
NBA Playoffs 2025: As Play-In Tourney Continues, TNT Sports Preps Escalated Game-Day Tech for Postseason Opening rounds to feature regular-season setup; later rounds to get more gear By Kristian Hern ndez, Senior Editor
Thursday, April 17, 2025 - 11:52 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
With the 2024-25 NBA season hitting crunch time, TNT Sports is rallying its production and operations teams to deliver another compelling postseason of top-tier professional basketball. Beginning with two games in the 2025 NBA Play-In Tournament on Tuesday night and one more to go on Friday night at State Farm Arena in the broadcaster's hometown, the productions have served as a warmup for the playoffs, with Round 1 games on Sunday, April 20 in Cleveland and Houston and on Monday, April 21 in New York City and Denver.
The first games went extremely well on Tuesday night, says Chris Brown, VP, technology and operations, TNT Sports. [The Play-In Tournament] gives our ops teams a little ramp-up to the start of the playoffs run.
Follow the Narrative: Production Team Can Enhance the Tech To Match Game Intensity The NBA postseason is habitually a long sprint to the finish. Taking place over multiple weeks in numerous cities across the country, the broadcasts ask a lot out of TNT Sports' staffers dedicated to showcasing the league's biggest games of the year. To ease into the playoffs and ensure that each game receives the utmost attention in terms of coverage and quality, the broadcaster is rolling out a technological arsenal deployed during the six-month regular season.
It does follow a certain sort of format that we've managed year over year, Brown explains. The first two rounds will pretty much mimic our regular-season coverage, especially in the first round since those games aren't exclusive and we'll be compressed for space in many of the main camera areas and the loading dock.
During the regular season, the production effort also contributed to the TNT Overtime digital-centric offering, which requires a higher level of tech to cater to that specific audience. The effort, which exceeds the tech that other broadcasters use for the regular season, will continue in the postseason as well.
We do a whole lot more in this very short time during the year, adds Brown. The goal is essentially to maintain that base level of coverage for the national audience.
Riding with a formula that has proved successful in recent seasons, the production team will pay attention to the narrative of each series and follow its progress. In the later stages of a Game 6 or 7 for a particular matchup, for example, the team will decide whether to break out more tech enhancements to capture the high intensity of win-or-go-home contests.
It will be at our production team's discretion to enhance their coverage as they see fit, says Brown.
In the Compound: A Quartet of NEP Mobile Units To Cover Four Arenas With workflows increasing as the bracket unfolds, a large chunk of these productions will rely on TNT Sports' crews working from within the broadcast compound. One of four NEP mobile units - Supershooter 6, 7, 8, and 9 - will be parked outside each arena, and, as each series moves along, the broadcaster will decide which city and venue each unit heads to next. After the Atlanta Hawks' final play-in game on Friday night, the four will be spread across the country: at Cleveland's Rocket Arena, at Houston's Toyota Center, New York's Madison Square Garden, and Denver's Ball Arena.
At TNT Sports' Techwood facility in Atlanta, the crew will deploy the standard remote-graphics production model. Graphics operators will continue to be located in the Remote Operations Center (ROC), where they have worked since the last time they were onsite, at the 2025 NBA All-Star Game at San Francisco's Chase Center in February. To get the feed from multiviewers on the onsite trucks to Atlanta, the crew will rely on the services of Haivision.
We've had a couple occasions, Brown notes, when our regular production trucks couldn't get from city to city in time, so our remote graphics kit wasn't installed in time, and we'd have to send a graphics team out [to the venue]. We plan on continuing our remote-graphics workflow into the playoffs because, no matter where we are or how quick the turnaround is, we always know that our graphics operators are in the same place for every game.
In addition to graphics' being controlled from Atlanta, a handful of EVS operators will be controlling replay from the ROC.
Sports-Filled Spring: TNT Sports Faces Long Stretch of Postseason Play A tradition that continues every year, TNT Sports will be producing a large slate of high-leverage games. That includes coverage not only of the NBA Playoffs but also simultaneous productions of the NHL Playoffs and MLB Tuesday games. The effort requires coordination between various production and technical teams at Techwood, as well as an understanding of the logistics and pacing of each league's action. It's a ferocious, unrelenting, and fast-paced time of the year, but Brown is surrounded by technical experts to handle it all.
For the NBA productions, he notes, the crew includes Technical Operations Manager Brent Brown; Tech Managers Dean Koenig and Brian Irrizarry, who worked the Play-In game between the Orlando Magic and Atlanta Hawks at Orlando's Kia Center; and Tech Managers Debra Zouvas and Shaun Reid, who worked the other Play-In game between the Memphis Grizzlies and Golden State Warriors in the Bay Area.
We're excited that the company at large has leaned into the retooling of Techwood with the addition of control rooms and infrastructure in the ROC that's able to accommodate some of these remote workflows, says Brown. The investment
More from Sports Video Group
18/09/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
18/09/2026
Qvest has appointed Jens Miedek as Senior Vice President Sales, Media and Entertainment. Before joining Qvest, Miedek spent 16 years at Riedel Communications an...
18/09/2026
Fonn Group has acquired full ownership of everviz, a cloud-native platform for interactive charts, maps, and data-driven graphics, and will rebrand it as Teikna...
18/09/2026
Other World Computing (OWC) has announced the acquisition of OpenDrives, a provider of software-defined video and rich media storage management solutions. The a...
18/09/2026
Kaltura and Verimatrix have announced a partnership integrating Verimatrix's Digital Rights Management and security capabilities into Kaltura's Cloud TV...
18/09/2026
The sixth edition of the World Nomad Games combined traditional sports, large-scale cultural performances, and some decidedly modern broadcast technology. Held ...
18/09/2026
DAZN and Super League Basketball (SLB) have extended their partnership for the 2026-27 season. Every Championship, Cup, and Play-Off fixture will be available l...
18/09/2026
Nielsen has announced that its Streaming Content Ratings (SCR) product will move from weekly to daily data delivery, with clients now receiving viewership data ...
18/09/2026
ESPN will present LALIGA's ElCl sico on ABC for the first time, with FC Barcelona vs. Real Madrid airing Sunday, October 25 at 4 p.m. ET. A one-hour pre-mat...
18/09/2026
The University of Pennsylvania's Division of Recreation and Intercollegiate ...
18/09/2026
The Charlotte Hornets have announced DAZN as their exclusive direct-to-consumer streaming partner for the 2026-27 NBA season. The service launches immediately, ...
18/09/2026
Broadcast sports' original medium will let drivers keep on hearing the plays thanks to a new bill set to pass the Senate....
18/09/2026
Fourteen iPhone 18 Pro devices - eight connected over a T-Mobile Private 5G Netw...
18/09/2026
The Minnesota Lynx have announced that their final local broadcast of the 2026 regular season will air free on FOX 9 following the shutdown of Victory . The Ly...
18/09/2026
Monumental Sports Network (MNMT) has announced that its Monumental+ streaming service is now available as a subscription through Prime Video, giving Capitals an...
18/09/2026
WTGL, the women's team golf league created by TMRW Sports in partnership with the LPGA, has announced its inaugural season schedule. The season premieres Su...
18/09/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
18/09/2026
Studio Network Solutions (SNS) has won Best Journal Article at the 2026 IAMT Impact Awards for What Video Editors Need When Everything Is Changing Around Them, ...
17/09/2026
Lions vs. Bills will also be the first regular-season game at new Highmark Stadi...
17/09/2026
Teradek has announced Bolt 7, a wireless video and data system that adds an integrated 900MHz radio to the Bolt's zero-delay video pipeline. The 900MHz chan...
17/09/2026
DAZN has announced three appointments to its executive leadership team, all reporting to CEO Shay Segev effective immediately.
Patrick Delany has been appointe...
17/09/2026
Monumental Sports and Entertainment (MSE) has announced a leadership restructuring. Zach Leonsis has been named President and Vice Chairman, a newly created pos...
17/09/2026
CP Communications has been named Best of Florida for Audio-Visual Services, and its subsidiary Red House Streaming has been named Best Movie and Recording Studi...
17/09/2026
Scripps Sports and ION have announced a broadcast partnership for the Shriners Children's East-West Bowl, the nation's oldest college all-star football ...
17/09/2026
The 17th annual espnW: Women + Sports Summit, presented by Toyota, will take place October 14-16 at the Ojai Valley Inn in Ojai, California, with virtual attend...
17/09/2026
The Professional Audio Manufacturers Alliance (PAMA) and Shure Incorporated have...
17/09/2026
Lithuanian broadcaster LNK Group has completed a migration of playout and media management for its five national television networks - LNK, BTV, TV1, InfoTV, an...
17/09/2026
Net Insight has announced a pan-Asian live media network created with its regional partners, giving broadcasters, production companies, and media service provid...
17/09/2026
After a high school football injury, the Orlando native found a new path in video production, gaining experience on ESPN college football broadcasts, Tampa Bay ...
16/09/2026
Grass Valley has been recognized with a 2026 Technology & Engineering Emmy Award...
16/09/2026
Sports-media leaders explore how cloud, AI, and virtualization are transforming ...
16/09/2026
With a full crew on site in Springfield, deep access to players, and a growing d...
15/09/2026
At IBC2026, Pixitmedia by DataCore will showcase its latest capabilities designe...
15/09/2026
Quantum Corp. today announced the release of Quantum Autonomous Data Management ...
15/09/2026
Former Wyndham Hotels & Resorts technology executive will focus on fan engagemen...
15/09/2026
Creator Sports Network (CSN) and FAN.live have announced a partnership giving CSN's network of more than 2,000 vetted creators access to live 3D NFL broadca...
15/09/2026
SVG and SVG Europewere all over the IBC 2026 show floor out in Amsterdam, bringi...
15/09/2026
Rise WIB has announced the shortlist for the Rise Awards 2026, returning to Troxy in London on Tuesday, November 17. The awards recognize outstanding women, adv...
15/09/2026
Major League Table Tennis (MLTT) has announced its media distribution lineup for the 2026-27 season, beginning September 11. Every match will stream live on the...
15/09/2026
Willow Sports has announced it will serve as the exclusive U.S. and Canadian hom...
15/09/2026
Gravity Media has announced it will provide outside broadcast production and technical services for the MXGP of Australia, the finale of the 2026 FIM World Moto...
15/09/2026
Co-founders Scott Coker and Peter Y. Levin have unveiled Ki MMA, a new global mixed martial arts promotion launching in the first quarter of 2027. The announcem...
15/09/2026
Sony Electronics has announced two new G Master super-telephoto prime lenses for...
15/09/2026
GlobeCast provides facility for AI-power automated production core...
15/09/2026
Gravity Media, a leading global provider of production and content, and media services and facilities, is empowering Tourism and Events Northern Territory (NT) ...
14/09/2026
Lil Baby's Dead Fresh kicks off ESPN's Week 1 Monday Night Football, ...
14/09/2026
With Super Bowl LXI waiting in Los Angeles, ESPN will use the regular season to ...
11/09/2026
Calrec will introduce two new products at IBC2026 (Stand 8.C47, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14): the Type RT broadcast production console and the Apex M6 Modula...
11/09/2026
Grass Valley has announced AVORA, a standalone all-in-one live production solution launching at IBC2026 (Booth 9.A01 and IBC Future Tech Zone, Stand 14.C49, Sep...
11/09/2026
CAMB.AI is introducing its Streaming SDK and Streaming Dashboard at IBC2026, wit...