NBA fans watching the playoffs

November 8, 2020

WSC Sports: The Automated Highlights Behind the NBA Playoffs

  • Simon Ironmonger

Learn about the AI technology used by the NBA to automatically create and distribute thousands of game highlights.

WSC Sports: The Automated Highlights Behind the NBA Playoffs

November 8, 2020

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  • Simon Ironmonger

The 2020 NBA Playoffs will be remembered for many reasons. Many of which are due to the unprecedented circumstances surrounding the games: the bubble, no fans and games every other night. On the court, however, we’re going to remember the highlights and oh boy there were a lot of them! (67,290 to be exact, based on usage data across WSC Sports’ clients).

67,000+ videos may seem a lot, but not necessarily when you consider the needs and desires of modern sports fans. Gone are the days of media rights holders producing a ‘one-size-fits-all’ video highlight for all of their digital publishing points. Fans today demand personalized sports content, for whichever device or platform they may be using, and they want it as close to real time as possible.

Fans on Twitter will be looking for short-form ‘snackable’ clips, whereas those on YouTube will likely be looking for longer-form highlights, and those checking their Instagram stories will need video highlights in vertical. This level of customization, at such a huge scale that’s not been seen before, is being fueled by WSC Sports' AI and Machine Learning technology.

WSC Sports: The Automated Highlights Behind the NBA Playoffs

Throughout the historic 2020 NBA Playoffs and Finals, WSC Sports armed editors at over 30 of its clients worldwide with the ability to automatically create a mass of professionally edited highlight clips to tell the story of each and every game, from each and every play, maximizing the full potential of their media rights, while satisfying the cravings of basketball fans.

WSC Sports analyzed all of the automatic highlight clips its platform generated to uncover the players, teams and games that were the most highlight-reel worthy, which included 25,844 highlights of players, 2,747 highlights of dunks and 1,718 three-pointers.

In total, 3,070 team highlight videos were automatically created. Champions Los Angeles Lakers, as you might expect, had the most highlights created about them, besting their Finals counterpart Miami Heat by 22%. The Denver Nuggets came in third with 22% fewer highlights than Miami.

WSC Sports: The Automated Highlights Behind the NBA Playoffs

1. Davis’ game-winning three-pointer in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals versus the Nuggets was THE ultimate highlight.

2. Followed by Luka Doncic’s Game 4 winner in the Mavs-Clippers series.

3. Raptors’ OG Anunoby’s winner in Game 3 of its second-round matchup over the Celtics came in third.

How WSC Sports Makes it Happen

WSC Sports’ platform generates personalized sports videos for every digital platform and every sports fan — automatically and in real-time.

WSC Sports: The Automated Highlights Behind the NBA Playoffs

Currently being used by leading media rights owners such as NBA, ESPN, FIBA, NASCAR, Discovery, Bleacher Report, and many others, WSC Sports’ platform utilizes advanced AI and Machine Learning technologies to analyze live sports broadcasts, identify each and every event that occurs in the game, create customized short-form video content and publish to any digital destination. This enables partners to instantly generate and distribute professionally edited personalized clips and videos on a large scale, to engage audiences and maximize video monetization opportunities.

The power of WSC Sports’ platform offers unparalleled content customization, automatically creating videos that vary in length, audio (commentator language), format (square, vertical, 16:9) and graphics packaging, enabling clients to make the perfect video for every platform, telling the exact story they want to tell, for each and every type of fan.

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