Goooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!

Yesterday the USPTO published a patent app (20060273522) from Broadcast Sports Inc., entitled Camera mounting system for sports goal structures. Why should you care? And who's Broadcast Sports?

Trust me. You know about Broadcast Sports. Do you remember football's TurfCam? Have you watched baseball's DiamondCam? Let me jog your memory.

• TurfCam (2005): excerpt from link appears below

  Broadcast Sports Inc. of Odenton operated 12 tiny cameras, known as TurfCams, as part of Fox Sports' coverage at Super Bowl XXXIX.
  
  Eight of the dime-sized cameras were implanted in the orange pylons tucked into the corners of the two end zones, while four others were planted on the field: two at the mark where extra points are snapped from and two on the hash marks at the 20-yard lines.

• DiamondCam (2004): excerpt from link appears below

  Fox Diamond-Cams, provided by Broadcast Sports Inc., were installed at Houston's Minute Maid Park in June for upward-looking, field-level views of home plate and the pitcher's mound.
  
  Each Diamond-Cam has a Camera Control Unit (CCU) that contains a Charged Coupled Device (CCD) sensor and a lens, which altogether is about two inches long and one-quarter inch wide. Two were buried in the ground facing home plate and the batter. A third, positioned on the centerline of the pitching mound, looked upward at the pitcher.

Now it appears that Broadcast Sports is creating GoalCam for soccer. Take a look at how they want to install a camera inside the woodwork.