On the Hardwood: After Assisting Fox Sports Sun, Miami Heat Retrofit Control Room for Games in AmericanAirlines Arena Instead of a production truck, the RSN worked from the control room during the NBA bubble By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor
Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - 10:47 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The doldrums of 2020 may be in the past, but 2021 is still presenting challenges to in-venue production teams. Now out of the Orlando bubble, NBA organizations are hosting games in their home arenas and navigating the continuing difficulties of the pandemic. Like SVG's At the Ballpark and On the Gridiron series, On the Hardwood will take a look the hardships, creative ideas, and teamwork of NBA franchises.
The Miami Heat traveled the 245 miles north to the NBA bubble in Orlando and made a surprise run to the NBA Finals as the No. 5 seed. During the bubble, HEATv, the organization's broadcast- and in-venue-production department, allowed Fox Sports Sun to use the control room in AmericanAirlines Arena as its broadcast hub for the playoff games and subsequently revamped the space to accommodate social distancing and safety protocols during the current regular season.
Miami Heat's Josh Goshin in the NBA bubble last year
While [Miami Heat Director, Game Presentation,] Josh Goshin was in the bubble and helping our players there, we converted our control room for our RSN at the arena, says Kurt Doster, director, arena video production, Miami Heat. Instead of bringing in a live truck, we integrated a lot of their equipment into our room.
MORE ON THE HARDWOOD INTERVIEWS:
Denver Nuggets Repurpose RSN Broadcast With Some In-Venue Flavor
Atlanta Hawks Honor Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. in First of Season-Long Unity Nights'
Bubble Operations: Fox Sports Sun Takes Over Control Room The players might have been away from the AmericanAirlines Arena, but the building was buzzing with activity down on the floor and up in the control room. When Fox Sports Sun wanted to cover the Heat's play in the bubble, including broadcasts of the non-national games, HEATv adapted the RSN's workflows and hardware to the space.
Down on the floor, the network's broadcast team called the game courtside through TV screens and produced pre/postgame and halftime shows from the arena. Part of the crew at the forefront of this endeavor, Doster served as technical director for the practice games, eight restart games, and the first round of the playoffs.
The Fox Sports Sun broadcast team sat courtside for games played in the Orlando bubble.
It was a weird time because, up in the control room, we're expecting to play off the sound of the fans since we're in the playoffs but it's a silent bowl, he says. It definitely took some adjusting to because, in every other run we've ever had [to the finals], the building's packed and people are going crazy.
In Orlando, the Miami Heat crew had its fair share of responsibilities. Goshin was at the helm of productions in the Wide World of Sports complex. In Miami, production and creative-services crews worked overtime to develop a hefty amount of content to play on the LED videoboards installed behind the team benches at Wide World of Sports.
We tried to provide as much content as we could to make the players feel like they were at home, says Doster. We sent 200 files [to Orlando] using our pool of assets between our media-production and motion-graphics crews. We wanted that content to give the players a little extra push that we hope to give during a normal home game.
Back in Miami: Team Rebuilds Control Room, Commits to In-Venue Energy After the NBA season, instead of returning the control room to its previous layout, HEATv used the two-month offseason to forge ahead in the face of the pandemic. Besides removing a lot of the infrastructure installed for Fox Sports Sun, the effort rearranged other equipment to optimize productions and enforce safety for the onsite crew.
We're doing everything we possibly can to ensure the safety of our workers, says Doster. We've reduced the crew a little bit, but I also have to request permission for anybody who's going to enter the arena. When we arrive, we fill out a form with standard health questions, get our temperature checked, and get a color code that determines the spaces in the arena that we have access to.
After Fox Sports Sun's departure, HEATv rearranged its control room, including installation of additional equipment racks.
Following those guidelines, the control room has plexiglass dividers between workstations, and employees don protective face coverings. From a production perspective, the franchise is diving deep on some of the game-day staples that AmericanAirlines Arena has become known for, including PA announcer Michael Baiamonte's 2 Minutes call and player introductions. In addition, the crew is deploying crowd prompts despite the empty seats.
As we discussed [the plan] more, did a couple of games, and started to get the feel of it, Doster adds, we realized that we could play with the fake crowd noise to match some things that we were doing on the videoboard. If the other team is shooting free throws, we'll pull up a scream graphic or if there's a big three-pointer in the fourth quarter, there will be a huge eruption.
Content Gathering: New-Look Media Day Gives Access to Players Direct access to players is hard to obtain during the pandemic, but, in an effort to create content for the videoboard and, for example, graphics for social media, HEATv worked alongside Fox Sports Sun to host Media Day at the beginning of the season. The three-day shoot was facilitated by a 14-member team representing HEATv, which determined what rooms could be used; the RSN, which handled the interviews; and
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...
13/05/2026
New Adobe Premiere Color Grading Mode Accelerated on NVIDIA GPUs
Joel Pennington May 13, 2026
0 Comments
New NVIDIA RTX-accelerated features streamlin...
13/05/2026
Grass Valley announced that dB Broadcast has delivered new IP-based outside broadcast (OB) trucks for Cloudbass, featuring Grass Valley LDX 100 Series cameras a...
13/05/2026
Ikegami will exhibit the latest additions to its wide range of broadcast production cameras, control units, viewfinders and monitors on stand 5D3-1 at Broadcast...
13/05/2026
FISE, working with the founding members of the XR Sports Alliance (XRSA), Accedo, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and HBS, have collaborated to develop an immersive...
13/05/2026
Canon Unveils New EOS R6 V Full-Frame EOS Camera and RF20-50mm F4 L IS USM PZ Bu...
13/05/2026
Boston Conservatory at Berklee Honors Beth Morrison and Moses Pendleton at Comme...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Creative software developer Foundry today announced the latest developments on Nuke Stage. A purpose-built application for end-to-end virtual production and in-...
13/05/2026
A definitive portrait of one of Ireland's most influential musicians
New TV documentary airs Monday 18 May on RT One and RT Player at 9.35pm
Watch the...
13/05/2026
Agentic AI is changing the way users get work done. Following the success of OpenClaw, the community is embracing new open source agentic frameworks. The latest...
13/05/2026
Reinforcement-learning agents - AI systems that learn by trial and error - can c...
12/05/2026
Beyond the Hype: A Strategic Post-Hoc Analysis of NAB 2026 If NAB Show 2026 had an underlying theme, it was a quiet, industry-wide pivot from the high-energy sp...
12/05/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D), a Panoptec Technologies Group company, and CT Square, led by Chandresh Shah, have announced a joint venture to distribute G&D and V...
12/05/2026
With 30 days until the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Telemundo, the exclusive Spanish-language home of the tournament in the United States, has announced th...
12/05/2026
The NHL has announced the return of Stanley Pup for its third consecutive year, a 90-minute special featuring adoptable rescue dogs competing on a miniature rin...
12/05/2026
NBCUniversal presented its 2026 Upfront to advertisers at Radio City Music Hall, detailing upcoming programming across NBC, Peacock, Bravo, and Versant properti...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced funding for the Fandom and Social Connection Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Publ...
12/05/2026
TNDV and Live Media, both divisions of Live Media Group, supported live broadcast coverage around NCAA Final Four weekend in Indianapolis, including the March M...
12/05/2026
The European Football Alliance (EFA) has announced a content distribution agreement with Fubo Sports Network, the free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel ...
12/05/2026
For the first time, Spanish-speaking fans in the U.S. will have two separate tel...
12/05/2026
CP Communications led a comprehensive spectrum management initiative on behalf of Churchill Downs during Kentucky Derby week, coordinating RF assets across the ...
12/05/2026
LiveU has announced a strategic partnership with DRONERESPONDERS, a 501(c)3 non-...
12/05/2026
Open Broadcast Systems has announced that BMC TV, a specialist in IP transport of broadcast content, has selected the Open Broadcast Systems 5G Flyaway solution...
12/05/2026
NEP Europe, part of NEP Group, has announced it will deliver broadcast solutions...
12/05/2026
Grass Valley has announced continued collaboration with Ravensbourne University ...
12/05/2026
Stats Perform has announced the launch of Opta Pulse, an AI-assisted video creation and distribution platform for leagues, rights holders, and broadcasters. The...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced a collaboration with Sesame Workshop to integrate Sesame Street characters into FOX Sports' FIFA World Cup 2026 programming. Conten...
12/05/2026
To date, NHL Productions has produced 19 broadcasts with commentary in American Sign Language
NHL in ASL (American Sign Language) may be just one show, but the...
12/05/2026
Google's Brian Albert: creators, athletes, highlights, nostalgia, second-scr...
12/05/2026
A still from Past Lives by Celine Song, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | p...
12/05/2026
Spotify is where fans and artists come together, turning discovery into somethin...
12/05/2026
Features patented Marco-MMC clocking technology
Black Lion Audio's latest release combines the company's expertise in clocking with their renowned p...
12/05/2026
New Track Panel, sequencer upgrades & more
Following their recent public beta release, Reason Studios have announced the full release of Reason 14. With the...
12/05/2026
One month to go! SBS reveals expansive FIFA World Cup 2026 lineup beyond the pi...
12/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz presents its advanced solutions for power electronics testing at...
12/05/2026
aconnic AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), Munich, has developed a modified fund raising p...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Tyrell Corporation, specialists in high-end live sports and entertainment broadcasts, was tasked with delivering compelling broadcast coverage of premier equest...
12/05/2026
Registration is now open for IBC2026 as the global media, entertainment and technology community prepares to converge on the RAI Amsterdam from 11 14 September ...
12/05/2026
Ross Video, a global leader in live video production technology, will present its latest innovations and integrated production workflows at BroadcastAsia 2026, ...
12/05/2026
500 selected leaders from around the world across start-ups, corporates, and venture capital. Over 50bn in assets under management among attending investors, a...
On the Hardwood: After Assisting Fox Sports Sun, Miami Heat Retrofit Control Room for Games in AmericanAirlines Arena Instead of a production truck, the RSN worked from the control room during the NBA bubble By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor 
