If you’re a fan of local football – or soccer as some would have it – you’ll know that this Sunday, DStv and SuperSport are broadcasting a rather special event: the 100th Soweto Derby between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs.
Still with us? Great!
Don’t worry, Stuff hasn’t suddenly turned into a sports news site. No, we’re interested in the tech that DStv and SuperSport are breaking out to mark the occasion.
SuperSports brings heat maps, AR and more
According to a report on SuperSport, aside from the high-end pundits and experts the channel will be breaking out for this event, the game itself will be “supplemented by cutting-edge graphics, augmented reality and virtual reality on-field statistics”. What this means is that the experts will have a lot of real-time data shot through with fancy visuals with which to explain the on-the-pitch action.
“Elevating the coverage even further, graphics will encompass a range of information, from player heat maps and average speeds to player statistics and top speed readings,” the release reads. “Augmented reality will take care of team tactics and formations, while there will also be virtual crowds in place, in keeping with the times.”
That last item essentially means COVID-19 continues to spoil everyone’s fun – limiting social gatherings to fifty people.
Beyond that the game will be covered by four super-slow motion cameras, two ultra-slow motion cameras and a goal-line camera. This means that, if your team is on the losing end of this exchange, the goals will be all the more eye-wateringly hard to watch because you’ll probably see every nanosecond of them. Over and over again.
Kick off is this Sunday at 3pm local time.
If you’ve been following either team in the PSL this year, you’ll know that Pirates have already beaten Chiefs three times in the run-up to this match. If you haven’t, we sincerely thank you for reading all the way to the end of this article.