
SVG Sit-Down: Verizon Business's Lee Field, Michael Ruhnke, Josh Arensberg on Making Video Ingest Over 5G the Norm Verizon looks to extend its NFL success across the sports-media industry By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Friday, May 26, 2023 - 12:54 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
With the sports-broadcast industry moving toward IP and major onsite sports events requiring massive amounts of connectivity to power fan experiences, telecommunications providers like Verizon are at the center of much of what makes live sports exciting and entertaining.
Most notably, Verizon Business has been working closely with the National Football League on projects surrounding tentpole events like the Super Bowl and the NFL Draft to build unique and connected fan experiences largely around video. Those use cases are setting the stage for similar 5G-layered deployments across sports of all kinds and sizes.
From left: Verizon Business's Michael Ruhnke, Lee Field, and Josh Arensberg at NAB 2023
SVG recently spoke with Verizon Business Managing Director, Global Solutions, Lee Field; Group VP, Enterprise and Commercial Accounts, Michael Ruhnke, and CTO, Media and Entertainment, Josh Arensberg about how the company's work can be scaled, how they see broadcasters demanding higher connectivity at venues, and what's next for the company in its work in live sports production.
What is Verizon Business's chief goal as it pertains to its involvement in live sports production?
Field: [Our focus is] taking what we've done with private network for the NFL and creating use cases typically around video. In the next six months, we would like to see video ingest on 5G become not just a science experiment but the norm. We're working with different leagues, different teams, different sports to build out those use cases and develop how the future of connectivity for video ingest looks.
The NFL is a big-time project: we're talking about the Super Bowl inside a new building like SoFi Stadium. What learnings from that are transferable or scalable or replicable for a league that's not the NFL and an event that's not the Super Bowl?
Field: As we were testing what we were doing, we did a lot of the testing in Miami [at Hard Rock Stadium], and [our] equipment was there for a good period of time. We found all sorts of different nuances, because there's quite an RF-dense environment on that site. We run a macro network. All of the carriers operate in there; they use different spectrum, different frequencies. We found quite quickly how we can build CBRS [Citizens Broadband Radio Service] and a private network to coexist with existing networks, and we could see that it was transferable. Any sport that's using digital radio or any RF-based communication mechanism, this is what the future looks like for them.
We're going to see a huge shift from radio and the business spectrum that the radio guys use. Everything's crossing our network: LTE Band 48 support is there in an iPhone; it's there in a Samsung device. Everyone has the kit already. We've got the network already; we've got the private-network capability. That's where we are seeing these things move.
Ruhnke: And you can apply that to motorsport. One of the next conversations is taking it to [hockey] and getting broadcasters behind the bench.
Field: We've done a lot of work making it mobile. As sports move around, so do we. A great example was the work we did in London with the NFL: deliver those games. Deliver the same thing in Germany. That was a lesson learned because, typically, we're very good at selling our networks in the U.S.; we've gotten very good at it in Europe. We're extending to Asia Pacific, and you'll see quite quickly things that we are doing outside of the U.S.
Ruhnke: As the big picture, we think about outcomes. On private-network technology, it's all about what is the use case? What is the next thing we can do beyond coach-to-coach? Maybe that's coach-to-player. What's the next thing that we can do with layering experiences in a venue instance: accelerated access, cashless retail - those types of things we're doing to push the envelope a little bit. Not just getting it there but leveraging it for that next use case that makes an experience better, makes venues operate better.
Field: It's a good point around what we're doing with edge compute. The work we've done with that is putting wavelength - so, edge compute - inside the cellular network and going, next step, in the venue. Imagine a scenario where I could deploy a Zixi media gateway inside the venue on an edge-compute node or a private network or a public network that gives me the ability to pull video over a private network, push it out to the fans in the stadium, and also push it out to any distribution broadcast platform. With what's changing in the market, the entire RSM model? Right place, right time.
In the business, are you speaking with broadcasters as well, or are most of your conversations with leagues, facilities, venues?
Field: A bit of both. We're in that space because we can learn things and solve problems that are incredibly applicable to our enterprise customer base. If we could solve it for 80,000, 100,000 people at an F1 event, we can take that into the theme-park industry. We could take it into large campus environments. We could take into financial services, manufacturing. It's taking those lessons that we learn in an environment where low latency is key, where no frame loss is key, where reliability is key. You cannot drop a video or the communications for a league. The level of resilience is incredible. We're solving problems that are big problems.
Ruhnke: We're excited. There are major opportunities and even
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
07/08/2025
July 8 2025, 22:30 (PDT) Tata Motors & Dolby Bring Dolby Atmos to Harrier.ev, R...
18/07/2025
Blanche Barton, Peter Gilmore, Scott Cummings, Sundance Institute Director of Programming Kim Yutani, and Peggy Nadramia throwing horns. (Stephen Lovekin/Shutte...
18/07/2025
By Jessica Herndon
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Fest...
18/07/2025
BOSTON Sports network NESN today relaunched the NESN 360 app with a redesigned user experience and upgrades....
18/07/2025
Berklee Singers Wow the Competition on Netflixs Building the Band Netflixs new music competition show features two Berklee artists looking to make their pop b...
18/07/2025
As the House of Representatives voted early Friday morning to eliminate federal funding for public broadcasting, advocates warned that the elimination of $1 bil...
18/07/2025
DENVER Imagine Communications has announced that it is deepening its commitment to the North American sports and live events market with investments in its prod...
18/07/2025
LOS GATOS, Calif. Netflix once again reported strong financial growth, with revenue increasing 16% year-over-year to $11.079 billion in Q2 2025 as net income s...
18/07/2025
Live from the 153rd Open Championship: SMT Enhances Video Board Experience; Enab...
18/07/2025
ShotTracker's Davyeon Ross on Revolutionizing Basketball On the Court and ...
18/07/2025
Home Pitch: How the Danish League Brought Its Live Match Production In-House Matchday Production produced 800+ matches across Denmark in its first year By Geor...
18/07/2025
Live From the 153rd Open Championship: EMG Debuts Spidercam for Golf, Expands Su...
18/07/2025
Usyk vs Dubois II: Bringing the fight to life with state of the art cameras and ...
18/07/2025
Usyk vs Dubois II: DAZN's head of boxing Chris Glanville talks helicopters, ...
18/07/2025
Live From the 153rd Open Championship: NBC Expands Unilateral Effort; Shared Stu...
18/07/2025
Warner Bros. Discovery's Anne Graham on Training New Professionals to Ensure...
18/07/2025
Live From the 153rd Open Championship: How R&A Spidercam Became a Reality for Go...
18/07/2025
ESPN Bulks Up Onsite Studios, Cameras, Player Mics for WNBA All-Star Weekend Besides the game, four studio shows will be produced onsite By Jason Dachman, Edit...
18/07/2025
Friday 18 July 2025
Credit: Marc Sethi
The Sky Arts Awards will return on 16 September, once again taking place at the iconic Roundhouse in London. Produced b...
18/07/2025
This month, players can dive into special crossover events featuring SpongeBob SquarePants in Snake.io+ and Crossy Road Castle, available exclusively on Apple A...
18/07/2025
Up for the Match brings the fun, the passion-and a bit of Riverdance- tomorrow n...
17/07/2025
Blanche Barton, Peter Gilmore, Scott Cummings, Sundance Institute Director of Programming Kim Yutani, and Peggy Nadramia throwing horns. (Stephen Lovekin/Shutte...
17/07/2025
Spotify's goal with audiobooks is to help grow the publishing industry and create the best possible experience for booklovers, which is why we're launch...
17/07/2025
An advanced large solid rocket motor hot fire test conducted at L3Harris' Camden, Arkansas, site....
17/07/2025
L3Harris payloads and components have been on board every U.S. GPS satellite-more than 70 missions since the 1970s. Our technology is at the core of GPS availab...
17/07/2025
L3Harris' pack of launched effects is comprised of multi-role vehicles that ...
17/07/2025
NEW YORK - July 17, 2025 - Gracenote, the content data business unit of Nielsen, has announced the appointment of Ryan Moore to the new role of Chief Business O...
17/07/2025
READING, Pa. Network technology startup Miri Technologies has added David Cohen as vice president, business development. He'll be tasked with expanding the ...
17/07/2025
Berklee Wins CASE Award for Standout Digital Campaign The Alumni Affairs team's Variations Signature Series earned recognition for offering an authentic p...
17/07/2025
Early Thursday morning, the U.S. Senate voted to cut federal funding for PBS and NPR in a bill that also included cuts for foreign aid. In a 51-48 vote, the act...
17/07/2025
GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland Pavilions across IBC2025 (12 15 September, RAI Amsterdam) feature a remarkable 34 companies, each providing unique, innovativ...
17/07/2025
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers today introduced its Content Provenance and Authenticity (CPA) in Media Study Group (S...
17/07/2025
NEW YORK Despite widespread concerns about a soft advertising market, NBCUniversal said it closed its 2025-26 upfront negotiation cycle with a record ad sales v...
17/07/2025
NEW YORK Television advertising remains an effective means to market and influence younger baby boomer and Generation X consumers approaching retirement age, ac...
17/07/2025
ALLENTOWN, Pa. & JERSEY CITY, N.J. Service Electric Cable TV and OpenVault have announced that the operator is deploying the OpenVault Proactive Network Manage...
17/07/2025
WASHINGTON Following up on his first major policy speech just two ago, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr is promising to buck the usual summ...
17/07/2025
Luxembourg, 14 July 2025 - SES received the final regulatory approvals for the SES-Intelsat transaction, including the US Federal Communications Commission.
O...
17/07/2025
Berklee Alumni Nominated for 2025 Emmy Awards Twenty-seven Berklee alumni received nominations across categories in sound mixing, sound editing, and compositi...
17/07/2025
Back to All News
What We Watched the First Half of 2025
Entertainment
17 July 2025
Global
Link copied to clipboard
Today, we're sharing our latest Eng...
17/07/2025
Cast your vote in 2 categories for Ivory 3 American Concert DIvory 3 American Concert D is in the 2025 MIDI Innovation Awards and we are honored to be nominated...
17/07/2025
SVG Sit-Down: OpenDrives' Sean Lee, Michael Wilsker, and Jason Matousek on E...
17/07/2025
Oracle's Geoff Tognetti on Staying Ahead of the AI Curve Through Further Ado...
17/07/2025
NBA's Summer League Is a Hot Bed of AI, Immersive Innovation Testing Audio mixing, intelligent camera framing are among AI-driven efforts By Ken Kerschbaum...
17/07/2025
SVG's TranSPORT Conference Returns to NYC on Oct. 21; Register Today! By SVG Staff
Thursday, July 17, 2025 - 8:29 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
St...
17/07/2025
Gravity Media chosen as group name for merged OB business By George Bevir
Wednesday, July 16, 2025 - 11:30
Print This Story
Gravity Media executive chairm...
17/07/2025
SES Closes Deal to Acquire Intelsat, Creating New Giant in Satellite Connectivit...
17/07/2025
How MLB Pulled Off That Unforgettable Hank Aaron Tribute at the All-Star Game Vintage content, state-of-the-art projection/processing combine in marvelous mile...
17/07/2025
Wuppertal July 17, 2025
Riedel Communications Powers Handa Opera on Sydney Har...