Since 2014, PlaySight has been proudly working with the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) to bring video and Smart sports AI technology to college programs across the nation. Seven years and over 100 collegiate tennis programs later, we’re excited to reflect and continue to build the best live streaming and performance video platform for the sport.
PlaySight and college tennis, a short history:
2014 – University of Georgia becomes the first college program to install PlaySight technology.
2016 – The PlayFair challenge system is born, enabling players to challenge line calls made by officials or their opponents and making huge steps toward ensuring fair play in college tennis.
2018 – After successful trials of our SmartScore technology, which allows for an automated and real-time stats and graphics packages, the product is launched across selected college facilities. Shortly after, SmartScore is implemented as an add-on feature to any PlaySight system, taking the fan engagement and viewing experience to a new level.
2019 – After 3 years of successful piloting with the ITA as well as implementation in tournaments hosted at top academies around the globe, PlayFair receives ITA approval as an official video challenge replay solution.
2020 – PlaySight’s presence at close to 100 college programs of all levels as well as high-school programs and top academies in the USA and Europe makes the platform a coach’s favorite when it comes to communication between college and prospects for the exchange of recruitment videos and player insights.
2021 – PlaySight GO is launched, allowing our sports video, broadcasting and analysis technology to operate through a lightweight and fully portable solution.
Our innovation and product improvements are driven by our collegiate clients and partners. We’re always checking in with him to learn what works, their technology needs, ideas and requests, and how we can best serve them, their student-athletes, and their program as a whole.
We recently caught up with Michael Woodson, Baylor University Men’s Head Coach to get his thoughts on PlaySight and technology for his team. Baylor University is one of the latest long-time PlaySight partner programs to have extended their existing partnership. We first live streamed the NCAA Championships from Baylor many years ago, and since that time have supported the Bears through all of their video and streaming needs.
When asked about our broadcasting capabilities, Woodson said, “To me, I think live streaming is huge, and one of the things we learned this year is how important doing it well has been to connect us with our fan base. Added features like SmartScore have also accomplished big things for us.”
When it comes to using live streaming as a recruiting tool, Woodson added, “Live streaming is a really big thing for the parents, players and coaches. It’s important for recruiting, especially internationally, and the recruits can actually watch the home matches and see the atmosphere.”
Woodson and his staff utilize PlaySight through their coaching in and out of season. “Video is a really important piece to go back and trying to coach guys. We as coaches see it, but to be able to show whenever needed and get the student-athletes to watch it themselves takes it to another level. Sometimes they need to see it for themselves. It’s honestly more than stats, you need to be able to also watch in between points, like how are you managing the pace of play.”
PlaySight’s Smart sports AI video platform is connecting sports all over the world. Hundreds of thousands of athletes, coaches, teams, colleges and sports facilities utilize PlaySight each and every day for automated production live stream broadcasts, multi-angle video recording, performance analysis, content monetization and much more.
