Basketball is a spacing game most viewers never see.
An NBA possession is decided by things the broadcast camera flattens: how the floor is spaced, who switches onto whom, the half-step that opens a shot. Analysts have always known it's there — but explaining it with a telestrator and a freeze frame only gets you so far, and it stops the show cold.
For its NBA coverage, NBC wanted to let analysts show the tactical story — fast enough to keep pace with a live studio, clear enough for a national audience that ranges from die-hards to first-time viewers.
A live AR court the analyst drives by touch.
Sandbox gives NBC's talent a fully rendered AR basketball court they operate by hand, live on air. They drop in tracking plays, pull up shot charts, isolate a single player, and replay a possession in three dimensions — moving bodies and redrawing the spacing to show what should have happened next.
Because the analyst manipulates the scene in real time rather than running pre-built clips, the graphic follows the conversation — a question from the desk gets answered by physically demonstrating it on the floor in front of the audience.
Sandbox's first run in major US team sport.
NBA on NBC marks Sandbox's debut in major North American team sport — and the platform has become a recurring part of the show, used in pregame and in-game segments and called out by name on air by the talent. The same AR environment proven on the Tour de France now tells the story of a completely different sport, at a completely different tempo.