Got Drones? How OBS's FPV Strategy Changes the Game for Everyone

Custom drones raise expectations for bringing viewers closer to the action in new ways

2026 is not the first time OBS has used drones or event First Person View (FPV) drones. But it is clearly the first time that Olympic Broadcasting Services has put them to use in such a way that nearly every viewer - not just the tech geeks - finds super-compelling. If the use of FPV drones was not top of mind for all sports leagues, federations, and broadcasters before, it certainly is now.

We are using drones at a high density, and they are also ubiquitous, says OBS CTO Sotiris Salamouris. That definitely helped create the wow' factor, and it was a shock to everybody to see the reaction because drones have been used for things like Alpine events before. But our audience is much bigger and wider, and suddenly there were billions of eyes seeing FPV drones.

OBS is deploying different types of FPV drones to best meet environmental and production needs. (Photos: Olympic Broadcasting Services)Clearly, a lot of top executives in sports broadcasters and leagues are asking their technical teams to figure out how to deploy FPV drones. The question they all will face is how exactly do they get ready to deploy FPVs. More important, who will fly them?

It was certainly difficult to find pilots because there are people that are playing around with FPVs, but you want serious, professional people that know sports, says Salamouris. Our pilots, some of whom are ex-athletes, were super-trained and did a lot of drills to be ready.

OBS has 25 drones, 15 of which are FPV versions with dedicated pilots. Flying such drones can be stressful, especially on courses like the Sliding Center with its confined space and tight turns.

They do need time to rest during the events, Salamouris says. It's stressful to keep flying an FPV drone again and again and again. But [the challenge going forward] is that the pool of people who can be a pilot - who is professional, understands sports, and understands the consequences if something goes wrong - is still small.

OBS FPV drones are outfitted with two cameras: one for piloting and one for capturing images for production.The challenge of finding pilots is just one part of the puzzle. The other is the technical challenge of readying an FPV drone for the needs of a sports production. The drones OBS uses are not off-the-shelf but are bespoke and modified FPV drones designed to minimize weight and be ready for a very specific use case.

OBS began by looking at some of the open-source drone-engineering platforms, and those platforms led to the construction of FPV drones that weigh less than 250 grams and have two cameras: one for the pilot to navigate through goggles, the other a separate, high-quality broadcast camera for the actual television signal. Coordinating radio frequencies for these independent links - control, telemetry, pilot video, broadcast video - requires a massive effort with local authorities to ensure the spectrum remains clean in a crowded Olympic environment. At less than 250 grams, the drones stayed below regulations and have much more freedom to fly where they are needed.

You have to keep the weight very low, notes Salamouris, so we stripped out anything which is not needed. For example, these drones do not have GPS because they don't need GPS and GPS adds weight, like the antenna. So we threw that out. They don't have to carry heavy batteries because you can change them after two or three minutes because they fly only for short durations. So heavy batteries go out. Basically, anything that wasn't 100% necessary was out.

Different parts of the drones operate on different frequencies: the wireless flight controls ride on the 2.4 and 5G frequencies, and the camera video signals are sent via COFDM receive points around the venue.

It takes a lot of frequency coordination, says Salamouris, noting, Those signals include all aspects, from the reception of the video signal to the signals for the pilot controls.

For LA2028, the role of drones is expected to expand even further, though not without challenges. Although Winter sports, for example, can sprawl over hundreds of feet of elevation and widely dispersed venues, a Summer Games often has crowds who will be closer to the competitors and thus more likely to notice the noise the drones make.

But the expectation has been set. The drone legacy of Milano Cortina 2026 is that audiences are hungry for more drones to help them get closer to the competitors and experience the event in new ways.

Everybody is super-excited about the FPV drones, says Salamouris. We now have these expectations, and I think we will be seeing more and more FPV drones and not just at the Olympics.

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2026/02/19/got-drones-how-obss-fpv-strateg...
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