Harvard University’s Imry Halevi Receives 2021 SVG College Pioneer Award

The live-video–tech wiz has been a respected industry leader during his accomplished career

The Sports Video Group is proud to announce that Imry Halevi, assistant director of athletics, multimedia and production, Harvard University Athletics, have been voted the recipient of the 2021 SVG College Pioneer Award.

The SVG College Pioneer Award celebrates innovators in video production and technology at the university level who have advanced the industry at large.

Halevi is being acknowledged during the SVG College Summit this week but will be formally celebrated at the next in-person SVG College Summit, to be held in the spring of 2022.

“Imry’s efforts to build bonds between ESPN, NESN, and other regional and national networks and his role in the launch of the Ivy League Network are the sort of pioneering efforts that have led to his selection by his peers,” says SVG Co-Executive Director Ken Kerschbaumer. “And his commitment to innovation has ensured that the Harvard Athletics student-run multimedia team can produce events for dozens of sports with little compromise.”

Halevi joined Harvard University Athletics as director of multimedia and production in 2012 and was promoted to his current position in 2018. Previously, he was at Northeastern University.

He manages Harvard Athletics’ multimedia team and leads all department-wide multimedia and production initiatives. He has completely reorganized videoboard productions and live game broadcasting for the Crimson, bringing these efforts in- house and expanding their scope and reach. With the addition of newly streamed sports, completion of two central control rooms, and implementation of an NCAA-leading fully automated streaming infrastructure for tennis and squash meets, Halevi was able to more than double online viewership and triple subscription revenue for Harvard broadcasts within his first year.

Over the past few years, Halevi established partnerships between Harvard Athletics and ESPN, NESN (New England Sports Network), and other national and regional networks to broadcast the Crimson’s in-house productions of football, softball, water polo, ice hockey, basketball, lacrosse, baseball, and wrestling events, the first such relationship in the Ivy League. Staffing the productions almost exclusively with students from local colleges, Halevi and the multimedia team have been able to provide real-world hands-on experience for dozens of students looking to develop production and broadcasting skills.

In producing and streaming 34 of Harvard’s 42 varsity teams, Halevi has worked with the Ivy League office and the seven other league schools to launch and develop an integrated platform for live and on-demand content: the Ivy League Network. In 2018, he helped the Ivy League launch its new partnership with ESPN and establish the “Ivy League on ESPN” network.

“In an era of live production when the name of the game is scale, few people have been more innovative in bringing live sports to their base of supporters than Imry,” says Brandon Costa, director, SVG College, SVG. “His knowledge of live technologies and workflows is elite, but his most pioneering aspect is the generosity he demonstrates with his industry peers. He is consistently sharing ideas, workflows, and solutions with his peers and has generally made the entire industry better as a result. We at SVG are humbled at the opportunity to celebrate what Imry has meant to the college-sports live-video community.”

Halevi is a member of the SVG College Summit Advisory Board and chaired the Sports Video Group’s 2016 College Sports Summit. Additionally, he chairs the Ivy League Digital Strategy Committee and the Ivy League Multimedia Directors Group and co-chairs the Harvard Athletics Multimedia and Technology Advisory Committee.

The SVG College Pioneer Award is selected in a multi-step voting process by a panel of past Pioneer Award honorees, current and former SVG College Summit chairmen, SVG staffers, and members of the SVG College Advisory Committee.

SVG College Sports Summit Pioneer Award Honorees:
2019: Tom Odjakjian, American Athletic Conference, Big East Conference, ESPN
2018: Rick Bagby, Clemson University
2017: Chris Taylor, Ball State University
2016: Jim Nachtman, Pennsylvania State University
2015: John Kvatek, University of Central Florida
2015: Jeff Schmahl, Texas A&M University, University of Nebraska
2014: Rick Church, Michigan State University
2013: Mark Rodin, Florida State University
2012: Ken Norris, University of California, Los Angeles