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FeedWave of the Future
A new invention by a Villanova University professor could transform televised sports.
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It’s embedded in Ed Dougherty’s DNA. His maternal grandfather—an electrician on the Pennsylvania Railroad—designed and patented a cattle catcher device for trolley cars that automatically slammed on the brakes. Growing up in Overbrook, Dougherty fiddled around with motors, switch relays and vacuum tubes from 1940s radios—so much so that his parents pegged him as a blossoming engineer.
Flash forward 50 years. As a visiting assistant engineering professor at Villanova University, Dougherty offers his pearls of wisdom in a “Technology and Innovation” undergraduate course. He’s also the mad scientist behind the Wavecam, an aerial camera system built to pan, tilt and zoom, all while “flying vertically” across football fields, basketball courts and hockey rinks.
Dougherty’s original goal was to take existing aerial robotic technology and make it deployable on a mass basis for use in the broadcast industry. Wavecam made its debut in 2008 with Villanova basketball and Penn State football. It was first installed at Villanova’s Pavilion. Then a second system was put into the school’s football stadium. Wavecam Media has supplied live HD feeds for Wildcats basketball on ESPN and for football on Comcast SportsNet and the Versus network.
Unlike the Skycam system, Wavecam is a permanent installation. In the fall of 2009, it found its way into the practice football facilities at the University of Alabama and California University of Pennsylvania. And in a major coup, the University of Kansas now has it in its basketball arena.
The company is marketing the technology to NFL franchises and scores of pro and college hockey and basketball teams, even the horse-racing industry. In addition, concert promoters, political candidates’ speech sites and even mega-churches are exploring the mobile aerial camera system.
“It’s been a difficult environment—every cost is scrutinized,” says Wavecam CEO Gary Giegerich. “We’ve started with a few key accounts and are building from there. Awareness builds desire.”
Dougherty is the technology officer and co-founder of Wavecam Media. He was part of the Emmy Award-winning engineering team that invented and built the Skycam in 1984. “The [Wavecam] literally flies around the stadium or arena along thin suspension lines, kind of like a marionette,” he says. “It can catch the action from any position and any angle. It’s just like sitting in the front row.”
The camera system was added to Penn State’s indoor practice facility in 2008. It covers both fields with a smooth sweeping motion, capturing things video coordinators couldn’t snare from fixed positions. The result: superior views, greater detail and unparalleled perspectives.
“In this profession, it can be an inch between a good play and a bad play,” says Tom Bradley, Penn State’s defensive coordinator. “The players today are a video generation. We teach so much more off of film than off the blackboard. In the old days, we were 16-millimeter guys. Film was terrible. You couldn’t get the shots you wanted.”
At Villanova’s Pavilion, the Wavecam is set up across the court from the basketball teams’ benches, so coaches wouldn’t get paranoid about a camera hovering over their time-out huddles.
“The first time I saw the technology, it shocked me,” says men’s head basketball coach Jay Wright. “We had a great game, and we were able to use that game as a teaching tool. Our players can see an entire press unfold in front of them.”
