World first: Sky Sports and The Hundred unveil ground-breaking technology to enhance the spectator experience

The Hundred (a new 100-ball cricket competition) and Sky Sports have joined forces to develop an industry first augmented reality experience on a scale never before seen in sport by creating avatars using motion capture. Sky and The Hundred have captured players’ full range of movement in accurate detail, which will be used to enhance Sky’s TV broadcast coverage and at home fan experience via The Hundred and Sky Sports apps.

The Hundred is putting digital innovation at the heart of the event experience, with the ambition to push the boundaries of sport, technology and entertainment and draw broader audiences into cricket. The avatar technology is one of the strongest examples of this vision – providing a new broadcast experience for viewers and progressive digital and mobile interactivity for fans to try out first-hand.

The technology is set to be used as a world-first in broadcasting during Sky Sports coverage of The Hundred this summer. The technology will also be available for fans via Sky Sports’ digital platforms.

The avatars have been created using ‘MetaStar’, Dimension Studio’s hyper-real avatar solution and the Augemented Reality experience created by Arcade (an immersive experience creative agency, using Unity), in order to bring fans closer to the players than ever before. The idea was born out of a collaboration between The Hundred and Sky Sports in a bid to make cricket more accessible and interactive for sports fans with the ambition of enticing new audiences.

Heather Knight, Jos Buttler, Moeen Ali and Ben Stokes are just a few household names fans will recognise.

Bryan Henderson, Sky Sports Director of Cricket said: “We are so excited to present this incredible technology to our viewers. We have worked in partnership with The Hundred on a fan-first approach we believe will open the game up to new audiences.

“The Hundred will have a bespoke look and feel on TV and the avatars are a key part of what will make our coverage so dynamic. We have worked hard on every aspect of our presentation to ensure we have something for everyone, and I have every confidence the avatars will become one of the most popular aspects of our storytelling.”

Jason Landau, Creative Director of Innovation for Sky Creative said: “Off the back of our success with Sky Scope, our thought process was ‘what can we bring to a new competition like The Hundred?” Thanks to our partnership with The Hundred we’ve been able to bring something to life for fans around the world.

“With a focus on accuracy and authenticity, we have created ground-breaking hyper-real avatars, achieved by using 3D scans of the players and then applying these to individual motion data. Hopefully something everyone will be able to enjoy, allowing them to see the game differently.”

Alison Crowe, Director of Digital and Data, ECB said: “Through our partnership with Sky, the creation of our hyper-real avatars will bring fans and players together on an unprecedented level. Imagine having a virtual Heather Knight, Saqib Mahmood or Ben Stokes showcasing their skills in your home – it’s incredibly exciting. We can’t wait for fans to try it out through The Hundred app, where they can also vote for the match hero in each game, vote for the music a player will walk out to and test their knowledge with some fun trivia – there’s something for all the family to get involved with.”

The avatars will make their broadcast debut on Sky Sports The Hundred channel (404).

Download The Hundred app and buy tickets for this summer’s must-see sporting entertainment event at thehundred.com.

Notes to editors

About The Hundred

The Hundred is a brand new sports competition launching this summer (21 July-21 Aug). It fuses blockbuster entertainment with world-class cricket, inviting everyone to fall in love with the game at its intense, electrifying and incredible best.  

Combining a new short, fast format of cricket, with each game lasting less than three hours, and incredible entertainment beyond sport, The Hundred will make cricket more accessible to reach a broader audience. It’s simple: 100 balls per team, most runs wins, so every ball counts.  

The Hundred will feature eight brand new teams from seven cities, with men’s and women’s competitions taking place side by side: Welsh Fire (Cardiff), Southern Brave (Southampton), Northern Superchargers (Leeds), London Spirit, Trent Rockets (Nottingham), Oval Invincibles (London), Manchester Originals and Birmingham Phoenix. Each team will feature some of the best international and domestic cricketers from around the world, including England Men’s & Women’s World Cup winners.

Games will be broadcast live on Sky Sports and BBC throughout the competition – so whether in ground or watching from home – you’ll be right amongst all the action.

You won’t want to miss out on this summer’s sporting entertainment event! Download The Hundred app and buy tickets for this summer’s must-see sporting entertainment event at thehundred.com.

About Sky

Sky is Europe’s leading media and entertainment company and is proud to be part of the Comcast group. Across six countries, we connect our 23.4 million customers to the best entertainment, sports, news and arts including our own award-winning original content.

Our technology, including the market leading Sky Q, connects people to everything they love – with entertainment from Sky TV, Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and BBC iPlayer, and apps like Spotify, YouTube, BBC Sounds, Highbrow, Fiit, and more, in one place, easy. Our streaming service NOW, brings viewers all the enjoyment of Sky with the flexibility of a contract-free service.

Building on the success of Sky Originals like Chernobyl, Gangs of London and Brassic, we are doubling our investment in original content by 2024 through Sky Studios. Sky News provides impartial and trustworthy journalism for free, Sky Arts is the UK’s only dedicated free-to-air arts channel making the arts accessible for everyone and Sky Sports, our leading sports broadcasting service brings customers some of the biggest and best global sporting events from the Premier League to Formula 1 and everything in-between. Our new TV and movie studio, Sky Studios Elstree, which will open in 2022, is expected to create over 2,000 new jobs and generate an additional £3 billion of production investment in the UK over the first five years.

We believe that we can be a force for good in the communities in which we operate. We’re committed to being Europe’s first net zero carbon entertainment company by 2030 and we’re proud to be a Principal Partner and Media Partner of COP26. We take pride in our approach to diversity and inclusion: we’ve been recognised by The Times and Stonewall for our commitment to diversity and we’ve set ambitious 2025 targets to continue to increase diversity and representation. We’re also committed to investing £30million across our markets over three years to improve our approach to diversity and inclusion, and to tackle racial injustice.