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Why NBC Used Virtual 3D Nick Foles, Tom Brady In Super Bowl Broadcast

Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles threw for 373 yards and three touchdowns. Tom Brady in a loss threw for 505 yards and three touchdowns. And in the second half of Super Bowl LII, NBC used virtual 3D broadcast graphic enhancements of the two players to keep fans up to date with how they were doing.

NBC had six players from the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles do body scans before the game to make the experimental augmented reality appearances happen.

“It’s been done in Europe a little bit, but I have not seen it done here,” NBC executive producer Fred Gaudelli told Adweek. “The stuff I’ve seen done in Europe is pretty interesting, so I’m hoping that’s going to add a little flavor to our show.”

In the second half, Brady appeared once by himself and once alongside Foles. The two virtual characters stood on the field as if they were giants, with shadows moving around on the field as the characters moved their bodies.

But the reaction on social media for the most part questioned why the 3D characters didn’t exactly resemble the players and wondered why NBC appeared to be using graphics from a video game.

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London-based companies Fanview and Repronauts did the body scans, Sports Video Group reported, noting that seven vendors were part of NBC’s project. According to Fanview, the two companies partnered to “offer pioneering, photo-realistic, cost-effective, portable 3D Scanning Technology for broadcast and digital use,” with the capture process taking about 90 seconds.

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