NBC Sports, NASCAR Transform Downtown Chicago for Second Chapter in Street-Racing Odyssey Chicago Street Race coverage features 90 cameras, team embeds, miked-up drivers By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Friday, July 5, 2024 - 1:35 pm
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NASCAR operations are typically among the biggest, most complex in live sports production. This weekend in Chicago, however, NBC Sports Group takes on an entirely different beast with the second-annual Chicago Street Race. The logistical feat was unprecedented until last year, when Chicago became the first-ever street race in NASCAR Cup Series history, and NBC Sports was nominated for a Sports Emmy for Outstanding Technical Team Event for its effort.
NBC Sports has rolled out its Peacock Pit Box near Chicago's iconic Buckingham Fountain.
This event is a true showcase for us, says NBC Sports Technical Manager Matt Hogencamp. After the success we saw in ratings and overall quality last year, we want to keep that going this year. Putting NASCAR on the streets is challenging no matter what you're doing, but, when you do something of this scale and with this many people involved and in the third-largest city in the U.S., it makes for a whole new level of complications, challenging but also exciting at the same time.
NBC Sports' coverage will deploy more than 90 cameras to showcase Saturday's NASCAR Xfinity Series The Loop 110 and Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Grant Park 165 races on the streets of Chicago. Included are 10 in-car systems (totaling 40 cameras), 30 robos, and, for live overhead shots, both a fixed-wing plane and a pair of drones.
Built From Scratch: Broadcast Infrastructure Had To Be Created Because Grant Park offers none of the technical infrastructure that NBC Sports is accustomed to at standard oval or road courses, the team must build everything from the street up. This means laying miles of fiber to provide connectivity to the compound and deploying a variety of camera platforms from custom towers constructed by InProduction to coordinate with the grandstands and suites.
There is a massive amount of coordination by the broadcast team, NASCAR, and the contractors responsible for the course construction.
We are literally going into public streets, starting with nothing, and building everything from scratch, says Hogencamp. It's definitely an interesting challenge, but this crew was able to pull it off last year. and we're going to do it again this week. I would put this crew and their effort up against any other [broadcast in the industry]. It probably even exceeds a lot of the other [high-profile] stuff that we do because we are truly building it all from scratch.
Making it work is the massive amount of coordination by the broadcast team, NASCAR, and the contractors responsible for course construction. It involves a complicated dance of placing fencing and broadcast equipment on public streets with a rolling closure schedule that goes all the way up to mere hours before the cars take the track.
There are two big takeaways from last year, says Hogencamp. One is patience. We are walking into a construction zone complete with high- viz vests and heavy equipment. This means that patience is a must.
The second is flexibility, he continues. As we saw with the historic rainfall at last year's event, we have to be able to roll with the punches. This crew is the best in the business, and we are very adept at being flexible. Up to this point in our 2024 season, we are 3 for 3 in having weather affect our broadcasts.
Complement of 90 Cameras Includes 40 In-Car, 30 Robos, Two Drones, Strada Crane NBC has rolled out Game Creek Video Peacock One A and B, Robo 1, and Edit 1 and NEP SRT 3 as primary production units. NASCAR productions, for their part, will be deploying NEP Supershooter 7 and ST7 for race control in the TV compound. Also on hand in the compound are BSI for RF needs and Fletcher for robos and specialty cameras; Beverly Hills Aerials has joined the mix in Chicago to provide live drones.
A mix of Game Creek Video and NEP mobile units are on hand at the truck compound in Grant Park.
The technical crew comprises more than 200 people from NBC Sports, Beverly Hills Aerials, BSI, Fletcher, Game Creek, MB Towers, SMT, and Beverly Hills Aerials. NBC's production team is more than 50 people deep.
Hogencamp says that NBC Sports will once again throw the kitchen sink at the Chicago Street Race. A whopping 90 cameras will be strategically placed across the Downtown Chicago course, including 10 hard cameras, five RF handhelds, six wired handhelds, 32 robotic cameras, two drones, a fixed-wing aircraft, and 40 in-car cameras. Also in that complement are eight super-slo-mos, two ultra-high-frame-rate (1,000 -fps) cameras, and an 80-ft. Strada crane providing epic views of the iconic Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park.
Chicago-based Fletcher Sports is providing more than 30 robotic camera systems for NBC Sports' coverage.
To accommodate the camera positions, InProduction is providing two MB Network Towers cranes, two MB Network Towers Spiders, six scissor lifts, and a 60-ft. boom lift from United Rentals.
We go into this with a blank sheet of paper - even to the point of working with NASCAR in how they develop the course and lay things out [to accommodate] our cable runs and camera positions, says Hogencamp. We have a great relationship with NASCAR and the city of Chicago: we're all working toward the same goal. It has been a true partnership, and I think that's even more true this year.
To accommodate the camera positions, InProduction is providing two MB Network Towers cranes, two MB Network Towers Spiders, six scissor lifts, and a 60-ft. boom lift from United Rentals.
Stage 2 Embeds, Peacock Pit Box Highlight A
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