations rooms, equipment racks, and monitors.

That work left the team ready for the Heroes Classic on July 14, which featured three teams — each combining professional golfers and celebrities — competing in a three-hole scramble. 

SMT’s role at The Open — as well as at the other three majors, the PLAYERS Championship, and other PGA TOUR events — is extensive. It begins with the on-course scorers, who manually log every shot, club selection, and result.

That data feeds instantly into the Championship Information System deployed across the venue for officials, media, and broadcasters, as well as to the production team running the two manual scoreboards at the 18th hole and the 17 on-course LED scoreboards. The aim is to deliver accurate scoring as simply as possible — information that can inform downstream customers in the broadcast compound and beyond, fans around the course, and even the players.

“All of those scoreboards are driven by commands from entries on the handheld scoring devices,” Ryan McDonald, VP/GM, SMT, says. “As they’re walking down the first hole and select the player to hit, it instantly triggers that player’s graphic on the scoreboard, letting fans know who’s actually hitting. It keeps track of when they’re teeing off, and it turns the board off if players might be distracted by it. A combination of GPS and the handheld device also determines what type of graphics to show. That process is all automated.” 

In collaboration with NTT DATA, SMT powers the interactive NTT DATA Wall experience, pairing SMT Creative Studio’s custom-built Unreal Engine model of Royal Birkdale with SMT’s GolfX scoring system. The activation delivers real-time visualizations. ShotView, for example, provides player stroke trails and distance data, animated flyovers with game locators, hole statistics, drive-distance scatter charts, and live player updates. Also, a dynamic leaderboard features the projected cut line, weather integration, and player-location tracking.

EVENT SPOTLIGHT: FIFA WORLD CUP

3. Field to feed: SMT assists the World Cup from fiber backbone to final score 

When the 2026 FIFA World Cup put the world's most-watched sporting event on screens around the globe, SMT was part of the experience on two fronts: inside the broadcasts that millions of fans tuned in to, and behind the scenes at the stadiums and fan venues hosting the tournament.

ON-AIR: SMT powered the scorebug for Telemundo's Spanish-language coverage, continuing a legacy that dates back to SMT's invention of the on-screen clock-and-score graphic in the 1990s. SMT also supported Siguiendo el Mundial, NBCUniversal's second-screen experience for Spanish-speaking fans. On-air talent commented on matches while surfacing live stats, lineups, standings and match graphs in customizable layouts. Telemundo delivered 700 hours of programming and all 104 matches live, the most World Cup matches ever aired on a U.S. broadcast network. Viewership set records: the group stage averaged 4.6 million viewers, up 122% from 2022.

ON-SITE: Working with Safari and Clair Global for OnLocation, SMT delivered IPTV services at the Hospitality Villages outside the Mexico City and Guadalajara stadiums, with television and A/V support from partner RubikPro. SMT's Fremont team also helped install and test network infrastructure at SF Bay Area Stadium, connecting areas from the fan experience zone to the pitch, commentator desks and locker rooms. Additional SMT staff supported IT infrastructure at stadiums across North America.

EVENT SPOTLIGHT: US OPEN

4. SMT puts data in the hands of coaches, media and commentators at US Open

For more than three decades, SMT has partnered with the USTA, ESPN, IBM and international broadcasters at the US Open. This year, three SMT products reached more people than ever: CARAT for coaches, RAZOR for media and coaches, and CIS for commentators.

CARAT: Coaching, expanded. In its fourth year at the tournament, CARAT, SMT's coaching app, was available to every coach and extended into qualifying and doubles for the first time, alongside singles and wheelchair tennis. The app combines official US Open statistics with live tracking and video replay in a three-level interface. SMT created 787 CARAT users and trained 26 coaches supporting 24 players. Doubles coaches welcomed the expansion, and coaches built the tool into their match-day routines. One, for example, used it to put together a video playlist of her player's winning serves before a match.

RAZOR: A new audience. RAZOR, SMT's data platform for tournament and media inquiries, was made available to coaches at the US Open for the first time, joining its established media users. With 1,102 users created, researchers continued to use it to build storylines for broadcasters, and comprehensive data across every draw remained the feature they valued most.

CIS: Commentators, fully supported. SMT trained all 48 world-feed commentators on CIS and supported them daily on site. Early feedback was strong: a 4.5 out of 5 satisfaction rating and an 8.3 out of 10 likelihood of requesting CIS at other tournaments. Commentators especially valued having complete coverage, including juniors and wheelchair events.

"Excellent, best and most comprehensive tennis data tablet I have seen."
Lee Goodall, World Feed Commentator

Behind these products, SMT supported the full tournament operation, including scoring, scheduling, on-court displays, broadcast graphics and data feeds to 33 clients worldwide.

BROADCAST SPOTLIGHT: NETFLIX THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL

5. SMT takes NFL tech Down Under for Netflix's historic Melbourne game

In September, the NFL played its first-ever regular-season game in Australia, and SMT supported Netflix and NBC as the San Francisco 49ers faced the Los Angeles Rams at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).

SMT's team has supported NBC's international NFL productions in Brazil for the past two years, but Melbourne brought new challenges: a 15-hour time difference and a stadium being converted from Australian football to American football.

To prepare, SMT's team held a weeklong "bootcamp" at NBC's Stamford, Conn., headquarters, integrating the Viz graphics package with SMT's QBStat system and testing Netflix's new 2026 scorebug design down to timing, sizing, animation and fonts. The bootcamp also gave SMT a chance to work directly with the Netflix production team before arriving in Australia.

The preparation paid off. Six SMT team members traveled to Melbourne and delivered the 1st & Ten lines, teles and scorebug viewers saw throughout the broadcast, adapting to a 10:35 a.m. local kickoff and a schedule essentially reversed from a typical NFL Thursday night. 

The game drew 100,021 fans, the seventh-largest crowd in NFL regular-season history. The Netflix broadcast averaged 18.5 million viewers in the U.S. and 21.7 million globally across more than 200 countries and territories, making it the most-watched NFL game ever in Australia.

EVENT SPOTLIGHT: CINCINNATI OPEN

6. SMT marks 30 years at the Cincinnati Open with biggest LED build yet

For this year's Cincinnati Open, SMT's tennis crew spent 30 consecutive days building one of the largest LED and production deployments the company handles anywhere in the world.

The Lindner Family Tennis Center featured 106 LED displays, more than 50 million LED pixels, and official scoring and data distribution across all 10 match courts in partnership with the ATP and WTA Tours. 

New this year were several displays designed to keep fans connected wherever they are on the grounds:

• Stadium Outer Concourse Ribbon: a 130-foot curved LED ribbon running semi-automated live scores, match updates and sponsor content
• Kroger Indoor Fan Zone Monsterboard: a 27.5' x 16.5' board anchoring the reimagined Kroger Fan Zone
• Grandstand Player Tunnel Displays: two custom LED walls framing player introductions and sponsor content
• Grandstand Upper Tunnel Gate Display: extending the LED treatment used at gates throughout the venue
• Tennis Channel Studio Display: a live window into the network's broadcast, switching to SMT's Match Update Center between segments

The tournament also runs on SMT's core infrastructure, including Serve Speed across all 10 courts, the automated Digital Draw Display, outer-court scoreboards, live show court production, Monsterboards, up to 21 CCTV channels venue-wide, and live draw production for the 128-player men's and women's draws.

SMT's relationship with the Cincinnati Open now spans more than three decades, growing alongside one of the most technology-rich venues on Tour.

"SMT continues to help us find new ways to bring the Cincinnati Open experience to life beyond the court. The new Stadium outer concourse ribbon and Kroger Fan Zone Board are both great examples, giving us dynamic platforms to share live scoring, tournament information, sponsor content and timely messaging with fans throughout the venue."

Jansen Dell, Chief Operating Officer, Cincinnati Open

EVENT SPOTLIGHT: TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP

7. SMT brings a new 3D, AI-powered fan experience to the TOUR Championship

At East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, the top 30 players in the FedExCup standings competed for the TOUR Championship, and SMT delivered one of its most ambitious deployments yet. SMT has supported the event for more than 15 years, and its role has grown significantly in recent years, driven by expanding partnerships with Accenture, Southern Company and Coca-Cola.

The biggest addition was a new Accenture activation on the 18th green Monsterboard, combining creative, live data and AI. SMT Creative Studio built a detailed 3D model of the 18th hole in Unreal Engine, and live ShotLink data rendered each player's shots as Accenture-branded stroke trails as groups played the hole. An AI-powered insights model added real-time context, such as whether a player was going for the green in two, laying up or facing a penalty, alongside drive distance, distance to the pin and club selection. The concept grew from SMT's NTT DATA Wall work at The Open Championship, which Accenture saw as a model for the TOUR Championship.

SMT's broader deployment included LED Monsterboards at 18 Green and the SoCool Fan Zone, 1st tee player introductions for all four rounds, three-sided InfoTowers for Accenture, a large LED Digital Media Center, touchscreen kiosks for PGA TOUR partners, more than 280 IPTVs across hospitality areas, the clubhouse and the Media Center, and an indoor LED display for the Coca-Cola Lounge. At the PGA TOUR's request, SMT also introduced practice round tracking graphics for Wednesday's practice round.

Approximately 12 SMT staff worked on site at peak, supported remotely by Creative Studio and software engineering teams.

BROADCAST SPOTLIGHT: TOUR DE FRANCE

8. SMT goes 100% remote for NBC's Tour de France coverage

For the 17th consecutive year, SMT supported NBC's coverage of the Tour de France, and this year, for the first time, all of that support was delivered remotely from NBC's studios in Stamford, Conn. There was no production truck caravan and no long drives across France, Spain and Belgium, just SMT operators keeping data, graphics and storytelling moving from start to finish. It's a major shift from SMT's early Tour days, when a three-person SMT team traveled with the race, sometimes covering more than 3,800 miles while supporting more than 100 hours of coverage.

From Stamford, SMT's team handled the hat, ticker, lower thirds, ISO Track pointers and Cycling Dragon telestrator, while GEMStat ingested timing and speed data to provide rider groupings, time gaps and speeds. Two operators were typically on air at a time, one running live graphics and the other managing stats and data, in close coordination with NBC's graphics and production teams. Days began around 3 a.m. with prep, aligning graphics with the stat profile for the day's climbs and sprints and preparing a stat prompter for production and talent, ahead of an air time of roughly 6:30 or 7 a.m.

ISO Track pointers proved especially valuable heading into sprint finishes, helping NBC talent and viewers follow riders as teams jockeyed for position. When wildfires outside Paris forced a shortened final stage, replacing the traditional ceremonial ride into the Champs-Élysées with a Category 4 climb, the remote team was ready to follow the added racing excitement through to the finish.

LEAGUE SPOTLIGHT: SUPERMOTOCROSS

9. SMT goes full throttle with SMX

When the gate dropped on Supercross Anaheim 1, SMT kicked off another season supporting Feld Motor Sports and the SuperMotocross Championship (SMX). SMT has supported Supercross since 2006 and the SMX Playoffs since 2023. As the championship has grown, so has SMT’s role in bringing the action to fans.

Now in its fourth season, SMX expanded to 31 events in 2026, compared with 17 Supercross events supported by SMT in 2022. SMT also expanded its on-site presence from two team members in 2025 to five this season, with additional support provided remotely across multiple divisions.

VIRTUAL ADS: New this season, Virtual Ad Logos and Production Features gave NBC Sports additional opportunities for sponsor integration while keeping branding seamlessly connected to the live race.

ISO TRACK POINTERS: SMT added ISO Track Pointers to the SMX broadcast, providing enhanced tracking and identification of riders and helping viewers follow the action across the course.

GATE IDs: SMT-FRE R&D automated Gate IDs, allowing the production to identify more athletes on the starting line than ever before. The enhancement provided additional information during one of the most anticipated moments of each race.

DUET RACE STATS: SMT’s Duet Race Stats Interface delivered timely race information and statistics to NBC Sports, helping keep viewers informed as the field battled through each event.

RACE ORDER PROMPTERS: SMT provided Race Order Video Prompters throughout practice, qualifying and race sessions, helping production teams stay aligned as race order changed throughout the day.

SOCIAL & TRIVIA: Full-page social media and trivia scrolls added interactive elements to the production, giving fans additional ways to engage with the competition.

The season culminated with the SMX World Championship at Thunder Ridge Nature Arena in Missouri, Feld’s first event at a concert venue. While the new setting presented some unique logistical challenges, the event was a successful finish to another season of growth for SMX and another year of SMT helping power the production from gate drop to checkered flag.

AWARD SPOTLIGHT: EMMY NOMINATION

10. SMT nominated for Emmy for Excellence in Production Technology 

SMT has been nominated for a 2026 Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award for its work on Prime Vision NFL’s Thursday Night Football (TNF). The competitive category, presented by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS), recognizes the innovative application of science and engineering technology to produce television in new and unique ways.

As the technology integration partner for Amazon Prime Video’s alternative TNF broadcast, SMT brings together player tracking, AI and machine learning, computer vision, analytics and real-time graphics to create a deeper, more analytical viewing experience. SMT’s technology synchronizes millions of data points and complex analytics into live visualizations that help viewers understand player movement, routes, pressure development, defensive vulnerabilities and other aspects of the game.

Prime Vision is one of four nominees in this year’s category. The winner will be announced Oct. 14 at the 2026 Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards ceremony at the Television Academy’s Saban Media Center in North Hollywood, Calif.