2020 in Review, Part 2: How MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, NWSL, and WNBA Productions Returned in the Age of Coronavirus By SVG Staff
Wednesday, January 6, 2021 - 11:48 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
When the pandemic caused the U.S. sports world to suddenly grind to a halt in mid-March, broadcasters and live-event producers were faced with one of the greatest challenges in the industry's history: How to bring back live sports broadcasts safely.
In the ensuing months, sports broadcasters, technology vendors, and production-service providers worked together to develop unique new workflows - both on-site and remote - that would pave the way for live-sports broadcasts to resume. Despite a litany of unknowns and a 2020 sports calendar thrown into chaos, all four major U.S. sports leagues returned along with the bulk of the major American sports events - providing a much needed respite for content-hungry sports fans struggling during the pandemic.
Here is the second of SVG's three-part series The Comeback: How Live Sports Production Returned in the Age of Coronavirus , which provides an in-depth look at the industry's monumental efforts to bring back live sports production in the face of coronavirus in 2020. The Comeback was originally published in the 2021 SVG Sports Production Yearbook, which you can read in full HERE. And make sure to check out the hyperlinks throughout this story for more in-depth articles on these groundbreaking productions.
MLS, NWSL Tournaments Take the Pitch
ESPN's GoalCam was installed in all goals on all fields at Wide World of Sports for the MLS Is Back Tournament.
After European soccer got a head start with Bundesliga, Premier League, La Liga, Series A, and others taking the pitch in May and early June, American soccer got into the game with a pair of stateside tournaments just as summer kicked off. Both the NWSL Challenge Cup and the MLS Is Back Tournament were held inside bubbles to keep players, personnel, and broadcast crew safe.
First up was the NWSL Challenge Cup, which not only marked the return of live team sports in the U.S. on June 27 but also was the first time an NWSL match appeared on a broadcast network.
NWSL commentators Jenn Hildreth (seen here) and Aly Wagner were located in Vista's studio in Dania Beach, FL, where they called the action for the NWSL Challenge Cup.
To produce the 23 match broadcasts (the opener and Champion- ship Game aired on CBS, with all matches streamed on CBS All Access) from Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman, UT, the league and CBS Sports teamed with longtime NWSL partner Vista Worldlink to remotely produce the matches from its centralized broadcast facility in Dania Beach, FL. A total of 18 transmission paths were sent from Utah to Vista's production facility - via satellite uplink, IP, and bonded cellular to ensure redundancy - to handle camera feeds and comms.
ESPN'S Kevin Cleary (foreground) and A1 Andy Bartley 6 ft. apart aboard F&F Productions' GTX 19 for the MLS Is Back Tournament in Orlando.
Soon after in July, the MLS Is Back Tournament kicked off from Disney World's Wide World of Sports complex in Orlando. ESPN served as host broadcaster for all 54 match broadcasts - which were carried on a combination of ESPN, Fox Sports, and Univision/TUDN in the U.S. and on TSN in Canada. ESPN rolled out a production complement unprecedented for MLS coverage. Coverage of the three active playing fields in Orlando featured a whopping 33 cameras per field, including a cable-suspended aerial system, drones, a jib cart, pole cams, goal cams, and POVs in the locker rooms. Other highlights included microphones embedded in the field and a 300-ft.-long blue chromakey wall surrounding the field for placement of virtual graphics in place of fans in the stands.
Baseball Returns With RSNs Taking the Production Lead A Fox Sports Florida robo operator was located in the stands at Tropicana Field for a Tampa Bay Rays Summer Camp game.
Major League Baseball was the first of the big four major sports leagues that returned to action with a belated opening night on July 23. MLB Opening Day marked the culmination of months of planning by both regional sports networks and national broadcasters to get baseball back on the air.
A1 Joe Carpenter overseeing the artificial-crowd-audio mix in Game Creek's Riverhawk production truck outside MLB Network's studios.
Regional sports networks took the lead for live-game productions. To limit the number of people and facilities onsite, the league opted to have the home-team RSN in each market produce a neutral/clean world feed of each game to distribute to the away-team RSN and, when necessary, the national broadcaster. Check out SVG's full stories on the efforts of Sinclair's Fox Sports Regional Networks, NBC Sports Regional Networks, AT&T SportsNet RSNs, NESN, and MASN.
Under the model set up by the league, the home RSN's production team was responsible for producing a clean world- feed broadcast that presented a 50/50 (equal on-air-time), unbiased narrative of the game for both teams. This feed was delivered to the away RSN and/or national broadcaster, which added its own graphics, commentary, studio/shoulder content, and commercials.
Matt Vasgersian (left) and Alex Rodriguez (right) call the action from a studio at ESPN's facility in Bristol, CT.
In addition to this clean feed, the away RSN was provided with one or two dedicated iso cameras, which the director could weave in team-specific shots to help customize the telecast. Nearly all RSNs deployed their regular mobile units at the ballpark to produce these world feeds for home games, while away RSNs either used their truck at their own team's ballpark or integrated their telecasts from control rooms in their studio. In addition, artificial crowd noise was ha
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
04/12/2025
SBS launches Future Frames initiative to support emerging First Nations video ed...
04/12/2025
Coronal mass ejections caused by eruptions on the surface of the sun can have fa...
04/12/2025
Gracenote Content Connect enables media ecosystem to precisely align ad campaigns and programming based on rich content signals
NEW YORK - December 4, 2025 - N...
2020 in Review, Part 2: How MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, NWSL, and WNBA Productions Returned in the Age of Coronavirus By SVG Staff 
