Fox Sports Ups College Football Look as Canon, Sony Power Shallow Focus Coverage

Fox Sports Ups College Football Look as Canon, Sony Power Shallow Focus CoverageBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director

Wednesday, September 10, 2025 - 8:00 am

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The 2025 College Football season is entering its third official week and for Fox Sports the 108-game slate is about to get more interesting as it won't be long until scheduling flexibility kicks in to make sure the Fox Sports team is delivering the best games of the week.

We're kind of in leisure land right now where we've known the games for a while and have a chance to prepare, says Dave Jones, Fox Sports, director, technical operations. But starting in week four we have six-day picks [for the games] and it turns into a big mosh. But that's also where we'll get into real conference play where every game has meaning so we're really excited.

Lindsay Grant Waine, Fox Sports, senior manager, operations, says the Fox Sports college production effort is comprised of eight crews who work with eight different trucks and then if there are more games to be done, like week one when there were 10 games, a crew will do two games, or a packager will be brought in.

Our B crew is working with a different a truck this year, Game Creek Pride, adds Waine. Now that we're in week three it's all about getting the ball rolling for the middle of the season and making sure we're in good shape.

Fox Sports takes a disciplined approach to managing the facilities with production units and teams dedicated to each level of game. Game Creek Gridiron handles the A game (both the A and B game will be captured in HDR but broadcast in both HDR and SDR), Dome Gateway is on board for the C games, and then Mobile TV Group's 39 unit handles the D game. Gravity Media's Whiskey unit is used for the E game, both F and G are handled by Rush Media, and then the Charlotte crew uses Mobile TV Group's MTVG53 which was commissioned by Fox Sports.

MTVG's Phil Garvin, bless his soul, saw the real vision for what that truck could be and now a lot of vendors are talking to us about trying to build something similar, says Jones.

From a technical standpoint the biggest addition is the commitment to use Sony HDC-5500 with Canon 125 8 lenses shooting in shallow depth mode for the A and B games. That gives those games a similar high-end look to the Fox NFL coverage which is also using those lenses from the low-end zone position.

We've also increased the slo-mo complement down through our D-level games and then we also continue to push the use of Home Run Productions for many of the games, he adds. HRP shows are done out of one of three production control rooms in Pico (or sometimes multiple games out of one control room) as well as a control room in Charlotte.

Also look for the production teams to have access to feeds from Cosm which will mount five cameras in various locations like on the camera cart and goal post.

We're hoping to get some big looks from those, especially for a game like Ohio State vs. Michigan, says Jones. Those are really exciting to use, and we can manipulate a shot within the Cosm camera frame for replays.

This Saturday Fox Sports will head to Penn State where the Nittany Lions will take on Villanova. Jones says one of the fun things this year is the chance to check out a lot of stadiums that are undergoing renovations and improvements. During week one the Fox team was on hand for the first game at the revamped University of Kansas stadium, David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium.

There's a lot of stadium construction and that actually brings all of the broadcast networks together as those changes affect all of us, adds Jones.

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2025/09/10/fox-sports-ups-college-football...
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