Live From Super Bowl LIII: NFL Media Expands Presence; Bexel Tapped To Build 25,000-Sq.-Ft. Facility A team of 400+ onsite and 250+ in Culver City is producing Tuesday-Saturday programming By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Thursday, January 31, 2019 - 8:58 am
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It has been a busy week for NFL Media in both Atlanta, where Super Bowl LIII will be played this weekend, and Culver City, CA. In Atlanta, a team of more than 400 is covering every angle ahead of the game and working closely with a team of more than 250 people at NFL Media's facilities in Culver City, where three control rooms have been producing all the coverage for programming from Tuesday to Saturday. And new this year, a fourth control room will be fired up on Sunday for the big game.
For the NFL team, each year provides its own set of challenges and opportunities because each host city is unique. Atlanta has arguably provided the most compact Super Bowl footprint in quite some time.
NFL Media's Dave Shaw says the team in both Atlanta and Culver City, CA, has done a great job this week for Super Bowl LIII coverage.
I can't be prouder of our team, says Dave Shaw, VP, production, NFL Media. We developed a plan taking advantage of the unique, centrally located venues in Atlanta, with Opening Night at State Farm Arena, Super Bowl Live at Centennial Park, Super Bowl Experience at the Georgia World Congress Center, and Media Center at GWCC, all in close proximity to Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
The close proximity gave Shaw and the team a chance to build a 25,000-sq.-ft. production hub within the GWCC. Bexel was tapped to supply and engineer a prebuilt system customized for NFL Media's engineering core, transmission hub, and control room. The only standalone production is NFL Honors, with Game Creek's Nitro supporting NFL Media's coverage of the red-carpet show.
The beautiful thing about Atlanta is [that] everything is so close, and having everything in the same vicinity allowed us to have a central hub for the operational and production teams, says Shaw. I don't know when we'll see something like this again.
Adds AJ Wainwright, director of technical operations, NFL, If there are any real issues, you are within a five- or 10-minute walk of each other, and we enjoy that. Conceptually, we're thinking about Miami and next year.
Coordination is key, especially with production facilities so far apart. Says Shaw, [Director, Studio Operations,] Jessica Lee in Culver City oversees the studio operations and control rooms and is working with [VP, Broadcast Operations,] Leon Schweir on the trafficking of which show is done out of which control room. We want to use the exact control room they use all year, so they are comfortable.
The team in Culver City is working closely with the team in Atlanta and makes sure the intercom system (a massive RTS Adam intercom with 880 ports) and all other signals get to the right location. When nasty weather hit Atlanta on Tuesday and production plans had to be adjusted for programs set to shoot in Centennial Park, for example, ensuring communication between the team in Culver City and the one in Atlanta was critical.
NFL Media studios and sets in Atlanta comprise a presence in Centennial Park; a two-way set on the floor of NFL Experience; a Total Access set; four positions in the Media Center for the linear network, digital, social, and original content; and a set along one of the primary thoroughfares the fans will take to reach the stadium.
Capturing the feel of Atlanta was most evident in our set at Super Bowl Experience, says Shaw. [NFL Media Director, Media Operations,] Adam Acone has again led coordination of the overall production plan, including all set locations, with our set-design team led by Rick Qualliotine, Jennifer Love, and Carlos Aguero, along with Jesse Medeiros on scenic design.
Filmwerks was tapped for set structure, intended to highlight the looks of Super Bowl Experience, Super Bowl Live in Centennial Park, Media Center Radio Row, and an outside set near Fan Plaza.
cAt Opening Night, says Shaw, this team also built out great augmented-reality elements of player identification, team logos, and more with the overall feel of the dynamic stage set.
Inside the stadium, there is a set on the field level as well as in Section 119, where a coaches show, a Twitter show, and a digital postgame show will be produced. And, on Monday morning, Good Morning Football will set up shop with the stadium as a backdrop.
The NFL is relying on one truck in Atlanta: Game Creek's Nitro, which will be used for the production of the NFL Honors on Saturday night from the Fox Theater.
We have a separate transmission from CenturyLink, says Wainwright. Then [the signal] goes to Culver City. It's a simple three-mux production.
Third Time Is the Charm for At-Home Production
This is the third year the team at the game has made use of the at-home approach to produce content. But it's the first year that Bexel is involved, providing the equipment, integration, and technical support to keep the production-control room, audio area, EVS replay-playback area, and graphics area are online and operating properly.
Bexel made use of furniture from NEP in building the NFL Media production-control room at Super Bowl LIII.
Shaw and the team put the contract for technical facilities out to bid this year, and part of the process included having the finalists construct a dummy of the facility in Los Angeles. That gave the NFL production and operations team a chance to see what the facility would look like and also make adjustments, such as adding a path down the middle of the production-control room, which will seat 15 people on Super Bowl Sunday.
Because Bexel is now part of NEP Group, its team was able to leverage the rest of
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Live From Super Bowl LIII: NFL Media Expands Presence; Bexel Tapped To Build 25,000-Sq.-Ft. Facility A team of 400+ onsite and 250+ in Culver City is producing Tuesday-Saturday programming By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
