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 ...
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
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
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...
02/07/2026
Screen Australia backs audience-led filmmaking with new insight-driven initiativ...
02/07/2026
Screen Australia refines guidelines for Narrative Content Development and Docume...
02/07/2026
Maxon Autograph: Introduction to working with Tables
Simon Ubsdell July 1, 2026
0 Comments
An overview of Autograph's ridiculously powerful tables...
02/07/2026
Boston Conservatory's Soir e Breaks Records to Fund Student Scholarships The event achieved 127 percent of its fundraising goal in an evening celebrating ...
02/07/2026
How Adam Rosenwach Pivoted from Music to Med Tech Without Missing a Beat What do the rehearsal room and the boardroom have in common? More than you might thin...
02/07/2026
Summer is heating up - and GeForce NOW is taking players along for the ride.
Start the month with Monopoly: Star Wars Heroes vs. Villains, bringing a galaxy fa...
01/07/2026
Broadcast Management Group (BMG) has announced the appointment of Kathy Samuels ...
01/07/2026
Shade has announced Custom Objects and Automations, a platform expansion releasing June 29, 2026, that adds database and workflow automation capabilities direct...
01/07/2026
FOR-A America has announced the addition of Jaz Wray and Fernando Cruz to its U.S. sales team. Both report to Ernie Leon, Senior VP and Head of Sales and Strate...
01/07/2026
NBC Sports will air all 15 MLB games nationally on Sunday, July 5, across NBC, P...
01/07/2026
Clear-Com has announced a wireless communications upgrade for Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, deploying FreeSpeak II and FreeSpeak Icon systems across both prod...
01/07/2026
England's performance team will use Sony's STATSports APEX GPS tracking system to monitor player physical data in real time during FIFA World Cup 2026 m...
01/07/2026
Adder Technology has announced the appointment of Neil Hillier as Chief Executive Officer, effective July 1, 2026. Hillier succeeds Adrian Dickens, who transiti...
01/07/2026
Bitcentral, Inc. has announced a strategic transaction creating two separate companies. The Production and Playout business will continue as Bitcentral, now own...
01/07/2026
DAZN has announced results from DAZN48, its creator initiative for the FIFA World Cup 2026. Launched in April 2026, the program received thousands of applicatio...
01/07/2026
Sarah Rose, VP, global services, Daktronics (NASDAQ: DAKT), will be inducted into the Information Display and Entertainment Association (IDEA) Hall of Fame at t...
01/07/2026
Gravity Media and the World Economic Forum's production team provided broadc...
01/07/2026
Insight Productions has announced the launch of Insight Storm, a 53-foot mobile broadcast unit built for esports production. The truck is built around a Ross Vi...
01/07/2026
ESPN has announced several content initiatives marking America's 250th anniversary, as part of The Walt Disney Company's Disney Celebrates America pro...
01/07/2026
Eleven production kits, REMI workflows, and cloud distribution bring 40 World Cu...
01/07/2026
The conference also discussed the opportunities offered an industry that is endu...
01/07/2026
The Mountain West Conference has announced the launch of MW , a direct-to-consumer streaming platform powered by Kiswe. The platform will carry live Mountain We...
01/07/2026
New AI Assistant, Multi-channel Audio, ARA2 improvements & more
Tracktion's DAW software has just received its latest major update, gaining a selection ...
01/07/2026
Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones
The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...
01/07/2026
Exclusive run of limited-edition modelling pedals
Sweetwater and Andertons M...
01/07/2026
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) is pleased to announce that the ca...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/07/2026
Manfrotto Introduces UNCOVER, the new premium camera bag collection for modern h...
01/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Powers Houston Tamil Sangam Literacy Competition
Brie Clayton July 1, 2026
0 Comments
Volunteers use ATEM Mini Pro, Blackmagic Desig...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/07/2026
PlayBox Technology has published State of Broadcast Infrastructure 2026, an in-depth industry research report examining the technologies, operational challenges...
01/07/2026
LONDON, UK, 1 JULY Jigsaw24 has appointed Alan Henry as Head of Sales for Media and Entertainment, reinforcing its continued investment in helping broadcaster...
01/07/2026
Content Vault, the patent-pending secure content distribution platform protecting high-value media from disclosures, theft and unauthorised access, today announ...
01/07/2026
Bitcentral, Inc. a leading provider of enterprise software and digital media solutions for news, sports and entertainment broadcasters, as well as streaming pla...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
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 
