
ESPN Bolsters Camera Totals as Expanded College Football Playoff Enters the Semifinals ESPN will add three MindFly BodyCams on referees at both the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Thursday, January 9, 2025 - 5:54 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The newly-expanded College Football Playoff reaches more familiar territory Thursday night as the semifinals get underway with Notre Dame facing Penn State in the Orange Bowl in Miami before Ohio State and Texas battle on Friday evening in the Cotton Bowl in Arlington.
While ESPN will offer a slew a viewing options across its family of networks, the primary main telecasts are loaded with production tools elevating these games to the biggest ones ESPN has produced this season.
ESPN College GameDay Stage Director Mike Ruhlman makes final adjustments to the set prior to coverage of the Orange Bowl on Thursday Night. (Photo by Allen Kee / ESPN Images)
The most notable addition to the overall camera plan for the semifinals is the MindFly BodyCam. The wearable camera system sits on the chest of the referees. It has been used numerous times by ESPN at events over the past year like the Home Run Derby, the College World Series, pregame at a Stanley Cup Playoff game, the UFL, and a pair of regular season college football games in the ACC this season.
According to Jarrett Baker, Senior Manager, Remote Production Operations at ESPN, the MindFly BodyCams will be worn by three officials (umpire, center judge, and head linesman) at each of the games. Due to NCAA rules, ESPN won't be able to take audio off those systems as they have done in some of the other deployments.
On top of that, both the Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl will feature pretty similar operational plans. Both sites are anchored by more than 50 cameras, including 21 manned cameras (about eight of which are super slow-mo. There will be eight PylonCams in each endzone, as well as the line-to-gain PylonCams. The goal line pylons and the line-to-gain pylons have super slow-mo capabilities built into them. A wireless cinematic rig shooting in shallow depth-of-field will also be able to hit the field after scoring plays. That setup is a Sony FX3 on a gimbal connected to the truck via RF.
There will be plenty of aerial options from SkyCam (which has AR-graphics capabilities), a live drone from ESPN's internal drone division, as well as a blimp or plane flying above both stadiums.
For this entire CFP, ESPN has also added goal line robotics to ensure they have the best chances at having a definitive shot on scoring plays.
Comfortable in Each Stadium There's comfort level from both crews as ESPN is plenty familiar working at Hard Rock Stadium and AT&T Stadium, facilities the network visits regularly during the college and NFL seasons. The network will have more than 150 crew production, operations, and executive staff at each site.
At the Orange Bowl, the crew, led by producer Phil Dean and director Scott Johnson will work out of Game Creek Video 79, as well as GCV Edit 2.
I think we have a crew that's comfortable in this venue, says Jim Birch, Manager, Remote Operations for ESPN who is overseeing operations in Miami. We know the venue staff well since we've worked with them a few times. This is a place that call home when it comes to the playoffs, especially when we're used to doing a New Year's Six game here every year. It's always nice coming down here. We're always welcomed with open arms with the venue and it's always nice to get a little bit of warm weather in these [Playoff] games.
Meanwhile, the Cotton Bowl show, headed up producer Bill Bonnell and director Jimmy Platt, will originate from Game Creek Video Varsity and GCV Edit 1.
We come to AT&T [Stadium] a lot, says Terry Cook, Senior Remote Operations Specialist for ESPN, who is heading up ops in Arlington, where the weather has been treacherous with snow in the forecast. We know the technical people and they roll out the red carpet and work hand-in-hand in how we park the trucks. Thankfully, here we have parking underneath [the stadium]. Being inside is a blessing with the weather.
While there are ten 12-channel EVS XT-VIAs on-site, ESPN is adding a layer of its REMCO (remote) workflows for replay and graphics for Semifinals and the Championship. Four EVS operators are back in Bristol, as well as a Vizrt operator and an Associate Producer
MegaCast Options Return With the CFP semis also comes all of the pomp and circumstance of the network's various MegaCast options, which includes the alternate broadcast Field Pass with The Pat McAfee Show from the sidelines at both games.
Other options are longtime fixtures:
Command Center on ESPNU (a four quadrant screen with multiple camera angles and statistic displays)
SkyCast on ESPNEWS (view plays from the SkyCam angle; it is noted that whenever the main telecast shows a replay viewers of the SkyCast will see those same replays)
All-22 (watching the game from a high vantage point that allows the viewer to see all of the players on the field; this is accompanied by the ESPN Radio call of the game)
Hometown Radio (which allows viewers to watch the game but with the feed of the team's dedicated announcers included).
ESPN Takes Pride in First Two Rounds of CFP With the championship game still to come at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on January 20, this week is far from a culmination of a long season of college football for ESPN's crew, but the team did express pride in the work done in the first two rounds of the CFP, most notably the First Round which brought playoff football games to college football campuses for the first time in history.
Each of the four production compounds at the CFP First Round sites. (Courtesy: Jarrett Baker, LinkedIn)
To prepare for that uni
More from Sports Video Group
02/07/2025
Progressive realism: Aurora on taking up the broadcast reins for World RX alongs...
02/07/2025
Great speed: New host broadcaster Aurora on getting the World RX 2025 season pro...
02/07/2025
Seat of its pants: Aurora boxes clever and looks ahead for the FIA as new host b...
02/07/2025
UEFA Women's Euro 2025: EBU, BBC Sport and Sunset Vine talk coverage plans, ...
02/07/2025
UEFA Women's Euro 2025: Women's Super League launches new content series...
02/07/2025
UEFA Women's Euro 2025: Ignite puts fans and players front and centre with t...
02/07/2025
Storytelling in the Live Game Broadcast: ESPN Director Jimmy Platt Breaks Down t...
02/07/2025
CONCACAF's Miguel Angel Garcia on the Gold Cup's Enhanced 2025 Productio...
01/07/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Spyrosoft's Jonathan Witty on Futher Business Exp...
01/07/2025
The NIL Effect: How the Shifting Business of College Athletics Impacts On-Campus...
01/07/2025
Cherry on the cake: Inside the technical production of the Tour de France 2025 w...
01/07/2025
NESN's Josh Jun on Keeping Alternative Broadcasts Fresh for Boston Red Sox, ...
01/07/2025
TNT Sports Races Back Into NASCAR With Fresh Look, Familiar Edge Production approach emphasizes creative freedom, bold storytelling, casual-fan-friendly tone B...
27/06/2025
How smarter compression is creating a sustainable future By Michael Burns
Monday, June 23, 2025 - 14:13
Print This Story
Live sport is especially vulnerab...
27/06/2025
Behind the Mic: FOX Sports Ratchets Up UEFA Women's EURO 2025 With Top-Class...
27/06/2025
RTL Group To Acquire Sky Deutschland By George Bevir, Editorial Director, SVG Europe
Friday, June 27, 2025 - 8:00 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story ...
27/06/2025
Frictionless, At Scale: The Current State of Live Video Streaming Techology Leaders from Bitmovin, Comcast Technology Solutions, Harmonic, IMAX, and Phenix brea...
27/06/2025
Marquee Sports Network's Nick Steger on Meeting the Moment of the Contending...
27/06/2025
NHL Draft 2025: The League Is Primed for First Decentralized Draft in Non-Pandem...
26/06/2025
10th-Annual SVG Regional Sports Production Summit Presents Useful Roadmap for th...
26/06/2025
The Big Cloud Debate: Public vs. Private vs. Hybrid Tech leaders from CineSys, Diversified, and Net Insight breaks down all flavors of cloud By Jason Dachman, ...
26/06/2025
Program Productions' Jess Kowatch on Training the Next and Current Gener...
25/06/2025
SVG College Summit 2025: Select Sessions Now Available to Watch on SVG PLAY Tackling the latest in college sports video: NIL, live production, virtual productio...
25/06/2025
ESPN Is Set To Bring AR Graphics to Wimbledon, Revamps Bunker and Studio 18 VO B...
24/06/2025
2025 NBA Draft: ABC/ESPN Prepares for Two-Day Draft at Barclays Center Partners Game Creek Video, CP Communications, NEP Specialty Capture will be on hand By M...
24/06/2025
Cloud Broadcast Tech Update: Google Cloud's Jane Day on the Impact of AI on ...
24/06/2025
Cloud Broadcast Tech Update: AWS's Dana LaGattuta on Data-Driven Innovation ...
24/06/2025
Lions live: Dublin opener sees Sky Sports take remote route By Fergal Ringrose ...
24/06/2025
Pumas maul Lions as S4C and TG4 deliver first-ever joint host in Dublin By Ferg...
24/06/2025
ABC/ESPN Prepares for 2025 NBA Draft, the First at Barclays Center Partners Game Creek Video, CP Communications, NEP Specialty Capture will be on hand By Mark ...
23/06/2025
Adventures in Live Cloud Production: Stories From the Trenches with MLB, NHL, NB...
23/06/2025
Finding the edge: How Badger & Combes produces live-streamed coverage of county ...
23/06/2025
Masters of Madness: New football format shakes up the rules of sportainment By Adrian Pennington
Monday, June 16, 2025 - 11:38
Print This Story
The ball i...
23/06/2025
New State-of-the-Art Mountain Media Center Launches in Former Starz Encore Build...
23/06/2025
ESPN Says Goodbye to Seaport Studios, Hello to New State-of-the-Art Production F...
20/06/2025
Feeling Unlimited, Part 1: Athletes Unlimited Softball League Deploys Remote Pro...
20/06/2025
A True Test? Cricket's Growth on the Global Stage and the Role Broadcast Can...
20/06/2025
Sky Sports goes large for the British & Irish Lions Tour with AR graphics, UHD a...
20/06/2025
ESPN's Men's College World Series Finals Coverage Combines Innovation, L...
19/06/2025
SVG Rewind: PGA Tour Introduces Drone AR Smart Tracing, Reflects on Winning Geor...
18/06/2025
Technology focus: Fan expectations drive advances in the in-stadium experience By Jo Ruddock
Tuesday, June 3, 2025 - 08:36
Print This Story
For years, att...
18/06/2025
Making connections: How stadiums are meeting the ever-growing demand for data an...
18/06/2025
SVG Venues & Teams Summit Keynote: RWS Global Powers the Stadium Environment at ...
18/06/2025
SVG Rewind: Behind the Scenes of Producing Tottenham Hotspur's Europa League...
17/06/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Mercury Intermedia's Tom Richardson, Mike Ligon o...
17/06/2025
Total Sports Performance from Relo Metrics, VideoAmp, Offers Next-Level Media, B...
17/06/2025
From Stage to Stream: Producing Live Esports Events in 2025 Leaders from ESL FACEIT Group, Riot Games, and more break down the latest trends By Jason Dachman, ...
17/06/2025
Inside FIFA 2025 Club World Cup Operations With FIFA's Oscar Sanchez, HBS...
17/06/2025
Production ambitions: Over Exposed on making the National League Promotion Final...