
NBA Finals 2023: ESPN Updates Championship Series With New Mixed-Reality Open Unreal Engine powers the cinematic feature By Kristian Hern ndez, Senior Editor
Thursday, June 1, 2023 - 12:33 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
When the 2023 NBA Finals tip off tonight between the highly favored Denver Nuggets and underdog Miami Heat, ESPN will highlight the sport's ultimate prize with a new mixed-reality (MR) open for its broadcast.
Every NBA Finals Champion has a story that is paired with their own historic journey, says Lucas Nickerson, creative director, ESPN. The trophy holds a collection of memories, and this is the curation of rare moments that generate greatness.
Beyond the Traditional: Team Generates Multiple Creative Ideas A championship series like the NBA Finals deserves an impressive open to attract casual basketball fans as well as supporters of both teams. The open is new every year, and, with each one, creating a brand-new version gets a little bit harder. This year, a handful of ideas and technological workflows were thrown around, and finding the singular internal message was key.
We talked about a traditional animated open, says Nickerson, but, as we worked through the boards and creative brief, we knew that the story had to be executed in a different way. We wanted to direct an open that had flexibility in unique storytelling and involved the expertise across all of ESPN Creative Studio.
The mixed-reality set for ESPN's new NBA Finals open
The history of the league is vital to understanding the NBA's complete story. Players like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and LeBron James solidified their legacies by winning multiple championships. Although they played in different eras and won the NBA Finals at different phases of their respective careers, the common denominator between them is the Larry O'Brien trophy. Creatively, the final vision of this year's open will explain not only the journey of this famous trophy but also each team's road to this matchup.
ESPN on ABC is the home of the NBA Finals. It's where champions become legends, notes Nickerson. This new open takes you on a journey for the title run through a combination of visual techniques driven by ESPN's Creative Studio.
Constrained Timeline: Short Turnaround Becomes the Biggest Challenge As with many championship productions, ESPN Creative Studios had a quick deadline to figure out the creative direction, determine the technologies necessary, shoot the project, and finalize any last details before Game 1. Fortunately, the broadcaster has been deploying the same workflows during its live broadcasts as it's using for the new open.
The new open follows the journey of the NBA's biggest prize, the Larry O'Brien trophy.
For our primetime ABC games, says Nickerson, we implemented extended reality and augmented reality with an editorially driven brand creative in the fall of 2022. The goal of virtually capturing the 3D-animation identity allowed us to springboard our creative aspirations for the NBA Finals this summer.
Although the production and operations teams were familiar with the workflows, it was critical that they work collaboratively with the editorial team to tell the story with stunning visuals.
These new workflows turned into many working sessions to solve creative questions, notes Nickerson. The biggest challenge we encountered was finding a balance of imagination and editorial content within the restraints of one day of filming.
Ultimately, the crew was able to overcome the compressed timeline and strike that balance to achieve the desired product.
We knew this was a strong team of artists that were up for the challenge of exploring a new approach to this project, says Jeremy Anderson, creative producer, ESPN.
Players' jerseys - including those of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Tim Duncan - tell the NBA's story for ESPN's new open.
From a technology perspective, the crew leaned heavily on the power of Unreal Engine as well as on partnerships with Panoply Studio, Two Fresh Creative, and Silverspoon Animation to establish the MR environment. The project was captured via five cameras: two XR cameras, two in-arena AR units, and one CG camera.
Full-Scale Effort: ESPN Creative Studios Pitches in To Enhance Televised Product Nickerson and Anderson played a large role in making the project a success, but others under the ESPN Creative Studios umbrella provided vital expertise: Art Director, NBA Finals, Dale Harney; the finalized look through Unreal Engine by Lead Designer Colin Moore and Senior Designer John Siciliano; and editorial direction by Editors Rabia AlGhani and Adam Schaub. Support for the project also came from Senior Director, Animation and Graphics Innovation, Mike Spike Szykowny; Creative Director David Sparrgrove; Associate Art Director Jeremy Simches; Manager, Motion Graphics Design, Charles Collin; Senior Concept Artist Renata Sedzimir; Animation Supervisor Matt Tucker; Supervising Real-Time Graphics Developer Brad Griswold; Colorist Pat Strenk; and Sound Designer Ben Ayotte. Overall, the entire team came together to pull off a new open for one of the network's most high-profile shows of the year.
ESPN Creative Studio has thrived because of innovative ideas developed by our teams, says Szykowny. The team that worked on this project showed extraordinary ambition and passionate pursuit of creativity, which remains the heart of everything we do. I could not be more proud of what this team has accomplished.
Stay tuned for plenty more coverage of the NBA Finals on SVG in the coming days.
More from Sports Video Group
18/07/2025
Live from the 153rd Open Championship: SMT Enhances Video Board Experience; Enab...
18/07/2025
ShotTracker's Davyeon Ross on Revolutionizing Basketball On the Court and ...
18/07/2025
Home Pitch: How the Danish League Brought Its Live Match Production In-House Matchday Production produced 800+ matches across Denmark in its first year By Geor...
18/07/2025
Live From the 153rd Open Championship: EMG Debuts Spidercam for Golf, Expands Su...
18/07/2025
Usyk vs Dubois II: Bringing the fight to life with state of the art cameras and ...
18/07/2025
Usyk vs Dubois II: DAZN's head of boxing Chris Glanville talks helicopters, ...
18/07/2025
Live From the 153rd Open Championship: NBC Expands Unilateral Effort; Shared Stu...
18/07/2025
Warner Bros. Discovery's Anne Graham on Training New Professionals to Ensure...
18/07/2025
Live From the 153rd Open Championship: How R&A Spidercam Became a Reality for Go...
18/07/2025
ESPN Bulks Up Onsite Studios, Cameras, Player Mics for WNBA All-Star Weekend Besides the game, four studio shows will be produced onsite By Jason Dachman, Edit...
17/07/2025
SVG Sit-Down: OpenDrives' Sean Lee, Michael Wilsker, and Jason Matousek on E...
17/07/2025
Oracle's Geoff Tognetti on Staying Ahead of the AI Curve Through Further Ado...
17/07/2025
NBA's Summer League Is a Hot Bed of AI, Immersive Innovation Testing Audio mixing, intelligent camera framing are among AI-driven efforts By Ken Kerschbaum...
17/07/2025
SVG's TranSPORT Conference Returns to NYC on Oct. 21; Register Today! By SVG Staff
Thursday, July 17, 2025 - 8:29 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
St...
17/07/2025
Gravity Media chosen as group name for merged OB business By George Bevir
Wednesday, July 16, 2025 - 11:30
Print This Story
Gravity Media executive chairm...
17/07/2025
SES Closes Deal to Acquire Intelsat, Creating New Giant in Satellite Connectivit...
17/07/2025
How MLB Pulled Off That Unforgettable Hank Aaron Tribute at the All-Star Game Vintage content, state-of-the-art projection/processing combine in marvelous mile...
16/07/2025
Deltatre Acquires Endeavor Streaming in Major Streaming Industry Move The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2025 By Brandon Costa, Direc...
16/07/2025
SVG Regional Sports Production Summit 2025: All Sessions Now Available to Watch ...
15/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: FOX Sports Aims To Capture Chatty Players on the Fi...
15/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: From Live Event Coverage to Studio Shows, MLB Netwo...
15/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: FOX Sports' Francisco Contreras and Tom Lynch o...
15/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star: FOX Sports' Production Is Bigger Than Ever in Steamy...
15/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star: FOX Sports Director Matt Gangl and Producer Pete Machesk...
14/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: ESPN Preps for Home Run Derby Broadcast While Produ...
14/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: ESPN Operations on Supporting Monday's Home Run...
14/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: ESPN's Home Run Derby: Statcast Edition' T...
14/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: ESPN Producer Scott Matthews Goes Inside the Home R...
14/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: ESPN's Phil Orlins on Adding Live Drone AR Smar...
14/07/2025
Sony's New Coach's Headset Was Designed in Collaboration With the NFL Featuring a custom dynamic boom mic, the headset will debut in the fall By Dan Da...
14/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: MLB Network's Marc Caiafa and Tom Guidice on th...
13/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: MLB Network Marks Five Straight Years of Onsite MLB...
11/07/2025
Behind the Mic: Amazon Prime Preps for First Season of NBA Action; MSG Networks ...
11/07/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Suite Studios' Craig Hering on Adapting to Client...
11/07/2025
2025 SVG Content Management Forum Breaks Down AI's Impact, Continued Transit...
11/07/2025
A Journey HOME: University of Nebraska's HuskerVision Goes IP Leaders from the HuskerVision and Lawo share their IP learnings By SVG Staff
Friday, July 1...
11/07/2025
CMSI, Remote Picture Labs, Ace ESPN's Cloud-Based Editing Efforts for Wimble...
11/07/2025
Netflix Enters the Live-Boxing-Production Ring for Round 2 With Historic Taylor-...
10/07/2025
5G for all? What the DFL's use of Easy5G and RefCam could mean for events in...
10/07/2025
Save the Date: PGA TOUR Studios Welcomes SVG Remote Production Summit on Oct 14-...
10/07/2025
Cloud on the Road: How Remote-Production-Service Providers Are Adapting to a New...
10/07/2025
Seattle Kraken's Ryan Schaber on the NHL Team Taking Live Game Productions I...
10/07/2025
FOX Sports Reboots Small Control Room in Los Angeles as Hub for Vertical-First P...
10/07/2025
SVG Sit-Down: MSE's Zach Leonsis, ViewLift's Rick Allen Go Deep on Joint...
09/07/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment, ViewLift Unveil Broadcast/Streaming Joint Ven...
09/07/2025
SVG Europe Audio State of Wireless Mics Forum: If we lose the spectrum, it...
09/07/2025
Tech Focus: Athlete Audio - Venues Provide Sound Just for the Players From locker room to field of play, personalized systems help rev up the athletes By Dan D...
08/07/2025
Groundbreaking Gamecocks: Inside University of South Carolina's Four-Control...
08/07/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment's Samantha Brady on the Power of the RSN...
08/07/2025
Live From 2025 FIFA Club World Cup: FIFA, HBS Focus on Tournament Wrap, With an ...