MSG Network's XR Studios Heat Up Manhattan as Knicks Heat Up the NBA Playoffs The facility offers the RSN flexibility, cost-efficiency, and revenue opportunity By Ken Kerschbaumer Thursday, May 22, 2025 - 8:00 am
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While the New York Knicks are capturing the hearts of Knicks fans around the world with their deep run in the NBA Playoffs, the MSG Network production facilities across the street are capturing the hearts of tech geeks with MSG XR Studios, which opened in December and have shown what an extended-reality studio can mean to a regional sports network.
The studio environment is much more flexible and cost-efficient than physical sets, says MSG Networks President/CEO Andrea Greenburg. It requires a smaller space and the ability to change the environments and use it for clients creates real opportunities for us. It's not just the expense side but also the revenue side that benefits.
From left: MSG Network's Kevin Moratta, Dave Schafer, Andrea Greenburg, and Bill Pidto at MSG XR Studios
MSG Networks SVP, Product Technology and Operations, Dave Schafer is no stranger to XR studios: when he was at Eurosport, that company built one of the first of the kind for the 2018 Beijing Olympics. He joined MSG Networks in his current role at the end of 2021, and his continued attention to developments around XR helped drive this project forward.
[The Eurosport effort] was like a science project, and we used it across our 15 markets to change studio environments, he says. XR is a great fit [at MSG] because the technology has advanced so much and gives us a lot more capability to switch studio environments without the need for more physical space. We can basically consolidate four sets into one small virtual environment. So far, we've been very happy with the output.
The new MSG XR studio as it looks in person
The fully rendered look seen by MSG viewers
The 1,100-sq.-ft. studio has an approximately 28- x 14-ft. LED floor with a dot pitch of 4.7 mm, and a 33.5-ft.-long x 9.85-ft.-tall wall that has a resolution of 3,840 1,944 and a dot pitch of 1.5 mm. Redundant Disguise servers load and render the studio environments, which are created with Unreal Engine, and lighting is all DMX LED, driven by a combination of Stage Precision and an ETC lighting desk. The XR studio can accept 12 video inputs to feed content to the screens.
Adds Schafer, We started early last summer with the design and laying out the footprint. Construction started in August, and we were live in December. We hired FRAY in London to build out the virtual environments, and DMB Audio (formerly White Light) did the build and integration.
The studio also has three robotic cameras that are calibrated to the environment and controlled from a control room on a different floor. The IP-based control room has nine operator positions in the main area and six in a media-support area and features a Grass Valley K-Frame XP 4M/E switcher and Kayenne 3M/E auxiliary control panel. It also has 12 channels of EVS replay, an EVS Spotbox, Chyron Prime Graphics, and an SSL T3 audio console.
To take advantage of the design flexibility offered by XR, MSG Network has brought in an Unreal Engine artist, who can respond to evolving needs, such as new sponsor elements and design tweaks.
We have a mixed-reality approach, notes Kevin Marotta, SVP, marketing and content strategy, MSG Networks. We have a physical desk that is a traditional element, and we can turn the desk around and have a different look. This has been a very natural progression for our production team and talent.
The learning curve was quick, with little if any impact on things like preproduction planning, says Bill Pidto, studio host, Knicks telecasts, MSG Networks, adding, So many things can be done in this space, and it's absolutely amazing.
From a sponsorship standpoint, MSG can now create more opportunities as well as doing branded-content shoots. For those sorts of things, Marotta explains, we can create more content because the space is efficient. We can switch from one environment to another quickly. In a physical world, that would be two days of shooting as we would have to strike and then rebuild. With this, we can just go and be nimbler.
There is plenty of opportunity for the system to expand, with AR elements added in, for example, or talent or athletes beamed in from a remote location. This year, Schafer says, we're just proving it out and showing the market what is possible. I think, as we move forward with the sponsors, there's a lot more elements we can add. It's not just integrating a logo into the background: we can use augmented reality and have the talent really engage with that.
We built this, he continues, to satisfy not only MSG and, obviously, our partners but anyone else in the industry. We're opening this up as a rental studio for any type of client, not just broadcasters. Here in New York, we've seen large-scale LED volumes built for movies, but we're one of the only ones in a contained space.
With the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals, the bad news is that MSG Network isn't broadcasting the games, but the good news is its pre/postgame coverage, which originates from XR Studios, is capturing viewers.
This is my 16th season with MSG Networks, says Pidto. The crew and I have seen a lot of different things, but we haven't seen this. We're really excited. I was a little boy here when the Knicks were winning championships, so to be in this position is exciting.
