
More Slow-Mos Than Ever, Two New IP-based Trucks, and a 5.1 Audio Workflow Highlight New Season of NFL on Fox Fox elevating the production tools available on broadcasts of all sizes By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Friday, September 20, 2019 - 2:43 pm
Print This Story
Story Highlights
While the news of Fox Sports producing this year's Thursday Night Football package in 4K UHD has stolen industry headlines, don't sleep on Fox's Sunday afternoon games that are getting significant technological and operational overhauls of their own in 2019.
With the addition of more super-slow-motion cameras and Skycams across the network's portfolio, one of Fox's big goals this year is to reshuffle the way it looks at the production level of its games. No longer is it as simple as an A game (typically reserved for the late Sunday afternoon window) or B games (most of the early afternoon start times).
This season, some of the very best A games throughout the year are being referred to as Diamond games and are receiving playoff-level upgrades to their gear lists. Also, many games typically categorized as B games are being flooded with enhancements that just a handful of years ago may have been reserved for Super Bowl-level shows.
What we are doing this year is trying to certainly treat the big games as big games, but also understand that the rest of the games that we have are no less big to a lot of audiences, says Mike Davies, SVP, technical and field operations for Fox Sports. We've been piling on an awful lot of resources to those games as well.
Across the entire package, there will be at least four super-slow-motion cameras and a Skycam on every game. A games could see as many as eight super-slo-mos. Those Diamond games that were spoken of will be getting a special audio unit where Fox will partner with NFL Films in an attempt to create a truly immersive, even cinema-like sound experience.
Most shows will also feature a wireless SteadiCam and, later this season, the network plans to begin using wireless pylon cameras for the first time. Having the yellow 1st and Ten line (from SMT) on the main game camera and the Skycam are virtually must-haves on every NFL game, in the eyes of Davies.
The operations behind this season's NFL on Fox includes two brand new trucks (both of which are IP) and a deeper commitment to audio in 5.1 by integrating it into more levels of the production, like postproduction and isolated cameras.
Game Creek Bravo will work the broadcasts directed and produced by Artie Kempner and Pete Macheska. That unit will be loaded up with the Grass Valley K-Frame X production switcher (which boasts the largest I/O footprint in the industry) along with Sony HDC-3500 and HDC-5500 cameras. Fox is also working with Mobile TV Group for the first time in its NFL package with the addition of MTVG's 46FLEX. That truck will work with the crew headed up by the producer-director tandem of Barry Landis and Jeremy Green.
With Game Creek Encore graduating to become the primary mobile truck working the Thursday Night Football package, Game Creek Glory will take the helm of powering the Game of the Week show that anchors Fox's Sunday coverage at approximately 4:00 p.m. ET. Fox will also continue to work with the rest of its fleet of 3G trucks, which include NEP's SS22 and SS32 and Corplex Iridium.
More on the audio front will see Fox more thoroughly expand its 5.1 workflow. That will now include postproduced pieces and used in the delivery of isolated camera feeds back to the mothership in Los Angeles. According to Davies, all of that will be multi-channel audio.
Fox is also growing its file-based workflow to allow for the quick movement of assets back and forth between the truck on site and the broadcast center in L.A. for all games on the calendar.
North America Stories
27/08/2026
ESPN and Disney are launching College Football Saturdays, adding two college football games per week to Disney for U.S. subscribers as part of their existing ...
27/08/2026
Zixi will exhibit at IBC2026 (Hall 5, Stand 5.A76, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14), demonstrating the Zixi Platform and the latest release of Zixi Broadcaster, ...
27/08/2026
NDI has announced that its ecosystem has surpassed 1.2 million NDI-enabled hardware nodes worldwide, spanning products from more than 200 hardware brands across...
27/08/2026
Clear-Com conducted a pre-launch field trial of FreeSpeak Cell during Carnival 2026 in Rio de Janeiro, in partnership with Brazilian systems integrator Savana C...
27/08/2026
BHV returns to IBC 2026 with an important milestone for its own SportsBox: the broadcast industry's smallest remote vision mixer and format processor has mo...
27/08/2026
TOGETHXR and Snapchat have announced the second cohort of their Snap the Gap content creator program, welcoming nine athletes as Snap Stars. The program provide...
27/08/2026
MediaKind has announced that CNBC UK has selected Beam to modernize its contribution and distribution infrastructure for live broadcast operations. The deployme...
27/08/2026
Monitor engineer Chris Dwight has deployed Sennheiser's Spectera wideband bi...
27/08/2026
Telestream has announced an expansion of its UP cloud-native platform, adding capabilities for orchestrating Telestream services, third-party technologies, and ...
27/08/2026
Swerve TV has signed a multi-year partnership with GLORY Kickboxing, bringing live GLORY events and library programming to Swerve Combat, Swerve TV's free a...
27/08/2026
Dalet has announced a new integrated content experience with Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Dalet Flex, designed to bring AFP's editorial metadata into the p...
27/08/2026
Grass Valley will demonstrate an integrated live production environment at IBC2026 (Booth 9.A01, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14), combining K-Frame, Maverik X, ...
27/08/2026
The National Women's Soccer League and Roku have announced an expanded partnership, with the Roku Sports Channel becoming the exclusive streaming home of ei...
27/08/2026
FuboTV has announced the launch of ACC Network Extra (ACCNX) and SEC Network (SECN ) on the Fubo streaming service at no additional cost to subscribers with En...
27/08/2026
Sports marketers have entered the experiential age. Today, sports teams, leagues, and venues are increasingly using immersive interactions and real world events...
27/08/2026
MultiDyne will introduce the MDoG-8800 at IBC2026 (Stand 11.C12, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14), extending its openGear portfolio with a high-density fiber tra...
27/08/2026
The Joint Task Force on the Dynamic Media Facility (JT-DMF), an initiative of AMWA and the EBU, will host a series of informal Ask Me Anything sessions during...
27/08/2026
Homestream, a mobile app that automatically syncs a team's local radio broad...
27/08/2026
A packager for TNT Sports, Kwokman Productions is on hand for the unique event w...
27/08/2026
After more than 3,000 games, five members of YES Network's original staff re...
27/08/2026
Advertisers gain granular CTV targeting and turnkey reporting across eligible in...
27/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
27/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
27/08/2026
Profuz Digital makes a mark by launching a powerful upgrade to its Profuz LAPIS digital media management platform this IBC in Amsterdam at Stand 8.A88. The late...
27/08/2026
DHD.audio has chosen IBC 2026 as the launch venue for what it defines as one of the most radical advances in the companys 30 year history.
Every broadcast trad...
27/08/2026
Direct connectivity between planning, production and graphics for creativity and streamlined workflows...
27/08/2026
New Photoshop innovations bring you more choice and control at every stage of yo...
27/08/2026
First Two Seasons of Vertical Series Vultures Shot on Blackmagic Design Cameras
Brie Clayton August 27, 2026
0 Comments
Director and DoP of Vultures ...
27/08/2026
For years, the media and entertainment industry has hesitated to use AI-voiced dubbing due to concern for audience experience. New data from 3Play Media, a glob...
27/08/2026
Starfish Technologies has announced the forthcoming V9 release of its Advantage AD workstation, adding support for voice synthesis services and giving Audio Des...
27/08/2026
Lightware's UBEX is a powerful AV-over-IP product well suited for rental and staging workflows where systems must be fast to deploy, easy to repurpose, and ...
27/08/2026
Lightware has expanded the scalability of its 10G TPN AV-over-IP platform with the introduction of the new TPN-MMU-X100 Matrix Management Unit, enabling systems...
27/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
27/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
27/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
27/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
27/08/2026
PlayBox Neo Stand 7.C29 IBC2026 - 11 14 September
Well-established global specialists in media playout, automation, and streaming solutions, PlayBox Neo ...
27/08/2026
Rise Academy, the broadcast and media skills charity dedicated to delivering practical media technology learning experiences, careers resources and work experie...
27/08/2026
Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitably connect the right content to the right audience, will showcase the latest evolution of its ...
27/08/2026
NVIDIA's Gamescom announcements are revealing what's next for GeForce NOW, with new ways to play, more supported devices and platforms, and even more bi...
26/08/2026
Roku Sports Channel will stream eight matches free beginning Aug. 30 as league shifts Sunday-night games away from Victory+...
26/08/2026
Evertz and Mobile TV Group detail how on-premises infrastructure and cloud resou...
26/08/2026
The Sennheiser Group will demonstrate its broadcast audio portfolio at IBC2026 (Hall 8, Booth D50), covering wireless microphone workflows, studio monitoring, a...
26/08/2026
Appear and Transmisiones Televisivas TVTEL Limitada have announced the deploymen...
26/08/2026
Leader Electronics has announced that Danish broadcast rental company Minitech has purchased a Leader LPX500 hybrid IP/SDI waveform monitor and LT4670 sync puls...
26/08/2026
Encompass will demonstrate its Altitude media services at IBC2026 (IAMT Hub, Diamond Lounge, Hall 3, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14).
Key products on show incl...
26/08/2026
Daktronics has partnered with Massillon Washington High School in Ohio to install a new LED video display and implement the Daktronics Camino show control platf...
26/08/2026
Clear-Com has appointed Dubai-based Venuetech LLC as its main partner for the Middle East. Venuetech distributes professional audiovisual solutions across the r...
26/08/2026
NBC Sports NOW, NBC Sports' free 24/7 streaming channel, will launch a new weekday lineup beginning Monday, August 31, including two new shows.
Not So Fast...
26/08/2026
Calrec will demonstrate updates to its ImPulseV DSP software and Argo ecosystem at IBC2026 (Stand 8.C47), including previews aligned with the EBU's Dynamic ...