
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
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
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, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
11/04/2026
Combining launched effects with a proven mission aircraft, Red Wolf and SKY RAI...
11/04/2026
3D printed RL10 rocket engine combustion chambers shown in the manufacturing are...
11/04/2026
Sachtler Highlights Comprehensive Camera Support Solutions at NAB 2026
Brie Clayton April 11, 2026
0 Comments
Sachtler showcases advanced camera suppo...
11/04/2026
Sohonet Launches Media Fabric: A Unified Managed Infrastructure Suite for Film, ...
11/04/2026
AJA Unveils BRIDGE LIVE IP with SMPTE ST 2110 I/O
Brie Clayton April 11, 2026
0 Comments
New IP video solution streamlines modern productions, providi...
11/04/2026
InSync Unveils Advanced Video Processing and Frame Rate Conversion Solutions at ...
11/04/2026
Amagi Launches Newspulse: An Agentic AI Platform That Autonomously Turns Live Ne...
11/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
11/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
11/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
11/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
11/04/2026
Pilot phase begins for a new national infrastructure designed to safeguard academic and research data with full local data control, sovereignty, resilience, and...
11/04/2026
How to Stream Coachella 2026 at Home Check this years stacked schedule for the annual music festivals full lineup, including when Berklee artists from Laufey ...
11/04/2026
Time Travel As Berklee on the Road programs in Puerto Rico and Italy mark decades-long anniversaries, we journey into the past and step into the future.
Apri...
11/04/2026
Improving vaccine design for Ebola, HIV and more Scripps Research scientists and colleagues develop a nanodisc platform that offers a clearer view of how key vi...
10/04/2026
The Invisible OPEX Killer: Is Your Server Room Dragging You Down? In the broadcast world, we talk a lot about uptime. We talk about talent retention, latency...
10/04/2026
Imagine Communications will showcase its multiviewer portfolio at NAB Show 2026 (April 19-22, Booth N1328, Las Vegas Convention Center), including Prismon and t...
10/04/2026
Chyron has released PRIME VSAR 2.3, an update to its virtual set and augmented reality solution for broadcast. The release adds compatibility with Unreal Engine...
10/04/2026
Techex will exhibit at NAB Show 2026 (Booth W2267, April 19-23, Las Vegas Convention Center), demonstrating new tx darwin features including consumer multiview,...
10/04/2026
NDI will exhibit at NAB Show 2026, demonstrating its IP video ecosystem through live partner integrations, NDI 6.3 features, AI metadata workflows, and creator ...
10/04/2026
FOR-A has announced the acquisition of all shares of Tamu Radiance Corporation, a new company spun off from the Information Equipment Business of Tamura Corpora...
10/04/2026
InSync Technology will showcase new and updated video conversion products at NAB...
10/04/2026
TNT Sports and DAZN have announced a partnership to air monthly boxing events in the United States under the brand The Fight. The series will be promoted in p...
10/04/2026
Panasonic Projector and Display has announced the SQ3 Series of 4K LCD displays as part of its MEVIX professional display portfolio. All sizes will be available...
10/04/2026
Amagi has announced the addition of Agentic Media Operations to its Amagi NOW platform, integrating AI reasoning agents across its media supply chain workflows ...
10/04/2026
LTN has announced enhancements to its global IP video network targeting broadcasters transitioning from satellite distribution. The updates come ahead of US fed...
10/04/2026
Daktronics has installed new LED displays at Yankee Stadium, upgrading the main centerfield board, two flanking boards, and two ribbon displays spanning the 200...
10/04/2026
Harmonic has announced updates to its hybrid streaming solution, including Model Context Protocol (MCP) connectivity for AI applications, cloud-native deploymen...
10/04/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will introduce two new fiber transport products at NAB Show 2026 (Booth C4425, April 19-22): the FiberSaver-10G waveleng...
10/04/2026
Telos Alliance and ip-studio will demonstrate STUDIO ZERO, a cloud-hosted virtual studio, at NAB Show 2026. First introduced at NAB Show 2023, STUDIO ZERO integ...
10/04/2026
d&b solutions, a London-based audio-visual, lighting, and media integration grou...
10/04/2026
ARRI and SmallHD have announced a new expansion license for ARRI's Hi-5 and Hi-5 SX hand units that displays lens data overlays on supported SmallHD monitor...
10/04/2026
Roku and the Banana Ball Championship League (BBCL) have announced an exclusive streaming partnership to bring five BBCL games to the Roku Sports Channel in 202...
10/04/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
10/04/2026
The Peabody Awards don't just recognize great storytelling, they spotlight t...
10/04/2026
After launching the Spotify Podcast Awards in Mexico last year, we brought the fan-voted celebration to Paris this week for its first edition in France. Hosted ...
10/04/2026
Powered and unpowered live PA ranges upgraded
Yamaha have just refreshed four of their hugely popular PA speaker ranges, delivering significant improvements...
10/04/2026
Underlying plug-in & VI technology now available to others
UJAM's latest announcement sees the company open up' Gorilla Engine, the development pla...
10/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
10/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
10/04/2026
Bitcentral, a leading provider of professional media solutions for broadcast and digital video, will showcase its latest innovations at NAB Show 2026 (Booth W28...
10/04/2026
Ikegami to Introduce Expanded Range of Broadcast Production Solutions at NAB 202...
10/04/2026
AJA Debuts SMPTE ST 2110 and openGear Solutions Ahead of NAB 2026
Brie Clayton April 10, 2026
0 Comments
New gear and updates address evolving hybrid ...
10/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...