Balls and strikes are among the hardest things to visualize in all of sports — a pitch arriving at nearly (or more than) 100 mph in a fraction of a second. With UmpCam AR and its virtual strike zone, Major League Baseball and FOX gave fans a way to see that challenge as never before.

MLB first deployed the UmpCam — an umpire-worn camera developed with RF Wireless and the umpires association — to solve a problem unique to baseball: ballpark geometry, foul territory, and safety constraints make it difficult to get lenses close to the field. The camera delivered an immersive look at pitch framing and the difficulty of calling a pitch, and it gradually became a staple across national broadcasts (and now many regional broadcasts).

The breakthrough came when MLB set out to overlay a strike zone and AR graphics within the UmpCam's constantly moving field of view. Working with Bolt6 on camera tracking, Hawk-Eye for sub-centimeter ball and player data, and Virtual Eye for rendering, the team tackled the challenge of calibrating an unpredictable, close-up moving camera in near real time. After testing on archive footage and through spring training, the system reached an offline trial at the All-Star Game before debuting on air, with replays available within the first or second look after a pitch.

In this conversation, Ryan Zander, SVP, broadcasting, MLB, walks SVG through UmpCam AR's development, the partner workflow behind it, and how MLB plans to evolve the technology — scaling it to regional broadcasts and exploring new on-field camera positions to bring fans closer to the game.