Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

NBA Returns: ESPN Brings Plenty of Tech Firepower to Wide World of Sports Productions

31/07/2020

NBA Returns: ESPN Brings Plenty of Tech Firepower to Wide World of Sports Productions Highlights include RailCam, new robos, embedded mics, virtual graphics, and more By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor

Friday, July 31, 2020 - 2:22 pm

Print This Story | Subscribe

Story Highlights

NBA on ESPN is back in business tonight, with its production team resuming live broadcasts from the NBA bubble inside Disney's Wide World of Sports complex in Orlando. To pull them off safely, the network's operations team has worked with the NBA and fellow rightsholder Turner Sports to build a massive broadcast compound that echoes an Olympics IBC (international broadcast center) to serve the three arenas hosting the NBA games.

It's a tremendous feeling to know that your sport has come back, says ESPN Senior Operations Manager Patty Mattero. With everything going on in the world right now, we're all very happy to just be able to make TV again. There are certainly monumental technical challenges, but we all know the fundamentals of making TV, and we can't wait.

In the Compound: NEP EN3 and EN2, Game Creek Victory Power the Production The sprawling NBA broadcast compound is roughly the size of three football fields.

ESPN, along with the NBA and Turner Sports, spent the better part of two months creating a 94,920-sq.-ft. broadcast compound (equal to roughly three football fields) to house the 13 production trucks, 31 trailers, six mobile-unit cover tents, two catering tents, two field-shop tents, and several cooling stations onsite.

ESPN has rolled out three dedicated twin mobile units to produce the games out of the three venues at WWoS: NEP's EN3 for The Arena (Court 1, the main national-telecast court and site of Conference Finals and NBA Finals), Game Creek Video's Victory for HP Field House (Court 2 for the regular season to Second Round), and NEP's EN2 for Visa Athletic Center (Court 3, primarily for games broadcast exclusively by regional sports networks).

CAT Entertainment Services has rolled out 20 generators to power the compound: 12 500-kVA units, two 300-kVA units, two 400-kVA tow plants, and four 175-kVA tow plants. With the 90 temperatures in Orlando, the compound is also equipped with 32 20 -ton HVAC units (two of them 60-ton units) with redundancy for mobile-unit support.

Three sides of the court have 17-ft. LED videoboards.

ESPN, Turner, and the league have also built a comprehensive NBA fiber ring at WWoS, laying more than 436 miles of fiber throughout the facility. On the transmission side, the NBA compound is sending out 65 transmission paths with 14 paths returning, plus 92 (and counting) NBA HSAN feeds and an additional 190 Gbps in bandwidth for file-sharing and redundancy needs.

Our operations team has done an unbelievable job, ESPN VP, Production, Michael Shiffman said this week. It really represents ingenuity, innovation, technology, and - above all else - a can-do' mentality, which I believe is one of the hallmarks of our company. This is the latest example and has allowed us to hit the ground running with these scrimmages and get us ready to go for Friday night.

GREMI and REMI: At-Home Model Is Out in Full Force ESPN is deploying its GREMI model for the majority of its games (including nearly all games at The Arena and HP Field House), as it has for its NBA coverage for the past two years. Under the GREMI model, EVS replay and Vizrt graphics systems are located onsite in the trucks, but three or four replay operators and all graphics and scorebug operators are at the ESPN facility in Bristol, CT.

The Arena will serve as Court 1, hosting the Conference Finals and NBA Finals.

ESPN and Turner are also creating a neutral world feed that RSNs around the country will use to produce in-market telecasts from their home facilities. In addition to the world-feed line cut, ESPN is delivering a dedicated iso camera feed to each RSN (which has full comms to the camera operator) and access to several other camera feeds to integrate into its telecast.

Although EN2 is on hand to serve some of the RSN-exclusive games at the Visa Athletic Center, the majority of them will be REMI (remote-integration) productions in which feeds are sent to control rooms in Bristol. According to Mattero, this is the first time ESPN has produced NBA games as full REMI productions from control rooms in Bristol.

Because all of our sports are coming back, our control rooms are insanely busy trying to juggle all the events and all content coming back to Bristol, says Mattero. What Bristol can support determines how we're going to cover the games. The majority are REMI, but there are also quite a few of them that will be more of a GREMI setup out of EN2.

Safety Protocols in the Compound: Keeping the Crew Healthy To ensure social distancing, ESPN has doubled the usual distance between trailers/trucks. To limit the number of people in each truck, the network has also reorganized several crew positions, outboarding multiple replay operators, robotic-camera shaders, and audio personnel to other locations in the compound.

HP Field House will serve as Court 2 from the regular season through Round 2 of the NBA Playoffs.

In this environment, we are putting safety first and taking extra steps to ensure health and safety of everyone, says Mattero. We have only six people in the majority of our A units; that's about half of what we would normally have. There is plexiglass separating people, and we've mapped it out so everyone is spaced far enough apart based on ESPN and Disney protocols. And, of course, everyone is wearing masks. We're all trying to get used to a whole new way of doing business, but we know how important it is to do it the right way.

The crew has been divided into functional groups, with the majority of the production and operations
LINK: https://www.sportsvideo.org/2020/07/31/nba-returns-espn-brings-plenty-...
See more stories from svg

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

01/06/2026

Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026

January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026 Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...

02/05/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Search, Faster Editing, and an AI-Ready Foundation for Modern Media

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

01/05/2026

NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to Integrate Dolby's Full Suite of Premium Picture and Sound Innovations

January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...

01/04/2026

DOLBY AND DOUYIN EMPOWER THE NEXT GENERATON OF CREATORS WITH DOLBY VISION

January 4 2026, 18:00 (PST) DOLBY AND DOUYIN EMPOWER THE NEXT GENERATON OF CREATORS WITH DOLBY VISION Douyin Users Can Now Create And Share Videos With Stun...

26/03/2026

Audio-Technica and Extron Announce Microsoft Teams-Certified Enterprise Solutions

Extron and Audio-Technica have announced that their Design Solutions devices, Ce...

26/03/2026

SPORTEL Asia Returns to Singapore with 370 Participants from 35 Countries

SPORTEL Asia took place March 24-25 at the Orchard Hotel Singapore, drawing 370 participants representing more than 220 companies from 35 countries. Approximate...

26/03/2026

NAB 2026: LTN to Showcase Satellite-to-IP Migration Solutions

LTN will demonstrate satellite-to-IP migration solutions for broadcasters, cable networks, MVPDs, and station groups at NAB Show 2026 (Booth W2100). The C-Ban...

26/03/2026

Seattle Mariners Upgrade Center Field Video Display at T-Mobile Park with Daktronics

The Seattle Mariners have partnered with Daktronics to install an upgraded outfi...

26/03/2026

Esports Nations Cup 2026 Names National Team Partners Across 100+ Countries

The Esports Foundation (EF) has awarded National Team Partner status to organizations and individuals across more than 100 countries and territories for the Esp...

26/03/2026

NAB 2026: Telestream Expands Vantage Integration with Adobe Premiere, Media Encoder, and Frame.io

Telestream has announced expanded integration between its Vantage workflow platf...

26/03/2026

NAB 2026: FOR-A Brings Nippon TV's viztrick AiDi AI Production Tool to Market with NVIDIA

FOR-A Corporation has announced a partnership with Nippon TV and NVIDIA to distr...

26/03/2026

CBS Sports Reaches New Long-Term Multiplatform Rights Agreement with the WNBA

CBS Sports and the WNBA have expanded their partnership through a new long-term, multiplatform rights agreement. CBS Sports will feature up to 20 regular-season...

26/03/2026

Zac Brown Band to Perform Sunday Night Baseball Open on NBC and Peacock

Zac Brown Band will star in the Sunday Night Baseball show open on NBC and Peacock, NBC Sports announced. The open was filmed at American Family Field, home of ...

26/03/2026

2026 MLB Season Opens With Full Slate of National Games

Major League Baseball opens the 2026 season with nationally televised games across multiple media partners. Fans can visit MLB.com/Watch for a complete schedule...

26/03/2026

DIRECTV Adds Nine MLB Team Channels for 2026 Season

DIRECTV has announced an agreement to carry nine new MLB-operated team channels, covering the Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers (Detroit SportsNet), Kansas City R...

26/03/2026

Nationals.TV Now Available on Charter, Comcast, Cox, DIRECTV, Verizon Fios and More

Nationals.TV, the Washington Nationals' local broadcast channel, is now avai...

26/03/2026

MLB.TV Launches on the ESPN App Starting Opening Day

Starting Thursday, March 26, MLB.TV will be available on the ESPN App, giving fans access to more than 2,000 out-of-market regular season games. Fans can also r...

26/03/2026

What's Next for Spotify and NAVER in Korea After a Stockholm Summit

Spotify's partnership with NAVER, Korea's leading digital platform, is built around one simple goal: making it easier for listeners in Korea to discover...

26/03/2026

EastWest DrumX: Early access

Exclusive to ComposerCloud for first month Sample library and virtual instrument gurus EastWest have announced the upcoming release of a new virtual drum i...

26/03/2026

Dynamic Range Day 2026

Friday 27 March Friday 27 March will mark Dynamic Range Day 2026, the annual day of online activity that was started in 2010 by mastering engineer Ian Sheph...

26/03/2026

ASMR Choir from SRM Sounds

Includes four separate instruments Max Richter's SRM Sounds venture have just announced their fifth release, ASMR Choir. Captured at the main live room ...

26/03/2026

IMPORTANT FEEDBACK: PESP 6

The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC), has been tasked with administering the Sixth Presi...

26/03/2026

Why YEP Changed My Career (And Why It Might Change Yours)

By Matt Klein Hello to everyone reading this - whether you're a current YEP, HPA member, or just YEP-curious. I'm Matt Klein, one of the co-chairs of t...

26/03/2026

CBS Sports Inks New WNBA Deal

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

26/03/2026

Apogee Insight Acquires PMA Research

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

26/03/2026

NBC Announces Exclusive Coverage of Sail4th 250 Tall Ships in NYC

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

26/03/2026

UK Group of media tech companies take the spotlight at NA...

28 participating companies, from start-ups to blue-chips, lead the UK Group as part of the GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland presence across all the Halls at N...

26/03/2026

Arkona Unveils BLADE//planner and Major Usability Enhancements at NAB 2026

Arkona Unveils BLADE//planner and Major Usability Enhancements at NAB 2026 Brie Clayton March 26, 2026 0 Comments New graphical configuration tool and...

26/03/2026

Bitfocus showcases complete control at NAB Show 2026

Bitfocus showcases complete control at NAB Show 2026 Brie Clayton March 26, 2026 0 Comments Continuing development drives advances in security, availa...

26/03/2026

Allen Media Group To Deploy Anoki ContextIQ

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

26/03/2026

LG Announces New Premium FAST Channels

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

26/03/2026

IABM to Host Breakfast Event at 2026 NAB Show

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

26/03/2026

Nexstar Defends Tegna Deal in Calif. Court Filing

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

26/03/2026

Nevion introduces powerful new Panel Builder to enhance VideoIPath broadcast control capability

Nevion introduces powerful new Panel Builder to enhance VideoIPath broadcast con...

26/03/2026

2026 Oscar Nominated Films Powered by Blackmagic Design

2026 Oscar Nominated Films Powered by Blackmagic Design Brie Clayton March 25, 2026 0 Comments DaVinci Resolve Studio used on 27 of this year's no...

26/03/2026

Leader to present full suite of advanced Test & Measurement solutions at NAB Show 2026

Leader to present full suite of advanced Test & Measurement solutions at NAB Sho...

26/03/2026

Boston Conservatory to Present New England and Collegiate Premiere of Groundbreaking Opera Time to Act

Boston Conservatory to Present New England and Collegiate Premiere of Groundbrea...

26/03/2026

HBO Max included for Sky and NOW customers from 26 March, bringing more world-class entertainment in one subscription

Thursday 26 March 2026 HBO Max included for Sky and NOW customers from 26 March...

26/03/2026

Sky Sets Iconic Costumes Dancing Together Like Never Before in Brand Campaign

Thursday 26 March 2026 Sky Sets Iconic Costumes Dancing Together Like Never Before' in Brand CampaignTurn on cookies to view this content. Go to Privacy o...

26/03/2026

CS live Builds Future-Ready OB Van With Riedel MediorNet and hi Control System

Wuppertal March 26, 2026 CS live Builds Future-Ready OB Van With Riedel MediorNet and hi Control SystemRiedel Communications today announced that Czech-based ...

26/03/2026

Have a Wish Worth Dying For? Netflix's First Korean YA Horror Series If Wishes Could Kill' Premieres April 24

Back to All News Have a Wish Worth Dying For? Netflix's First Korean YA Hor...

26/03/2026

'The Truthers,' Starring Jose Coronado and Stphanie Magnin, Premieres on Netflix on 24 July

Back to All News The Truthers, Starring Jose Coronado and St phanie Magnin, Pre...

26/03/2026

Harmonic Delivers Winning Live Sports Streaming Innovations

Enhancements to Harmonic's Sports Streaming Solution Introduce Server-Side Multiview, Contextual Metadata-Driven Advertising, Dynamic In-Stream Ads and Robu...

26/03/2026

ABC Business Media Report: Trusted Data, Real Insight

Open the report Our 2025 report brings together results from 79 business magazine titles across 22 market sectors, published by 49 media owners. Over the year,...

26/03/2026

Into the Omniverse: NVIDIA GTC Showcases Virtual Worlds Powering the Physical AI Era

Editor's note: This post is part of Into the Omniverse, a series focused on ...

26/03/2026

Fiat to sponsor The Louise Duffy Show on RT Radio 1

RT Commercial today announced Fiat as sponsor of The Louise Duffy Show on RT Radio 1, Weekdays 3pm 4pm. The Louise Duffy Show is the home of daytime music...

26/03/2026

Game On: Five New Titles Now Streaming on GeForce NOW

That gaming backlog won't clear itself - GeForce NOW is here to help. Stream the latest titles straight from the cloud across a variety of devices. This we...

26/03/2026

Phantom C-Series High-Speed Cameras Set a New Standard for Automotive Crash and Safety Imaging

Wayne, N.J., March 26, 2026 Phantom High-Speed announces the latest product li...