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
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...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
The days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and playlists are filling up for the season. With summer around the corner, Spotify's global edito...
29/05/2026
New retro-inspired MPC announced
There are few devices that have gained the status held by Akai Pro's MPC range, and in recent years, the company have s...
29/05/2026
Save up to 30 on acclaimed titles
Following a successful launch at Superbooth 2026, Bjooks have revealed that they will be continuing the Kickstarter campa...
29/05/2026
Binaural monitoring application improved
Genelec have just released an update that brings some powerful new features to their HRTF-based binaural headphone ...
29/05/2026
6 June 2026 at SAE Institute, London, UK
IMSTA FESTA 2026 is almost upon us, with some of the biggest names in pro-audio set to descend upon SAE Institute i...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Comparing 5 AI Video Enhancers for Restoring Old Video Quality
Kate Luvis May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Digitizing VHS, MiniDV, and other legacy formats doe...
29/05/2026
Studio Hamburg Builds New Post Pipeline with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Workflow replaces a patchwork of legacy tools...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
At the Intersection of Music and Dance, an Epic Collaboration Boston Conservatory musicians and dancers found creative parallels in their recent performance o...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
The Official Trailer of Physical 100 Italy, on Netflix From Se...
29/05/2026
At just 20 years old, Sean Melia from Summerhill Co. Meath has been revealed as the winner of Super Garden 2026. Sean is the youngest ever contestant and winner...
29/05/2026
Experimental HIV vaccine achieves a long-sought goal In a first for the field, all non-human primates given a new series of vaccines generated antibodies capabl...
28/05/2026
Thomsons Climate Crisis Toolkit is already being put to work, helping journalist...
28/05/2026
FOX Sports' MLB coverage dominated the night at the 47th Annual Sports Emmy ...
28/05/2026
One of the most memorable postseasons in baseball history would have had no memo...
28/05/2026
NBC's Sunday Night Football is among the most-decorated and most-watched pro...
28/05/2026
The 2026 Sports Emmys marked a watershed moment for Prime Video Sports. After bu...
28/05/2026
Hosted by ESPN Senior Writer Ryan McGee, the ceremony honored winners from athletic departments, conference offices, professional networks, production companies...
28/05/2026
Major rights-holders rolled out their 2026 college football slates today, offering a first look at marquee windows, kickoff partners, and conference distributio...
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 
