Churchill Downs, the historic home of the Kentucky Derby, stands a whopping 150-acres. The cozy confines of Pimlico Racetrack, site of this weekend's second jewel of the Triple Crown the 138th running of the Preakness Stakes (Saturday, NBC), is no where near the size and scope. And NBC Sports coordinating producer Rob Hyland is perfectly fine with that.
Kentucky Derby-winning Orb will be the centerpiece of NBC's coverage of the 138th Preakness Stakes.
The Preakness for us is a little bit, from a technical standpoint, less challenging than the Kentucky Derby in that the Stakes barn where all the Preakness horses are is literally about a pitching wedge or less away from our production trucks, says Rob Hyland, coordinating producer, NBC Sports. Unlike the 150-plus acres at Churchill Downs, it's a little bit easier to navigate around the grounds of Pimlico.
Camera Count Scaled Down
The smaller footprint at Pimlico means a lot less cabling and fewer cameras needed to cover the action; 35 in all as compared to the 48 cameras needed at Churchill Downs.
That's no slight to the Preakness, says Hyland, a veteran of NBC horse racing coverage since 2001. It's simply a much easier venue to showcase and shoot from a camera standpoint so we don't really need as many cameras.
The camera arsenal includes a pair of super high-speed cameras and four wireless RF cameras.
The truck compound is also consolidated some with NEP's ND3 (A, B, C, and D units) back again as the compound for both NBC Sports and NBC Sports Network coverage. Not making the trip from the Derby is SS24 (A, B, and C) which was used in Louisville for NBC Sports Network's pre-race coverage of the Derby.
Inside the truck, two sets of producer/director teams will split the coverage on NBC Sports Network and NBC. The coverage on NBC Sports Network is produced by Billy Matthews and directed by Patrick McManus. The two hours leading up to and including the race itself will be produced by Hyland and directed by Sunday Night Football and NBC Sports' Triple Crown director, Drew Esocoff.
All Eyes on Orb
After a stunning victory earlier this month, the Triple Crown onus is now on Orb. Naturally, the Derby-winning horse is always the star of the Preakness broadcast.
In addition to a slew of pre-produced pieces on Orb and its jockey Joel Rosario, many production elements will be pointed at the horse. A robotic camera will be stationed on the starting gate and a POV LPS camera with no pan or tilt will be set up on the 1 post position to capture the loading of Orb.
Sports Media (SMT) and Sportvision will again work closesly with Hyland and race analysts Randy Moss and Jerry Bailey to use various graphics tracking technology to tell the story of the race. Both companies' services can supply live horse tracking, top speeds, and distance traveled.
Digital Extras
NBC Sports' new online streaming platform, NBC Sports Live Extra, will be fully utilized for the Preakness on Saturday. The majority of Preakness on-air coverage will be streamed to desktops, tablets, and mobile devices via the TV Everywhere authentication process. Extras include an online-only stream of the iso camera on Orb.
Live Extra will also offer exclusive analysis by NBC Sports commentators and a video simulation of the race to predict its outcome based on track conditions and past horse performances.
The People's Party Gets Social
NBC Sports Group's social media strategy offers a opportunities for viewers to interact with the broadcast on Saturday. In fact, a dedicated social media producer will be on site monitoring social media traffic and posting behind-the-scenes video, photos, and breaking news from Pimlico.
NBC is encouraging viewers to use the hashtag #PREAKNESS and will post reminders on screen throughout the broadcast, in addition to live tweets from celebrities, horse racing experts, and even fans. Viewers can follow @NBCSN and @NBCSports.
On Facebook, fans at home can pick the winner with the Choose the Winning Horse poll. Vote totals will be shown on air during the pre-race coverage.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Churchill Downs, the historic home of the Kentucky Derby, stands a whopping 150-acres. The cozy confines of Pimlico Racetrack, site of this weekend's second jewel of the Triple Crown the 138th running of the Preakness Stakes (Saturday, NBC), is no where near the size and scope. And NBC Sports coordinating producer Rob Hyland is perfectly fine with that.
