Live From Super Bowl LVIII: For CBS Sports, a True Team Effort Involves an Army of Vendors, Crew, and Talent Years of planning and the efforts of thousands have gone into the massive operation By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Friday, February 9, 2024 - 12:05 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The final pieces for Super Bowl LVIII are falling into place. Yesterday, the field tray rolled into Allegiant Stadium, and more and more of the production and support teams, especially those from vendors whose equipment and services are being used by CBS Sports, begin to arrive for the final push and game day.
The vendors are part of the collective effort that contributes to the Super Bowl production all week long, says Patty Power, EVP, operations and engineering, CBS Sports. We value their innovation, expertise, and teamwork to put on the biggest show of the year.
At the top of that vendor list are the three mobile-unit providers: NEP, Game Creek Video, and F&F Productions. Jason Cohen, VP, remote technical operations, CBS Sports, notes the contribution that they (and the other vendors) have made all season long.
It's important that our partners from Week 1 of the NFL are here, he says, not just to cover the Super Bowl with us but to celebrate the Super Bowl. For example, NEP is covering the game production for us as they did from Week 1, with our A-crew games produced out of Supershooter CBS. NEP is providing their TFC [Total Facility Control] Connect as well, which is the nucleus of everything [and routes all the audio and video signals].
While NEP has primary game duties, Game Creek Video is here with three trucks: Prime is handling pregame-show coverage, Varsity is doing the tape release, and Columbia is producing the Nickelodeon game. Game Creek also is providing edit support.
The front bench in Game Creek Video Prime will be very busy with Super Bowl LVIII pre/postgame and halftime activities.
F&F, meanwhile, has been at the Bellagio, with its GTX20 unit serving as the backbone of the studio shows.
They have an incredibly important task at the Bellagio, says Cohen, being the truck providing production for the CBS Sports Network shows that started on Monday of this week and carried on through the entire week. F&F also provided equipment to help get signals for shows like The Drew Barrymore Show and others out to their control rooms at home, where those shows are produced remotely.
When The NFL Today pregame show kicks off at 2 p.m. ET at the Bellagio, he continues, that show will be produced out of the Game Creek Prime truck, and, on Saturday, That Other Pregame Show is also produced out of Prime and connected to the Bellagio via fiber. But all the daily and nighttime shows from the Bellagio for CBS Sports Network are done out of F&F.
Those trucks collectively will have 37 EVS replay machines, providing more than 600 channels of recorded playback.
As for power generation, again, suppliers that worked with CBS this season are involved. Aggreko and Sunbelt helped us all season long with our regular-season and postseason power, notes Cohen. [Here] Sunbelt/Filmworks is doing all the compound power for us, and Aggreko is doing the Bellagio power for us from a comms and RF standpoint.
Specialty Cameras and Wireless On the wireless front, CP Communications is handling all the wireless PLs and microphones, and AVS oversees RF video. Then there are the specialty devices, such as 20 Fletcher robos in various locations around the field (4K down the line, the goal-line cameras, etc.) and in hallways and other stadium locations. In addition, four are scattered around the city: at The STRAT, Planet Hollywood, the Renaissance Hotel, and the Mandalay Bay.
Those are all using LiveU for transmission but are controlled robotically by Fletcher, Cohen explains. We also have LiveU for covering the team buses and team hotels and those sorts of things.
Skycam is providing three Skycams in the stadium and Skycam robos mounted above each goal line capturing images in 1080p for 4X-slo-mo playback.
We also will use two Flycam systems, says Cohen. One is in the stadium on the reverse side of the field to catch players running down the sideline on the far side of the field. At the Bellagio, we have a 1,000-ft. Flycam across the water.
Drones also will be in the mix. In Super Bowl first, one will fly within a 10-mile radius of the stadium on game day during pregame coverage.
Beverly Hills Aerials is providing a heavy-lift drone flying with a Sony P50 camera, says Cohen. It will be at the Bellagio, where it has been getting shots all week. Beverly Hills Aerials also provided a tethered drone that flies at 400 ft. from an adjacent space next to the stadium to the Magic parking lot, which is about a block and a half from the stadium. It gives us a great shot of the stadium with the city in the back. We had a tethered drone in Atlanta five years ago for Super Bowl LIII.
Two FPV drones are also in use. One is flying around the Bellagio set, doing small moves throughout the sets and signs; the other is at the Paramount Mountain activation zone at The Mirage.
A doink cam prior to being installed into one of the uprights for Super Bowl LVIII
The end zones are obviously the most important part of the field, and, for coverage there, several vendors are supplying specialty gear. BSI, Fletcher, and Antelope are involved with the front-goal-line pylons (Fletcher and Antelope were also integral to creation of the doink cam), and C360 is doing the back pylons as well as the C360 8K cameras mounted on the back of the goal posts and shooting toward the back line.
[The C360 8K cameras are] part of their overall 200-degree immersive replay system, notes Cohen.
Another new camera position is the Red Cat cam, a RED Digital Cinema camera located on the catwa
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
13/11/2026
The UIM E1 Series wraps its third season this week with the Bombay Sapphire E1 Miami GP, Nov. 11-14, on Biscayne Bay at the Miami Seaplane Base on Watson Island...
13/11/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
13/11/2026
Singer-songwriter Benson Boone will headline entertainment for the Discover NHL Winter Classic between the Utah Mammoth and Colorado Avalanche at Rice-Eccles St...
13/11/2026
Blackmagic Design has announced the Blackmagic Ambisonic Microphone, a 7th order ambisonic microphone array that captures spatial audio for immersive video prod...
13/11/2026
SMPTE has announced that The Studio B&H and Riedel Communications will provide the video infrastructure and communications technology for the Solutions Hub at t...
13/11/2026
The Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) has announced the theme and program focus for the 2027 HPA Tech Retreat, which takes place Feb. 14-18, 2027, in La ...
13/11/2026
Football Manager 27 Touch is available on Apple Arcade starting today. The game ...
13/11/2026
MotoGP has announced a two-year media rights agreement with ESPN covering the Un...
13/11/2026
Apple Sports, the free iPhone app, has added the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to its lineup of supported sports, in time for Saturday's UFC 334. The...
13/11/2026
The NBA and Fanatics Studios, the joint venture between Fanatics and entertainme...
13/11/2026
ESPN held its annual EDGE Innovation Conference last night and offered up an ove...
13/11/2026
Regional sports network gives Ithaca College, SUNY Cortland students a platform to thrive
One of the biggest games in Division III college football will be pla...
13/11/2026
Studer-inspired 500-series PWM compressor unveiled
The HLabs range already includes a couple of Studer-inspired offerings in the form of the PRE169 and EQ16...
13/11/2026
Download Now!
To view the white paper, please enter the following details:
--
First Name* First Name
Company*
Country* Please select your countryA...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Blue Lucy, the workflow orchestration and integration platform for broadcasters, rights owners and localisation companies, today announced an integration with c...
13/11/2026
Krotos announces Black Friday offers on Studio Pro and Studio Max
Brie Clayton November 12, 2026
0 Comments
First-year annual plans start at US$195.99...
13/11/2026
Blackmagic Design Announces Blackmagic Ambisonic Microphone
Brie Clayton November 12, 2026
0 Comments
New 7th order ambisonic microphone with 108 MEMS...
13/11/2026
Meet the Berklee Student Setting Planetary Motion to Music With his compositional platform SoniKosmos, Javier Roqueni aims to make the universe the ultimate i...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , er...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , er...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Amagi, the media industry cloud company, today announced a partnership with Golden Times Media Technology (stock code 920021.BJ), a Beijing-based media and tech...
13/11/2026
CGI (TSX: GIB.A) (NYSE: GIB), one of the largest independent IT and business consulting services firms in the world, together with its Malaysian partner, Cedar ...
13/11/2026
SMPTE, the home for media professionals, technologists and engineers, today announced that The Studio B&H and Riedel Communications will provide the video infra...
13/11/2026
iWedia, a global leader in connected TV software solutions, will present its software-first approach to DRAM optimization at Android TV APAC Summit 2026 in Bang...
13/11/2026
Beginning today, November 13, Apple HomeView is available for purchase at Apple Store locations, on the Apple Store online, and in the Apple Store app in select...
13/11/2026
From pediatric research to smart hospitals, AI is helping care teams spend less time on routine tasks and more time with patients.
Health systems and startups...
12/11/2026
Industry leaders examine how Dynamic Media Facility, Media eXchange Layer, and c...
12/11/2026
The junior Tar Heel is embracing the technical and creative challenges of live production while emerging as a leader and mentor in the control room...
12/11/2026
Gracenote, Nielsen's content intelligence business, has released its fifth a...
12/11/2026
RTL Deutschland will bring the NHL to free-to-air TV in Germany starting Nov. 30...
12/11/2026
Clear-Com supported On Air 2026, a 24-hour student-led broadcast connecting 45 u...
12/11/2026
uniqFEED has opened a Remote Operations Center (ROC) in Madrid, Spain. It is already operational, delivering virtual advertising for LaLiga matches. The ROC is ...
12/11/2026
Disney, ESPN and the NBA will present Dunk the Halls, the third real-time animated NBA game using Sony's Beyond Sports data visualization technology, on Chr...
12/11/2026
Van Wagner has launched Van Wagner RELAY, a digital platform for official athlet...
12/11/2026
Deal brings together two of the industry's most established graphics brands and significantly expands Vizrt's footprint in U.S. sports and regional broa...
12/11/2026
Euro TV Production GmbH of Austria has upgraded its outside broadcast vehicle with Lawo technology. The mc 36 Classic console in service since 2019 was replaced...
12/11/2026
Tagboard has launched Spark Resize, an AI-assisted tool now in beta that takes an existing graphic and produces a new version for a different aspect ratio or sc...
Live From Super Bowl LVIII: For CBS Sports, a True Team Effort Involves an Army of Vendors, Crew, and Talent Years of planning and the efforts of thousands have gone into the massive operation By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
