
National Lacrosse League's First Outdoor Game Is Its Largest Production' Ever Stadium Showdown' brings box lacrosse to San Diego's Snapdragon Stadium By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Friday, March 3, 2023 - 2:56 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The National Lacrosse League (NLL) will make history this weekend hosting the Stadium Showdown (Saturday, 4:30 p.m. ET/1:30 p.m. PT, ESPN+), the first outdoor game for the professional box lacrosse league. At Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, the hometown Seals host the Las Vegas Desert Dogs in an event that the league is describing as its largest production ever.
The league, which typically produces its live game broadcasts via a centralized REMI workflow, is going big onsite with two production trucks, 13 cameras, microphones on selected players and coaches, and a crew of more than 60 personnel.
On Saturday, the National Lacrosse League will host the Stadium Showdown at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego. It will be the first outdoor game in the box lacrosse league's history.
We were extremely committed to making sure that this was a broadcast that was commensurate with the historic proportions of doing an outside game, says Joel Feld, EVP, broadcast and content, National Lacrosse League. It's also a way for the league to showcase the game in a way that it hasn't been showcased before. We'll get to test how some of this additional equipment - which, frankly, is commonplace in other [sports] - can cover the game in a way that no NLL game has been covered before.
In the beefed-up camera arsenal is a Spidercam, as well as the league's take on the shallow-depth-of-field gimbal.
The Spidercam on this show marks the first time in NLL history that a cabled aerial camera will be used on a live game broadcast. It required a special rigging plan because the playing surface runs the length of the stadium's end zone: the four points of the Spidercam are limited to one quadrant of the stadium, as opposed to spanning the venue's entirety as would typical with a cabled aerial camera system.
Feld expects the Spidercam shots to really pop and contribute to the elevated look of the broadcast.
The game moves really fast up and down the floor, Feld explains. Unlike soccer or even football, it's going to be, I think, a very interesting experiment for our director to get used to and figure out how to make the camera work within the context of the broadcast itself. From a live perspective and from a replay perspective, I do think it's a game-changer and is going to be a very interesting way of being able to see the game.
https://twitter.com/NLL/status/1631701222511251456
The NLL is partnering with Ross Production Services to handle operations, crewing, and logistics. The traditional onsite show is a significant departure for a league that typically produces its entire regular-season schedule via a league-run REMI workflow.
A regular-season game features four or five cameras. Even the TSN Game of the Week, an elevated weekly production, deploys about eight.
Ed Derse, consultant, broadcast operations and technology, NLL, points out that some elements of the league's live production workflow will still be deployed: such as the use of IP for transmission to selected partners via BitFire as well as the league's cloud-native live scorebug.
Stadium Showdown, though, with its added resources onsite, will certainly present a different final product.
I think we'll have the ability to do a better job at portraying the physicality of the game, says Derse. Our game moves so fast, and we don't always have the ability to show a lot of the physical contact; a lot of that gets missed. I think that some of these additional camera angles are going to be able to convey how big, strong, and fast these guys are.
Onsite in San Diego from to produce the game are Ross Productions producer Todd Jones; director Brett Lancaster; Director, Special Projects Em Donald; and Director, Business Development, John Vassallo.
The live-broadcast side is also working closely with the San Diego Seals on this project, including President Paul Speaker; President, Lacrosse Operations, Steve Govett, and Director, Game Presentation, Mike Grace. Additionally, Toriana Johnson, event manager, Snapdragon Stadium, and venue parent Oak View Group provided key contributions.
Production setup will be a bit compressed because Snapdragon Stadium is hosting a pair of field lacrosse games on Friday. That means that the box lacrosse structure can't be erected and final broadcast plans can't be set until very early Saturday morning.
Stadium Showdown is an event many years in the making for the NLL. In fact, the league had an event in San Diego called the Rumble on the Runway, which was set to take place at the MCAS Miramar base (where the movie Top Gun was filmed). Planned for February 2020, the event was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stadium Showdown can be seen live on ESPN+, TSN+, KSWB-TV San Diego, KVMY Las Vegas, and same-day rebroadcast on ESPNU at 11 p.m. ET.
More from Sports Video Group
15/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: FOX Sports Aims To Capture Chatty Players on the Fi...
15/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: From Live Event Coverage to Studio Shows, MLB Netwo...
15/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: FOX Sports' Francisco Contreras and Tom Lynch o...
15/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star: FOX Sports' Production Is Bigger Than Ever in Steamy...
15/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star: FOX Sports Director Matt Gangl and Producer Pete Machesk...
14/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: ESPN Preps for Home Run Derby Broadcast While Produ...
14/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: ESPN Operations on Supporting Monday's Home Run...
14/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: ESPN's Home Run Derby: Statcast Edition' T...
14/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: ESPN Producer Scott Matthews Goes Inside the Home R...
14/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: ESPN's Phil Orlins on Adding Live Drone AR Smar...
14/07/2025
Sony's New Coach's Headset Was Designed in Collaboration With the NFL Featuring a custom dynamic boom mic, the headset will debut in the fall By Dan Da...
14/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: MLB Network's Marc Caiafa and Tom Guidice on th...
13/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: MLB Network Marks Five Straight Years of Onsite MLB...
11/07/2025
Behind the Mic: Amazon Prime Preps for First Season of NBA Action; MSG Networks ...
11/07/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Suite Studios' Craig Hering on Adapting to Client...
11/07/2025
2025 SVG Content Management Forum Breaks Down AI's Impact, Continued Transit...
11/07/2025
A Journey HOME: University of Nebraska's HuskerVision Goes IP Leaders from the HuskerVision and Lawo share their IP learnings By SVG Staff
Friday, July 1...
11/07/2025
CMSI, Remote Picture Labs, Ace ESPN's Cloud-Based Editing Efforts for Wimble...
11/07/2025
Netflix Enters the Live-Boxing-Production Ring for Round 2 With Historic Taylor-...
10/07/2025
5G for all? What the DFL's use of Easy5G and RefCam could mean for events in...
10/07/2025
Save the Date: PGA TOUR Studios Welcomes SVG Remote Production Summit on Oct 14-...
10/07/2025
Cloud on the Road: How Remote-Production-Service Providers Are Adapting to a New...
10/07/2025
Seattle Kraken's Ryan Schaber on the NHL Team Taking Live Game Productions I...
10/07/2025
FOX Sports Reboots Small Control Room in Los Angeles as Hub for Vertical-First P...
10/07/2025
SVG Sit-Down: MSE's Zach Leonsis, ViewLift's Rick Allen Go Deep on Joint...
09/07/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment, ViewLift Unveil Broadcast/Streaming Joint Ven...
09/07/2025
SVG Europe Audio State of Wireless Mics Forum: If we lose the spectrum, it...
09/07/2025
Tech Focus: Athlete Audio - Venues Provide Sound Just for the Players From locker room to field of play, personalized systems help rev up the athletes By Dan D...
08/07/2025
Groundbreaking Gamecocks: Inside University of South Carolina's Four-Control...
08/07/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment's Samantha Brady on the Power of the RSN...
08/07/2025
Live From 2025 FIFA Club World Cup: FIFA, HBS Focus on Tournament Wrap, With an ...
08/07/2025
SVG Rewind: NESN Goes Behind the Scenes of 1975 Red Sox Retro Broadcast NESN is following up the retrocast with a week-long celebration of the Green Monster By...
07/07/2025
1-2 Punch: The Cloud, Generative AI, and the Future of Sports-Content Distributi...
07/07/2025
Tests and decisions: Formula E host broadcaster Aurora on launching new AR graph...
07/07/2025
Building tension: Using new AR graphics for storytelling at the Formula E penult...
07/07/2025
Altitude Sports' Matt Krol on the Success of the RSN's In-Arena Postgame...
07/07/2025
SVG Rewind: Four NFL Clubs Bring Us on Set of Respective Media Day Shoots An in-depth conversation with 49ers Laura Johnson, Ravens Jay O'Brien, Las Vegas R...
07/07/2025
Cosm To Build Fifth Shared Reality Venue in Cleveland as Part of Bedrock's ...
02/07/2025
Progressive realism: Aurora on taking up the broadcast reins for World RX alongs...
02/07/2025
Great speed: New host broadcaster Aurora on getting the World RX 2025 season pro...
02/07/2025
Seat of its pants: Aurora boxes clever and looks ahead for the FIA as new host b...
02/07/2025
UEFA Women's Euro 2025: EBU, BBC Sport and Sunset Vine talk coverage plans, ...
02/07/2025
UEFA Women's Euro 2025: Women's Super League launches new content series...
02/07/2025
UEFA Women's Euro 2025: Ignite puts fans and players front and centre with t...
02/07/2025
Storytelling in the Live Game Broadcast: ESPN Director Jimmy Platt Breaks Down t...
02/07/2025
CONCACAF's Miguel Angel Garcia on the Gold Cup's Enhanced 2025 Productio...
01/07/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Spyrosoft's Jonathan Witty on Futher Business Exp...
01/07/2025
The NIL Effect: How the Shifting Business of College Athletics Impacts On-Campus...
01/07/2025
Cherry on the cake: Inside the technical production of the Tour de France 2025 w...
01/07/2025
NESN's Josh Jun on Keeping Alternative Broadcasts Fresh for Boston Red Sox, ...