Broadcast graphics are a crucial part of sports, informing, educating and entertaining viewers. Yet, they can pose an expensive and specialist challenge for production, often being cost-prohibitive for smaller rights holders and too complex for editorial teams to manage independently. MXMZ, which was founded in the Netherlands and has expanded rapidly across Europe and now North America, aims to change that.

According to Milo Boer, business manager at MXMZ Media, development began after Banijay’s sports production arm, Southfields, was faced with a challenge.

“The quotes Southfields received for graphics engines for very small sports matches could be 25% of the budget,” recalls Boer. “So they started experimenting with and then producing their own graphics software.”

This workaround was a lightweight, cloud-first graphics platform using HTML5 and scalable vector graphics (SVG), a format known for its efficiency.

“It’s super lightweight; we’re really talking about kilobits, not megabytes, that you’re sending to a browser,” Boer explains. “SVG is scalable, you can mask it, you can clip it, you can alter it at any moment in time, and it’s a scripted format.”

That tool was used internally at Southfields for several years across sports and small studio shows. The big shift came in 2022, when Netherlands-based Ziggo Sports asked Southfields to scale the system for 22 live channels. That was the step from internal workaround to serious broadcast product, with the deployment going live together with Grass Valley, using its AMPP (Agile Media Processing Platform) cloud infrastructure.

From there, the decision was made to spin it out as a product, forming MXMZ as a commercial company and extending deployments in the Netherlands, Germany and now North America.

Boer describes it as a platform “made by users” after Ziggo Sports brought its editorial teams into the development process. The philosophy is straightforward: keep design familiar, keep operation non-technical, and make deployment fast. Templates and exposed variables mean producers can tweak copy, colours, or even element positions without touching the design core.

“Editorial people can now stay for the show and control the graphics themselves, or you can completely automate it,” Boer says. “Deploying it in all your studios can literally be seconds. And every six months when we do a major release, we are trying to make it even easier and simpler.”

Light and scalable

According to Boer, SVG has three practical advantages for live production over raster-first systems: resolution independence, a compact and scripted format for efficient distribution and updates, and HTML5 playback for multiple timelines and smoother animations without heavy render workflows.

For designers, graphics are created in Illustrator, Figma, or Canva and imported directly as SVG files, with every layer exposed for animation. Fonts can be uploaded once to an S3 bucket and then instantly accessed across teams and integrations. Simple keyframe-based animation allows designers to build dynamic effects without needing to learn a proprietary system, and brand consistency is maintained through variables that can lock in approved colours, fonts, or positions. “Any designer in a production house can just use Illustrator and then the graphics are ‘done’,” says Boer. “We teach them for one day, and then they can start animating. And there are millions of people out there who understand Illustrator.”

Everything runs in AWS. “But we could move tomorrow to any other cloud provider,” Boer adds. “We also allow you to run locally in your own data centre, and we can provide all the microservices as a Docker. We didn’t want to be dependent or vendor-locked into one of the cloud providers. The complete ecosystem is super lightweight and can be deployed on a MacBook or a PC laptop, essentially anywhere.”

Boer gives the example of Southfields covering a last-minute event: “They literally just bring a laptop with a USB converter to SDI, and they immediately have professional graphics. That’s a big win.”

Boer also described how MXMZ is being used to power interactive formats, such as taking on-screen WhatsApp messages via an iPad for a host to drop live into the show. “If the host makes a mistake, it can always be overtaken by the operator, so you’re working together in real time,” says Boer.

The platform’s flexibility was also seen last year at the Euro Hockey League.

“We provided a referee with a Stream Deck, a small device that controlled the match on a single interface. Our platform provided the venue screens with scoring and special graphics, which were live on air,” says Boer, noting that the platform was able to generate multiple outputs and also trigger sounds.

“We also provide event tracking and support multiple tournaments and sports, including volleyball,” he says. Our platform can be used anywhere.”

Integration is a major strand of development. Grass Valley has become the platform’s integration technology partner, embedding MXMZ within its AMPP production ecosystem and FrameLight X editor. “We went live together with Grass Valley, which was a massive step for us,” says Boer. “Their AMPP platform allows users to migrate to the cloud, and it’s essentially where we live and we feel the future is.”

Postproduction is another area of focus, with a dedicated Adobe Premiere panel already in place and Media Composer integration on the roadmap. “The only way to create value for broadcast is to solve as many problems as possible,” says Boer. “And one of them is always, ‘I also want to use my graphics in post’.”

Warm reception

“People were saying at IBC, finally, a tool that leverages HTML and is really trying to make it a whole service, not just half the pie,” says Boer.

A new versioning system lets teams track adjustments across packages and roll back to earlier iterations instantly, with notes logged for each stage. “We register all the adjustments you’ve made as a user,” he explains. “Immediately it will take you back to version 2, or version 5 – so you can always go back in different settings.”

The platform’s roadmap extends to newsroom integration, such as Cuez and Ross systems. Beyond that, MXMZ is preparing for broader applications in streaming and IMAG, LED marketing displays, and even graphics for hotel room screens.

It’s currently aimed at broadcasters, but pricing starts at under $3,000 per year for smaller users. “We allow for day, month, and annual licences,” Boer says. “If you have a small subscription for a whole year, but you need to scale up for one month because you bought the rights for another competition, we allow you to do it; you know exactly what it’s going to cost.”

SVG’s lightweight nature and the cloud-first architecture offer energy and cost savings compared with rack-based rendering. Boer links this directly to CSRD, the new EU ESG requirements: “This is the first year that companies with a €50 million turnover need to report on CO₂. Imagine buying a machine that uses a minimum of 350W, and that’s on constantly; when it’s rendering, it’s double that, and then you need to cool it. We are busy now with an ESG consultant to get some hard numbers out there, but it looks very promising. You can lower your environmental impact and reach your goals earlier.”

“We really want to develop a tool that makes it super easy, so you, as a broadcast director, can relax on the weekend because you know it’s going to be fine, instead of always having to worry about having the right people and the right dependencies,” he adds. “A tool that is going to simplify workflows and not add more complexity.”