Tech Focus: Sports & Entertainment Production - In Convergence, Two Massive Worlds Share Venues and Infrastructure Music is the connective tissue between the two domains By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Tuesday, July 9, 2024 - 10:07 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The Super Bowl was once the singular benchmark for the intersection of sports and entertainment, both live and on television. But lately, it has had a lot more to compare itself to.
For instance, this year's NFL Draft included performances by rappers Big Sean and Bazzi, countering last year's event featuring rockers Fall Out Boy and M tley Cr e. The 2023 NHL Draft in Nashville offered a quintet of country performers, including Brothers Osborne and Jo Dee Messina; this year, five-time Grammy Award-winner Shania Twain performed during the Stanley Cup Final series. In September, at Nashville's Big Machine Music City Grand Prix, rock band Daughtry and country artist Riley Green will compete with the roar of the F1 engines.
The phenomenon is global. At the 2023 UEFA Champions League Final Kickoff Show, for instance, Nigerian Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter/producer Burna Boy was co-headliner at the Atat rk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul; the previous year's show at the Stade de France was topped by Camila Cabello. Meanwhile, the Olympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies have come to rival events like the Eurovision Song Contest and the Grammy Awards themselves.
PepsiCo VP, Global Brand Marketing, Eric Melis, who oversees the brand relationship between UEFA and Pepsi (the Super Bowl's halftime sponsor for a decade until Apple took over in 2023), told the UK-based Sport Industry Group last year, It's no secret that the lines between sport and popular culture are rapidly blurring. At an ever-increasing rate, we're seeing the often-segmented worlds of music, fashion, art, and sport collide, [which] presents us with an opportunity to truly double down on our work in the sport and music crossover.
Melding Sports and Music Audio specialist Michael Abbott: Stadiums and arenas are now built as television studios to produce both sports and music.
On a more visceral level, live and broadcast sports increasingly share infrastructure and workflows with touring and live-streamed music. Michael Abbott, whose career includes supervising the audio for Grammy Awards telecasts on CBS for 39 years and for The Voice for 12 seasons (plus managing the sound for the Commission on Presidential Debates in 2004, 2008, and 2012), opines that both sports and entertainment have entered an era in which spectacle drives production, making their convergence both natural and necessary.
Nothing can feel like just a game or a concert anymore, he says. Everything has to be an event. Stadiums and arenas are now built as television studios to produce both sports and music. The content goes up on huge video walls and through massive sound systems well before the game starts and well after it ends.
The same production technology, such as replay systems, is often used for both sports and entertainment events. Abbott has even applied some of sports' audio tricks to awards shows: he has deployed the three-microphone speed-shot array used in motorsports to capture a sort of Doppler effect of the crowd noise as the cameras surround-pan award-show nominees just before the winners are announced.
He encounters challenges as athletes find themselves on the stage almost as often as on the field. Rehearsing the sound he would supervise for the NHL Draft event at The Sphere in Las Vegas in late June, he realized that athletes don't expect the disorienting effect of the massive venue's 1,200-ms delay.
They don't want to wear ears' because they're not used to them in the arena, Abbott says, referring to the wireless in-ear monitors that have replaced monitor speakers in many applications. They don't understand the effect of the latency on the media plane in the room. It's a battle sometimes.
The athletes are adjusting rapidly, however. In the ballpark, MLB outfielders are learning to wear in-ear IFBs and lavaliere microphones during play, chatting in real time with announcers in the booth.
Venue Sound Stadiums and arenas are being designed as both entertainment and sports venues. Considered the first stadium show of the rock era, the Beatles' 1965 U.S. tour included stops at the NY Mets' Shea Stadium and the Chicago White Sox's Comiskey Park. In the 1970s, stadiums and arenas began to regularly share their turf with music concerts as the crowds got bigger, the sound got louder, and the pyro became more explosive.
The stakes have changed considerably since then. Los Angeles-based Oak View Group, an entertainment- and sports-facilities company backed by private-equity giant Silver Lake - which was cofounded by Irving Azoff, uber-manager for such artists as the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and Van Halen - owns and operates numerous sports/entertainment venues, including Baltimore's CFG Bank Arena and Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena, home to the NHL's Kraken and the WNBA's Seattle Storm. (It also owns two of the venue and touring industry's leading trade publications, Venues Now and Pollstar.)
These days, new and renovated sports venues have to be multipurpose facilities, particularly as funding models have shifted from state and local financing and rely more on revenues derived from concerts and other non-sports events. Their PA systems have to follow suit: they need to offer high metrics on STI (Speech Transmission Index) or STIPA (Speech Transmission Index of Public Address Systems) scales for speech intelligibility, offer full-range-frequency reproduction for music, and interface installed sound systems with touring systems - another way sports and entertain
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
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 ...
01/04/2026
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...
19/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/03/2026
How Chris Bolte Builds the Sound of PlayStation Games Chris Bolte '16 is a technical sound designer at Sucker Punch Productions, where he helps create the...
18/03/2026
Newly named chief product officer (CPO), Larissa G rner Meeus will return to Net Insight on May 4.
Larissa G rner Meeus will become CPO of Net Insight on May 4...
18/03/2026
SVG Europe's The Football Summit 2026 explored how the sports broadcasting i...
18/03/2026
The 2026 NAB Show kicks off one month from today and SVG is once again set to cover the show from every angle. SVG's SportsTech@NAB Show Blog is now live - ...
18/03/2026
(L-R) The cast and crew of Dead Lover at The Ray Theater for its premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. (Photo by Robin Marshall/Shutterstock for Sundan...
18/03/2026
Yamaha C7 captured in Nashville
Wiltone Productions have announced the release of Music Row Piano, a deeply sampled Yamaha C7 piano library that's been ...
18/03/2026
Bass-enhancement plug-in upgraded
Along with a steady stream of new releases, Techivation have recently been revisiting some of the older plug-ins in their ...
18/03/2026
Mix-reference plug-in overhauled
iZotope's powerful mix-referencing plug-in has just reached its third major version, and now boasts a new capture proce...
18/03/2026
Latest EZKeys 2 expansion arrives
Toontrack's staggering collection of EZKeys 2 expansions has grown once again, and the latest instalment delivers a on...
18/03/2026
Jess Ho explores the politics of food in new SBS Audio podcast For The Culture
18 March, 2026
Media releases
New SBS Audio podcast For The Culture, hosted ...
18/03/2026
Future-ready broadcasts with ATSC 3.0 and enhanced services from Rohde & Schwarz...
18/03/2026
London Calling - When The Industry Convened to Help Streaming Find its MoJo In this blog, Laura Rognoni reflects on key discussions from the Connected TV World...
18/03/2026
SMPTE Unveils 2026 NAB Show Educational Presentations
Brie Clayton March 18, 2026
0 Comments
SMPTE , the home of media professionals, technologists, a...
18/03/2026
Auditel Ad Campaign Shot on Blackmagic PYXIS 12K
Brie Clayton March 18, 2026
0 Comments
LED wall virtual production blends 12K open gate acquisition w...
18/03/2026
Brainstorm transforms productivity and sustainability with Suite 7 at NAB Show 2...
18/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
18/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
18/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
18/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
18/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
18/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
18/03/2026
SMPTE , the home of media professionals, technologists, and engineers, today unveiled its educational presentations for the 2026 NAB Show. This year SMPTE will ...
18/03/2026
Maxon, maker of powerful, approachable software solutions for creators working in 2D and 3D design, motion graphics, visual effects, gaming, and more, today ann...
18/03/2026
Digital Alert Systems
Preview
2026 NAB Show
April 19 - 22
Booth C3452
At the 2026 NAB Show, Digital Alert Systems will showcase Version 6.0 of its DASDEC ...
18/03/2026
Setplex today announced that it will showcase its complete, fully integrated Zapflex platform for the first time at the 2026 NAB Show, introducing powerful new ...
18/03/2026
THIS ANNOUNCEMENT RELATES TO THE DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION THAT QUALIFIED OR MAY HAVE QUALIFIED AS INSIDE INFORMATION WITHIN THE MEANING OF ARTICLE 7(1) OF THE ...
18/03/2026
COW Jobs: Seeking DP for Low Budget Dramedy - Chicago
Brie Clayton March 17, 2026
0 Comments
Seeking Director of Photography for Low Budget Dramedy Fe...
18/03/2026
COW Jobs: Seeking Gaffer for Low Budget Dramedy - Chicago
Brie Clayton March 17, 2026
0 Comments
Seeking Gaffer for Low Budget Dramedy Feature Film- I...
18/03/2026
COW Jobs: Seeking Location, Sound for Low Budget Dramedy - Chicago
Brie Clayton March 17, 2026
0 Comments
Seeking Location/Sound for Low Budget Dramed...
18/03/2026
COW Jobs: Seeking Child Wrangler for Low Budget Film - Chicago
Brie Clayton March 17, 2026
0 Comments
Seeking Child Wrangler for Low Budget Dramedy Fe...
18/03/2026
Calrec Redefines Broadcast Workflows at NAB 2026 with its Most Powerful Hardware...
18/03/2026
Oscar Nominated Two People Exchanging Saliva Posted with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton March 17, 2026
0 Comments
DaVinci Resolve Studio handle...
18/03/2026
Boston Conservatory Presents Celebrated Musical Satire Urinetown Performances for this Center Stage production will take place at Boston Conservatory Theater ...
18/03/2026
Charlie Puth Joins Switched on Pop at Berklee NYC The Berklee alum spoke with host and Berklee NYC professor Charlie Harding for a live taping, answering audi...
18/03/2026
X-Rite Pantone Demonstrates Advanced Color Management Solutions to Support Smart...
18/03/2026
Wednesday 18 March 2026
BAFTA winner James McAvoy to star in Sky Original serie...
18/03/2026
Wednesday 18 March 2026
Sky Sports and Zuffa Boxing announce multi-year agreement for the UK and Ireland
Sky Sports and Zuffa Boxing have announced a new mult...
18/03/2026
Wednesday 18 March 2026
Sky Unveils Poster and Trailer for Original Feature Fil...
Tech Focus: Sports & Entertainment Production - In Convergence, Two Massive Worlds Share Venues and Infrastructure Music is the connective tissue between the two domains By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
