TGL is a first-of-its-kind indoor golf league co-founded by Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and media executive Mike McCarley. Backed by the PGA TOUR and driven by TMRW Sports, it fuses live team competition with cutting-edge technology inside a purpose-built arena, the SoFi Centre in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and broadcasts live in primetime on ESPN.
The format is deliberately designed for television: fast-paced, data-driven and visually spectacular. With a virtual course at its core and a physical short game complex at its heart, TGL isn't just reimagining how golf is played – it's reimagining how golf is watched.
That ambition extends to the broadcast itself.
TMRW Sports
NEP Group
AirPixel
VIZRT
Movicom
MT Jibs
Girraphic
Virtual Eye
The Challenge: AR from Multiple Moving Cameras in a Large Indoor Arena
To deliver the kind of augmented reality experience that matched TGL's vision, TMRW Sports needed to composite live AR graphics onto footage from cameras that were never standing still. The broadcast relied on two distinctly different moving camera systems:
- A dynamic cable cam sweeping above the arena
- A rail-mounted tracking camera
Each one presented its own tracking challenge. To place AR graphics accurately into live footage, you need to know the exact position and orientation of the camera at every moment. In a broadcast studio, optical marker systems can handle this reliably. But inside a large indoor arena – with multiple cameras moving simultaneously across a wide footprint – those systems quickly become impractical.
The solution needed to track multiple moving cameras across the full arena, maintain precision during live primetime production, and integrate cleanly with the existing broadcast graphics pipeline.
"AirPixel tracking technology allows us to enhance our live footage from moving cameras with advanced AR"
The Result: A Richer Experience, On-Site and On-Screen
"AirPixel tracking technology allows us to enhance our live footage from moving cameras with advanced AR," says Colin DeFord, VP Broadcast Operations at TMRW Sports. "This technology significantly improves the experience for everyone, both in the venue and at home."
AirPixel's semi-permanent installation also meant the system could be set up efficiently week after week across the TGL season – an important consideration for a league built around regular primetime broadcasts.
TGL set out to prove that golf could be reimagined for a new generation of fans. With AirPixel providing the tracking foundation, the broadcast team was free to push AR further than a moving-camera golf production had gone before – delivering a viewing experience as technically ambitious as the league itself.
"This technology significantly improves the experience for everyone, both in the venue and at home."
