OP graduates become Virtual Eye’s secret weapon

It’s been a busy few months for the team at Dunedin’s Virtual Eye.

The company which powers international sports broadcasts with its award-winning technology and 3D graphics recently celebrated winning its fifth Sports Emmy award and a third George Wensel award for Technical Achievement, for the company’s work with Major League Baseball in developing the Umpire Cam.

It was America’s Cup yachting that first introduced the company's pioneering sports technology systems to the world (then known as Animation Research), under the leadership of founder Sir Ian Taylor and Chief Product and Technology Officer, John Rendall.

Sir Ian’s son Ben Taylor is now CEO of the company, which is focussed on growing in four main sports – golf (57 broadcasts delivered this year to date), cricket, sailing, and baseball (~2,500 MLB games each year).

And behind the scenes operating this innovative technology is a steady stream of students and graduates from Otago Polytechnic’s Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Science (Performance Analysis) programme, who work as sports analysts and graphics operators.

“A few years ago, we partnered with Otago Polytechnic to help develop broadcast operators with the rare mix of live broadcast, technology, and sport knowledge this work demands,” says Ben.

“These students get real, hands-on experience in live environments.”

He says analysts need to be able to understand sport, understand broadcast production, and quickly log (code) sports data on computer systems.

And during the 2026 PGA Championship in May, an impressive 13 of the 20-strong team working across the event’s 15 feeds were current or former Otago Polytechnic Applied Science students.

For Hayden Croft - Head of Health and Performance Analyst for the Silver Ferns – what’s been impressive to watch is the remarkable career acceleration of the students. Many have achieved pinnacle sports broadcast roles after just a few years with the team.

"We’ve structured things to be really flexible and we work with our ākonga to ensure they can take advantage of great placement opportunities like Virtual Eye,” he says.

Many of the students clock up hundreds of hours with the company over a year. That includes their regular programme placements along with paid opportunities while they're working on sports campaigns, across both day and overnight shifts. A few even get to travel overseas to work at major sporting events, while still juggling their study requirements.

2023 graduate Jack Wylie now works globally and is responsible for operating the drone which won the company and its PGA Tour partners a Sports Emmy award in 2025 for its groundbreaking smart tracing AR (augmented reality) ball technology.

“Jack will do 30 events for us this year. He’s an extremely talented broadcast operator,” says Ben.

“Onsite producers call him ‘Jack Raptor’ – after the name of the drone. They absolutely love the technology and they love his work.”

Virtual Eye also partners with Otago Polytechnic to offer a scholarship for exceptional students, covering the cost of their postgraduate studies.

Jack won the award in 2024, and twins Sam and Hudson James-Everton got the scholarship boost in 2023 (the brothers are now working at Otago Cricket and Auckland FC respectively).

Meanwhile, 2024 OP graduate Cam Jackson is now the company’s lead 3D operator for cricket. He sits in the main chair for Fox Cricket’s coverage in Australia and will also do the lion’s share of matches in New Zealand for Sky Sport.

And recent graduate Alfie McIntosh was entrusted with outputting graphics for the 25-26 Ashes series as well as working on a major Indian cricket series for broadcast giant JioStar while still studying at the polytech. He’s now leading teams and training new cohorts of analysts.

Alfie also worked alongside fellow ‘class of 2025’ Applied Science students Alice Petrie, Meg Roach, and Ana Tarapi in running the Tiger Woods-backed, technology-driven golf competition, TGL (golf league).

Ben isn’t surprised the young analysts and operators are highly sought after internationally in the wider industry, and is proud to see alumni now working at roles at top sports organisations, and doing analysis for everything from netball to the Police.

“Our international partners are always asking us, ‘How on earth do you get such good operators?’

“And they’re often keen to tap into that talent for their own events. So that makes our relationship with Otago Polytechnic really important in terms of career pathways and continuing to bring through that next group of operators and analysts.”