Live From Super Bowl LVI: On Eve of Big Game NBC Sports Talks Unique Efforts, Tech Advances

Live From Super Bowl LVI: On Eve of Big Game NBC Sports Talks Unique Efforts, Tech Advances By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director

Saturday, February 12, 2022 - 7:58 pm

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It may be Super Bowl LVI but for the team at NBC Sports it feels much bigger (if that is possible) as there is not only the game and all of the requisite pre-game programming and additional sets but also arguably the best wrap-around programming ever for a Super Bowl: the Winter Olympics.

(l-to-r) Keith Kice, Craig Bernstein, John Roche, and Ken Goss at Super Bowl LVI.

We say it every year, but the scope of Super Bowl is massive, and it seems to grow every year, says Craig Bernstein, NBC Sports VP, Remote Technical Operations and Engineering. Especially with the addition of pre-game and the locations that they're at as well as the Olympics which will be on five hours before us and five hours after us.

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It's been four years since NBC Sports last had a Super Bowl as it swapped Super Bowls with CBS Sports so that it could have a Super Bowl that aligned with a Winter Olympics. In those four years much has changed but one thing hasn't: the production team for Super Bowl LVI is coming off another year where it has produced the nation's highest rated TV show, Sunday Night Football. And that show has nearly 60 cameras every week so, needless to say, the team is well versed in big shows like the Super Bowl.

Super Bowl LVI enables us to highlight the cutting-edge technologies that we use to enhance the viewers experience which we also show on a weekly basis during the SNF season, says Ken Goss, EVP, studio/remote operations planning, NBC Sports. We have a talented and experienced team here where our focus is to deliver an exceptional and technically sound broadcast.

Tim DeKime, NBC Sports, VP of sports operations, says it's been a pretty good few weeks of set up at SoFi.

We put so many resources into SNF that it's not a big push to go to a Super Bowl as far as equipment goes, he says. We will have a different graphics look and that is something we usually do at a Super Bowl: roll out a new graphics look.

The biggest difference between the Super Bowl and a regular season Sunday Night Football game is the addition of a massive pre-game programming slate that brings in a whole new set of challenges. The Super Bowl is also an NBC Universal Symphony event where they use every channel and platform to promote it.

Pierre Moosa who is director of the pre-game show has done an unbelievable job getting all the NBC entities lined up, like Access Hollywood, the Premier League, Telemundo, Regional Sports Nets, and NBC News, says DeKime

As for the game itself, Super Bowl LVI Producer Fred Gaudelli says he typically relies on around 40 cameras to call the show but Keith Kice, NBC Sports, senior director, technical operations says the goal is to give Gaudelli and Super Bowl LVI Director Drew Esocoff everything they need to ensure they have all the angles.

The biggest thing we add to the game production are some specialty angles that can cover different parts of the field and we want to make sure all parts of the field are covered, he says. If there's ever a controversy like toes in or out and things like that we can make sure we have it covered.

Topping the list this year are 4K cameras mounted on the goal posts that will shoot the backlines and extra cameras on the goal line. Core technology includes all Canon lenses (including a couple of 122x lenses and then a mix of Sony HDC-5500 and HDC-3500 cameras for primary coverage. Sony HDC-4800 cameras will allow for high-frame-rate HD cut outs while Sony HDC-4300 cameras will offer high-frame-rate replays without cutout capabilities.

We add another dozen cameras besides pylons compared to Sunday Night Football, he adds. But they do a great job every week already and the goal is to deliver a great game to the people at home. And that's how we always plan for this.

Another new addition is a Steadicam that will be outfitted with AR graphics capabilities. It was tested successfully all week and now part of the game coverage.

NEP's ND1 at Super Bowl LVI will be at the center of NBC's production.

It's a Steadicam running an NCAM on it for location, telemetry, and placement of the AR graphics so they are perfect, says Kice. And especially with the thought of doing something with the Infinity screen we wanted to make sure the placements are precise.

Augmented reality graphics have been a bit part of the SNF package for a few seasons now so the new addition is all about giving the production team what they need to tell the story.

We provide the technology and they just put it to work, adds Kice.

While that AR Steadicam will be obvious to viewers a big improvement

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