Live From Super Bowl LIX: Inside the 10,000 sq. ft. Tech Center with Fox Sports VP, Field Ops and Engineering Kevin Callahan By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director Saturday, February 8, 2025 - 12:39 pm
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The Fox Sports compound for Super Bowl LIX this year features a new two-story technical building that has about 10,000 sq. ft. of space and, with nearly floor-to-ceiling exterior windows, glass doors, and 10-foot ceilings it arguably signals a new era in compound office facilities that offer things like plenty of natural light, proper workstations with power, and other benefits not found in the traditional office trailer.
Fox Sports tapped Infinite Structures to build out a two-story, 10,000 sq. ft. technical building for Super Bowl LIX.
The building houses everything from our edits to our video and audio sub switch to video transmission management, broadcast communications, and central distribution for the entire compound, says Kevin Callahan, VP, field operations and engineering, Fox Sports. We also have our network engineering and architecture team here because every remote these days relies on that network engineering team for not only transporting video signals but communication files and everything else that's needed to do a broadcast. That convergence has truly happened at this point where they're as much a part of the team as everybody else.
Infinite Structures is the company that built out the technical facility and at the center of it are two of the Fox Sports Jewel Event Kits which made their Super Bowl debut two years ago in Glendale, AZ. The Jewel Event Kit serves as the hub for all incoming video and audio sources and then makes them available to the trucks and facilities in the domestic and international compounds (as well as Fox in Pico).
Callahan says the core Jewel kit technologies are pretty much the same since it was first built for the World Cup in 2022. One of them operates as an IBC and distribution point while the second handles full remote studio production needs.
In terms of the equipment it remains the same as when they were first built as we've been very happy with the equipment choices we've made, whether it's the Calrec IP Hydra cores, Arista switches, EVS Cerebrum, TAG multiviewers, Ross switchers and Ultrix routers, Calrec audio console, Grass Valley production switchers all those are still best and breed and still doing the jobs we need them to do, says Callahan.
The Fox Jewel Event Kit plays a big role in connecting the compound and more at Super Bowl LIX.
The advantages of the Fox Jewel kits are that it not only makes signal management and access easier, but it also has some additional features like making it easier to create a viewing room at a hotel or support requests from any Fox entity.
They can make our shows bigger but also do it economically, he says.
This year the Jewel Event Kit has some company in the Kit world as Fox Sports has launched the Broadcast Remote IP Studio Kit or BRISK. Located at the Bourbon Street studio operations, the small unit allows for video, audio and data signals to be sent from Bourbon Street to the compound as well as Fox Sports' Pico broadcast facility in Los Angeles.
It has multiple paths and multiple redundancies built into it and it's the first time that we really have cameras in a Home Run Production kit, says Callahan. It was created with remote shows in mind where we may need to setup quickly. Bringing mobile units and a larger system like the Fox Jewel Event system in isn't always practical. BRISK, on the other hand, is nimbler and can be carried up a flight of stairs [like at Krazy Korner on Bourbon Street]. And if we build a couple of them, they can hopscotch around different venues and still have the same network architecture and technology.
The BRISK unit consist of camera control units, multiviewers, video shading components, and a Calrec Hydra core as well as an audio frame.
It's all being controlled with an RP1 back here at the stadium or in Los Angeles to allow remote IFB mixing that needs to occur in order to have those remote studio shows happen, explains Callahan.
And without it, says Callahan, something like a Super Bowl Pre-Game Studio Show on Bourbon Street would have been impossible.
We are at a point now with the shows the productions can get bigger, but we don't need to have the technology infrastructure get bigger, says Callahan. At the Super Bowl in Miami we were sending all the signals back from a mobile unit at South Beach to the production truck in the stadium and on Bourbon Street there's no room to put a mobile unit on the street. We had to fit everything into that second floor of Krazy Korner and this was the best way to do it.
Inside the Technical Building
The technical building also includes plenty of other technical areas that support the needs of the production trucks across the compound as well as the team back in Pico. For example, there are four Adobe Premier edit bays, as well as two After Effects edit bays and media management that are connected to the team back in Pico.
Most of the edits are happening in Los Angeles but we do have these four edit stations because it is a collaborative process, so this allows producers here to collaborate with the editor in person, says Callahan.
And next to the Jewel Event Kit area is transmission management which oversees all inbound and outbound feeds and make sure they are all being routed to the right place.
They make sure everything is in time, and everything is correct as we have close to 150 paths, inbound and outbound, between camera ISOs that are being used for edit back in Los Angeles or just the watch parties, hotel remotes, all sorts of things like that, says Callahan.
The transmission area ensur
