ESPN's Aims for Spectacular With Heisman Trophy Show

ESPN's Aims for Spectacular With Heisman Trophy ShowEvent firsts include 1080p HDR production airing on both national broadcast and cableBy Dan Daley, Audio Editor

Thursday, December 11, 2025 - 7:00 am

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The Heisman Memorial Trophy is sports' version of a combined Oscar and Grammy Award. The metaphor is apropos both for the athletic achievement it represents and for the video and audio production of its event-level presentation, right down to red-carpet arrivals.

New this year is that we're producing this show in 1080p HDR, says ESPN Senior Manager, Remote Operations, Larry Wilson, adding that it's the first Heisman ceremony that will be shown on the flagship ABC network as well as on ESPN, underscoring the primetime event's entertainment component.

(Photo: Allen Kee/ESPN Images)

The 2025 Heisman ceremony, celebrating individual excellence in college football and featuring top players, analysts, and former winners, is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 13 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC/ESPN, originating from the Jazz at Lincoln Center venue in New York City. The four finalists for the 91st annual award were announced on Monday, Dec. 8.

An Awards-Season-Worthy ShowWilson will helm a show at an awards-season scale, with transmission backhauled to ESPN's facility in Bristol, CT, before airing on ABC nationally.

The action starts with red-carpet arrivals and interviews in the Ertegun Atrium, shot with two handheld build-up cams and jib and a stabilized DSLR system for shallow depth of field. In the Appel Room, the main award theater, the ceremonies will be captured with a Grass Valley LDX 86N Worldcam native-HD/3G single-speed camera chain: one jib cam, a Sony P1 Steadicam, four handheld cameras (one of which is RF), two robotic cameras, and a pair of POV cams.

The 2024 Heisman Trophy show in the Appel Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center (Photo: Allen Kee/ESPN Images)

The show is being produced from NEP M-14 mobile unit onsite, with CP Communications providing RF audio and video. Bexel supplies cabling, monitoring, and support gear; the Steadicam and shallow-depth-of-field kit are provided by Faction Media. Robotics are by NEP Specialty Capture (formerly Fletcher). An EVS XT3 live-production server will be configured for 3 6 channels of HD video.

Keeping It MovingWilson notes that the jib and handheld cameras help confer a sense of dynamism to what is, by nature, a fairly static show, with much of the narrative taking place on the main stage. Cuts to other areas of action also help.

The main draft announcement is happening in the Appel Room, and that's where we have the past winners as the background. This year, he explains, we've added a shallow-depth-of-field stabilized camera - the DSLR - covering the arrivals and carrying them from when they come in off the street to the elevator. Once they get to the elevator, we'll also be using that and other RF cameras to cover the red carpet. We'll get some excitement built up in those locations as well.

There's an additional set in the atrium, he continues, where nominees and, typically, their parents are doing interviews with ESPN, which we intersperse with feature pieces. To further add a sense of movement, we've got jibs in both those locations as well as in the Appel Room. We have four handheld cameras that are also able to give movement and go between nominees and their entourage, as well as the announcements.

Sounds of the GameAudio will be equally technically sophisticated, with sound design by ESPN Remote Operations Specialist Kevin Cleary. The primary broadcast mix with take place from NEP M-14's audio compartment, equipped with a Calrec Artemis Beam console integrating feeds from all upstream mix positions: front of house (in the Appel Room, managing the primary in-room reinforcement mix for the main event space, all live microphones, playback sources, and onsite monitoring requirements), the interview position in the Ertegun Atrium (supplying clean feeds and IFB as required), and a dedicated music-mix position optimized for broadcast and handling all live band inputs with processing tailored for network transmission.

All the audio consoles are interconnected over a Dante network, enabling multichannel audio transport, routing flexibility, and redundancy across all mix positions.

The stage at the 2024 Heisman Trophy presentation (Photo: Mike Lawrence/ESPN Images)

The live band, a fixture of the show for the last several years, is also meant to be dynamic, with a proper front-of-house mix and a separate broadcast mix. The in-person interviews are also carefully mixed.

We're doing a complete, separate mix of the band within the broadcast itself, Wilson says. They're not just ambient in the background. We need to manage that audio as we're doing interviews and yet still try to entertain that group. There's a lot going on in the production from an audio standpoint.

Big Event, Big CrewAn extensive production like this requires a big staff onsite. In addition to Wilson and Cleary, that includes Senior Manager, Remote Operations Jarrett Baker; Remote Operations Specialist Ryan Dobesh; Remote Operations Producer II Hauna Moore; Senior Remote Operations Coordinators Tatianna Montalvo and Briana Peters; Senior Remote Operations Coordinator Maria Santos; and Senior Remote Traffic Operations Coordinator Hector Hernandez.

They'll all be working to reflect the tension and apprehensiveness in the room as college football's biggest honor is about to be bestowed, even if it is surrounded by bespoke fashion glittering around the room.

For an event that's not full of action, says Wilson, we do put a lot of emphasis on unique angles of coverage, using RF and mobile cameras and audio mixes to add interest for the viewer.

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2025/12/11/espns-aims-for-spectacular-with...
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