CBS Sports Returns to Kansas City (Again) for AFC Championship With Doink Cam and TrolleyCam in Tow With nearly 80 cameras scattered throughout Arrowhead Stadium, CBS is ready for the one of the Bills-Chiefs showdown in KC By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. Friday, January 24, 2025 - 4:01 pm
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Arrowhead in January. At this point, it almost seems like a foregone conclusion for NFL fans. However, for CBS Sports, the annual pilgrimage to Kansas City each year for the AFC Championship - it's sixth in the past seven years - is a welcome routine for the network's biggest NFL production of the season.
At this point, we have a phenomenal working relationship with the on-site stadium team at Arrowhead and it's always a great experience being here, says Patty Power, EVP, Operations and Engineering, CBS Sports. It's the sixth time in seven seasons for the AFC Championship, so it kind of feels like a repeat of all those years we were going to New England [during the Patriots' dynasty]. Although the compound is a bit challenging as far as the size, their team is really great to work with and we're looking forward to it as always.
With nearly 80 cameras scattered throughout Arrowhead Stadium - including the return of the DoinkCam and TrolleyCam systems - CBS will have no shortage of resources to cover bring the Bills-Chiefs matchup to what many expect to be a record-breaking audience. In addition, the NFL Today studio show will be on-site in KC with a full production of its own.
During the regular season, we have six 4K cameras to help zoom in on those game defining moments plus pylon cameras, Skycam, and drone and blimp aerial coverage, says Jason Cohen, SVP, Remote Technical Operations, CBS Sports. So we already felt really good about our [equipment] levels heading into the playoffs; it's not like we're building a house from scratch. So with that elite complement already established for our biggest game each week, we can now turn our attention to the fun stuff: specialty equipment and technology enhancements like the DoinkCam and the TrolleyCam.
The Cameras: Doink Cam, Trolley Cam, and Plenty More Toys CBS's army of cameras is headlined by the return of the aptly named Doink Cam, which debuted last year at Super Bowl LVIII, and the TrolleyCam, which has drawn rave reviews on CBS's Playoffs coverage in recent years since debuting in 2021.
CBS will be using the exact same uprights that used at Super Bowl LVII for the doink cams with Antelope Nucleus 4K robotic camera systems from BSI attached to the left and right goals posts in both endzones.
The TrolleyCam point-to-point cabled camera system, which is provided by Flycam, zips along a wire from one end of the stadium to the other at up to 65 mph to capture front- row angles for viewers. The system is equipped with a Sony HDC-P31 and Canon 5 20 lens.
As is standard on its A-game throughout the regular season, CBS will deploy four pylon camera systems in each end zones. The front pylons are provided by BSI and feature 4K Antelope robos with a wide-angle lens, while the back systems are 180-degree cameras systems from C360 Technologies (a Cosm company). CBS will also have line-to-gain pylon cameras from BSI as usual.
For aerial coverage, CBS has its trusty Skycam four-point system on hand at Arrowhead along with a fixed-wing plane from Winged Vision and a drone from Beverly Hills Aerials.
CBS will have a multitude of Sony HDC-5500 and HDC3500 cameras on hand at Arrowhead - including eight 4K super-slo-mo systems. An RF Atlas Steadicam (provided by Aerial Video Systems) featuring a Sony PXW-FX9 camera and 35mm lens will also be roaming the sidelines. Fletcher is providing all specialty robotic systems, while Marshall POV cameras will provide looks inside both teams' tunnels.
In terms of glass, CBS is using a mix of Canon 111x and 122x lenses on its hard cameras, Canon 40 9.7 and 18 28 lenses for robos, and Fujinon 23 7.6 lenses for handhelds.
We never try to overly persuade [the production team] on what tools to use and when to use then; we just try to give them the best possible toolbox and then let the game play itself out, says Cohen in reference to the large camera complement. Oftentimes the game dictates that the technology be used by the front bench and oftentimes it doesn't.
You're not going to use a Doink Cam if there's no field goals, but if a ball hits the upright then then you're going to be prepared for that, he continues. Same with TrolleyCam - if there's a great 60-yard play on the far side of the field where trolley is positioned and the camera can run with the player down the sideline, then that's going to be a pretty compelling shot. So every tool has its place and its moment - it's just a matter of what the game dictates and the front bench can go from there.
The Compound: NFP TFC System Brings It All Together NEP's Supershooter CBS A, B, C, and D units - the network's A-game fleet throughout the regular season -is in the compound serving the game production. NEP's Supershooter 4 (A and B units), which handled CBS's B-game this year, will serve the studio show operation, while an additional QC unit from NEP - dubbed Supershooter QC - is also on hand in the compound.
Obviously, it starts in the compound with our robust mobile unit infrastructure, says Cohen. This year in Kansas City, we're going to be an entirely NEP TFC [Total Facility Control] compound, which we think is really going to make things smooth for us as far as moving sources around and sharing signals between our game truck and our studio truck.
TFC is NEP's proprietary software platform for solving the issues our industry faces with the adoption of IP infrastructure. TFC provides a
