SMT, an Emmy-winning Durham company that provides data and on-screen graphics for televised sporting events, has doubled in size and expanded its product portfolio with its first acquisition.
SMT, formerly SportsMedia Technology, intends to announce today that it has purchased Information and Display Systems, a 125-employee company based in Jacksonville, Fla. Financial details aren't being disclosed.
IDS is the creator of the official scoring systems for the PGA Tour, NHL, NBA and U.S. Tennis Association; it also handles the content displayed on scoreboards at live sporting events, including the PGA Tour, Wimbledon and the coming Olympic Games in London.
"We serve different audiences, but we have very similar technology," said Gerard J. Hall, SMT's founder and CEO. "We've existed in almost parallel universes."
Hall said the deal doubles SMT's size with regard to both employees and annual revenue. He declined to disclose SMT's financial data but said the company is "very profitable" and that its revenue rose more than 15 percent last year.
Hall said that the deal is designed to accelerate the growth of SMT, which has 110 workers.
In addition to the ability to cross-sell to each other's customers, IDS's toeholds in Europe and Australia should help SMT expand into those regions, Hall said.
IDS will remain based in Florida and operate as a unit of SMT. IDS co-founder Rallis Pappas will remain president of the business unit.
No layoffs are planned.
"I consider IDS like the 1927 Yankees," Hall said. "You just want to keep them in place."
SMT, which has won 20 Emmy awards, is focused on making sports broadcasts more entertaining and informative through data and graphics that are shown on-screen. Customers include NBC Sunday Night Football and CBS Sports' NCAA Tournament broadcasts. Its products also are used by Turner Sports for its NBA games, by ESPN for NASCAR races and X games, and by regional networks that televise the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and other teams.
Game statistics supplied by SMT employees stationed on the sidelines are fed through the company's software to provide a running total of, say, basketball shots attempted and completed, as well as integrating up-to-date results with historical data. Other products include "augmented reality," such as inserting a yellow line on the screen to locate the first-down mark in a football game.
Hall said SMT's revenue climbed more than 20 percent last year and that the company has been profitable since it was incorporated in 1990.
The acquisition was made possible by the $12.5 million in funding that SMT raised in 2010, its first outside funding ever.
Hall said the company is interested in other deals as well.
"Were not going to be looking at acquisitions from a purely financial standpoint," he said. "Unless it makes strategic sense, we're not going to be interested."
