College Football Kickoff 2021: ESPN Sees Shift in Return to Site as Week 1 Ushers in Busy, Complex Schedule Following a season loaded with REMI shows, 2021 sees some trucks, crews, announcers return to the road By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Thursday, September 2, 2021 - 2:53 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
One might call it a logistical nightmare - if college football weren't so damn much fun.
One of the busiest, most complex projects of the year at ESPN gets humming this weekend as Week 1 of the college football season kicks off with a whopping 58 games across the ESPN family of networks.
The busy slate is headlined by the Duke's Mayo Classic in Charlotte, NC - No. 5 Georgia vs. No. 3 Clemson - in ABC primetime on Saturday evening; a native 4K production of the Texas Tech vs. Houston game from NRG Stadium on ESPN Saturday night; and the Chick-fil-A Kickoff in Atlanta - No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 14 Miami - Saturday afternoon.
To juggle the diverse production levels, production models, venue capabilities, and fluctuating schedules is quite the undertaking, to say the least. In Week 1 alone, the network is carrying teams from all 10 FBS conferences and with distribution to 10 ESPN platforms: ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network, Big 12 Now on ESPN , ESPN3, ESPN , and SEC Network (SECN ).
College football almost feels like endless possibilities, says Tommy Mitchell, operations manager, ESPN. I could be doing a game at Mercedes-Benz dome in Atlanta - like we are this week - and then the next week I could be in a glorified high school football stadium that has no power, no internet, and no cables. I think, when you add that into the scale of how many games we do, that's where the challenge lies. Those logistics problems are not a big deal if you're doing two or three games a week. When you're doing 45 to 50 and you compound all of those, that's what makes college football challenging. But, to me, that's the fun part of college football: we get to put the puzzle pieces together.
ESPN is coming off a 2020 college football season riddled with logistical challenges, with the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the schedule and limiting - or completely barring - fan attendance in stadiums. It also led to ESPN's operations team busting out every flavor of live event production available, including many productions in which many production personnel and on-air talent worked remotely at ESPN headquarters and even at their own homes.
Although many of those REMI, REMI Pro, and GREMI models will again be deployed, Mitchell notes that the 2021 slate of shows will have much more of a feel of 2019, with a large chunk of games returning to full onsite truck production and the vast majority of games on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2 once again called by on-air talent onsite.
The various production models are slightly different. REMIs are full at-home productions, with no on-air talent onsite (except for possibly a sideline reporter) and very minimal crew at the stadium. The events are produced from control rooms in one of the three primary ESPN facilities: Bristol, CT; Charlotte, NC; or Orlando (at Wide World of Sports). With REMI Pro, on-air talent and a few more technical positions are onsite, but the majority of the production is still assembled in a studio control room.
GREMI, which was used most notably during Monday Night Football last season, seems at a glance like a typical truck show, with on-air talent and much of the production and operations team onsite. However, multiple EVS replay operators, a graphics operator, Viz Libero telestration, and the guts and operations of the in-game scorebug are handled from a control room in Bristol.
Much of the work in shifting all these pieces around is overseen by ESPN and ABC Sports SVP, Remote Production Operations, Chris Calcinari; Director, Remote Production Operations, Rex Arends; and Director, Remote Production Operations, John LaChance. Operations Manager Dick Mullen and Remote Operations Specialist Brian Ristine play key roles in ensuring the success of each model.
I feel really confident in our ability to execute our models, says Mitchell. We worked out a lot of kinks last year of how these models all fit together, and we figured out where the pain points are. So I feel really good about this season in our execution models.
Where I don't have the confidence is how the schedule is going to shake out, he continues, noting the potential for conferences to forfeit games if a COVID outbreak occurs within a team. There's obviously a lot more games going on this year, and, with most of the conferences saying they are not rescheduling games, that's volatile for us. We do have so many more options, though, because we're back to a full schedule of college football. I think there's [a lot] that bodes well for us. There's a lot less uncertainty if a game does go away; there are games that Programming can move easier than we did last year, when we just didn't have a lot of options.
The schedule has already presented an early challenge (for completely understandable reasons): Saturday's game between Oklahoma and Tulane shifted from New Orleans to Norman, OK, in the wake of Hurricane Ida's strike on the Gulf Coast. Resources and staffing for that game needed to be rerouted or completely redone in a matter of days.
In terms of what's to come on the biggest of ESPN's broadcasts this season, the biggest game production from a resources standpoint remains the big primetime game on ABC. Those games will again be produced from Game Creek Video 79 for the fourth season.
Although Mitchell notes that the overall gear complement on that show will be at a similar level to previous years (Skycam and PylonCams are back), ESPN will be bringing back its jib
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
When Canada qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2026, OneSoccer knew this wasn'...
04/07/2026
Celebrates company's 80th anniversary
Rhodes have recently revealed that they will be producing a limited run of electric pianos in celebration of their...
04/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Empower Youth Broadcasting Program
Brie Clayton July 3, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and Blackmagi...
04/07/2026
iZotope Joins Boris FX
Boris Yamnitsky July 3, 2026
0 Comments
iZotope, the team behind RX and Ozone, is joining Boris FX. A letter from founder Boris...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Death Star
Andy Marken July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Look, I can't get involved. I've got work to do. It's not that I like the Empire; I hate i...
03/07/2026
Berklee's New Visual Identity: Honoring Our History, Building for What's...
03/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists awarded $2M to advance global disease surveillance Two Gates Foundation grants will expand wastewater surveillance and AI-driven dis...
03/07/2026
Joan Pulupa joins Scripps Research faculty to study the organization of DNA in brain cells and its links to neurodegeneration Using smell-sensing neurons and ad...
02/07/2026
Entering her senior year, this hometown girl is paving a career in live sports production gaining experience in replay and audio and as a TD
In the live-sports...
02/07/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
02/07/2026
BLAST, a competitive entertainment company focused on esports, has announced more than $133 million in revenue for 2025, representing more than 40% year-over-ye...
02/07/2026
Riedel Communications has announced official SKAARHOJ panel support for SimplyLive production workflows, enabled through the SimplyLive 2.1 release. The integra...
02/07/2026
The Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic has deployed LiveU video-over-bond...
02/07/2026
Gravity Media USA has announced the appointment of Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development, effective July 1, 2026. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Bosto...
02/07/2026
TwelveLabs, a video intelligence company, has announced $100 million in Series B funding co-led by NEA and NAVER Ventures, with participation from Amazon, Radic...
02/07/2026
The Pro Padel League (PPL) has announced a broadcast partnership with USA Sports that will air five PPL championship matches on CNBC during the 2026 season, the...
02/07/2026
LiveLike, a digital fan engagement platform, has announced eight confirmed FIFA ...
02/07/2026
Cobalt Digital has received Future's Best of Show Award, presented by AV Technology at InfoComm 2026, for its blueCORE family of standalone signal processor...
02/07/2026
Synamedia has announced the appointment of Dr. Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transition...
02/07/2026
The Esports Foundation (EF) and Sony Group Corporation have announced an expanded collaboration for the Esports World Cup 2026 (EWC), taking place in Paris, Fra...
02/07/2026
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. ( Z') has announced exclusive broadcast and digital rights for the Bundesliga in India for five years, beginning with the...
02/07/2026
An effort uniting News, Sports, Local, and Telemundo, the 50+-camera live produc...
02/07/2026
Zoey Deutch, John Slattery, Ken Marino, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, and Ben Wang appe...
02/07/2026
Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones
The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...
02/07/2026
A new era in unmixing and spectral editing
The latest version of Steinberg's spectral audio-editing software has just arrived, building on the strength...
02/07/2026
Aims to simplify additive synthesis
Sine Machine is the debut launch from Melatonin, a Vienna-based developer who have spent the past six years creating wha...
02/07/2026
Products to remain fully active & supported
Following the news of Native Instruments joining the inMusic brand line-up, Academy and Emmy Award-winning visua...
02/07/2026
What you missed!
Last weekend, Saturday 27 June 2026, saw the debut of Sound On Sounds new GearExpo UK event, the largest dedicated pro-audio event to take ...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Following the successful launch of its inaugural APAC Mentoring Programme last month, the Rise AV APAC Regional Council will bring the conversation around mento...
02/07/2026
Blackmagic PYXIS 6K Used to Shoot Director Takahisa Zeze's Cry Out
Brie Clayton July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Highly mobile camera supports tense and de...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions acquires BFE, expanding its lead in European broadcast, medi...
02/07/2026
Berklee Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's 250th Anniversar...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions GmbH, a leading systems integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast media industry, is acquiring BFE Studio und Medien...
02/07/2026
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has extended the ingest facility at leading Brazilian sports company LiveMode, work...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Standalone processors acknowledged for the innovation and value they bring to Pro AV
Cobalt Digital, a leading designer and manufacturer of signal processing ...
02/07/2026
Synamedia announced today the appointment of Dr Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transitio...
College Football Kickoff 2021: ESPN Sees Shift in Return to Site as Week 1 Ushers in Busy, Complex Schedule Following a season loaded with REMI shows, 2021 sees some trucks, crews, announcers return to the road By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
