Major League Baseball Sued Over PITCH F/X System

SportsMEDIA Technology Corp. is suing MLB Advanced Media over PITCHf/x. The complaint alleges that PITCH F/X was used to build Statcast, shown here with data about a Bryce Harper home run.SportsMEDIA Technology Corp. (SMT), a technology company whose predecessor was hired to help build Major League Baseball’s PITCHf/x system, has sued the league’s media rights arm, MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM), for patent infringement, trade secret theft and breach of contract. The 92-page complaint describes a relationship that began more than a decade ago to create the pitch-tracking technology, real-time graphics and live-sports video enhancements that are ubiquitous today during MLB broadcasts, but ended acrimoniously when MLBAM allegedly hired a competitor to run the new Statcast system and declined to engage with SMT for the 2017 season.

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