Australia's NRL Brings 4K Production to U.S.; FOX Sports U.S. and Australia Collaborate on Production Historic show features two studio sets, onsite operation from NEP trucks By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Monday, March 4, 2024 - 7:25 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Australia's National Rugby League opened its 2024 season far from home, with two matches played this past weekend at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. For FOX Sports Australia, which produces all its events in native 4K, it was an opportunity to bring a historic moment to viewers back home and an opportunity to work side-by-side with the U.S.-based FOX Sports team.
FOX Sports Australia's Joe Bromham on the broadcaster's studio set on Las Vegas Boulevard
The NRL is the biggest sport FOX Sports Australia produces, says Joe Bromham, executive producer, FOX Sports Australia, describing the trip to Las Vegas as a historic moment for the game.
If you do a recap of the history of Rugby League in the future, he asserts, this will be one of the top main occasions. The fact that the NRL has decided to take their game to the world is the dominant storyline ahead of this weekend. But it's also a season kickoff as well, and, obviously, those games always hold a place of importance. To have them abroad in a city like Las Vegas, which has become the entertainment capital of the world, is a key storyline for us.
Discussions for the collaboration began last August during the FIFA Women's World Cup tourney in Australia, says Mike Davies, SVP, technical and field operations, FOX Sports.
Joe and David [Ward, head of remote operations, FOX Sports Australia] were gracious enough to allow us to assist them with this event, and it has been great, Davies says. We brought in Director, Remote Studio Engineering, Greg Pfeifer; Senior Manager, Operations and Engineering, Patricia Fischer; Audio Guarantee Matt Rosetti; and Technical Director Colby Bourgeois to help out. The guys from Australia are obviously the experts in doing rugby, but we wanted to make sure that there was no impediment to doing what they're best at. There are very few things where the NRL would make a bigger statement than to move these shows to America. From what I can tell at Resorts World, which is the epicenter, a hell of a lot of fans came over, too.
From left: FOX Sports' Mike Davies and Greg Pfeifer and FOX Sports Australia's David Ward were part of the two broadcasters' collective effort at the NRL matches in Las Vegas.
FOX Sports Australia had two points of presence in Las Vegas: a set in front of Resorts World along Las Vegas Boulevard (with NEP NCP 4 production unit on hand to handle the 1080p production) and a compound at Allegiant Stadium, where the two matches were played. The matches were produced in native UHD and out of NEP Supershooter 4, which handles CBS Sports' NFL B-game coverage.
The NRL coverage began with studio-show coverage from the Strip last Thursday and Friday nights. FOX Sports Australia treated its two studio shows very differently for this special occasion. Back home, Bromham explains, we would have more taped content and taped pieces. We are treating this as a live show and trying to engage the live audience that has turned up here in Las Vegas.
ENG crews captured footage around Las Vegas and followed the teams, which arrived earlier in the week and trained in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas.
The games also received special treatment. All NRL matches played in Australia are produced from the NEP Production Hub in Sydney: the signals are sent from the stadium via fiber to the Hub, where the production team remotely cuts the show. Although that workflow was possible for the matches in Las Vegas, the planning and cost of transporting the large UHD signals halfway around the globe made an onsite operation the best option.
Supershooter 4 was rolled in for the game, but, because the game was shot completely in 4K, some special adjustments needed to be made. It was a bit of a challenge getting things up and running over here in UHD, explains Ward. The NEP truck has had a full TFC [Total Facility Control] upgrade, but NEP had to bring the Grass Valley K-Frame production switcher over from the NEP Hub in Melbourne.
Bromham notes that FOX Sports' landing cricket rights a few years ago provided the opportunity to jump to 4K, with immediate and tangible benefits for the sport as well as for fans. The images with 4K on a fully lit cricket venue are just unbelievable. Cricket is a game of absolute millimeters with a ball passing a bat or a ball hitting a pad. The ability to have 4K for that resolution on cricket was a real-world first. And the uptake on 4K in Australia was huge. We followed in with our other sports: we went to our AFL, which is our Australian-rules football, and now Rugby League as well.
The advantage of doing everything in UHD is that a single format is used for graphics and other elements. The decision was made a couple of years ago, Ward says, noting that even the free-to-air networks have begun UHD production for shows that will ultimately be delivered in only HD via their broadcast service. It's a selling point for us and allows the marketing team to say we can do something the free-to-air networks can't. People are paying a premium for 4K, so, in good conscience, we don't want to upconvert 1080p to 4K. If it's not native, it doesn't go on the channel. That's the rule.
The games were shot with 11 cameras: three main cameras near the center of the pitch, a camera in each corner of the stadium, two handhelds, a jib, and a sideline studio camera added to the coverage when not shooting the studio show.
Although the production team is in Vegas, the NRL referee-review operation is at home in The Bunker at
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
13/05/2026
New Adobe Premiere Color Grading Mode Accelerated on NVIDIA GPUs
Joel Pennington May 13, 2026
0 Comments
New NVIDIA RTX-accelerated features streamlin...
13/05/2026
Grass Valley announced that dB Broadcast has delivered new IP-based outside broadcast (OB) trucks for Cloudbass, featuring Grass Valley LDX 100 Series cameras a...
13/05/2026
Ikegami will exhibit the latest additions to its wide range of broadcast production cameras, control units, viewfinders and monitors on stand 5D3-1 at Broadcast...
13/05/2026
FISE, working with the founding members of the XR Sports Alliance (XRSA), Accedo, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and HBS, have collaborated to develop an immersive...
13/05/2026
Canon Unveils New EOS R6 V Full-Frame EOS Camera and RF20-50mm F4 L IS USM PZ Bu...
13/05/2026
Boston Conservatory at Berklee Honors Beth Morrison and Moses Pendleton at Comme...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Creative software developer Foundry today announced the latest developments on Nuke Stage. A purpose-built application for end-to-end virtual production and in-...
13/05/2026
A definitive portrait of one of Ireland's most influential musicians
New TV documentary airs Monday 18 May on RT One and RT Player at 9.35pm
Watch the...
13/05/2026
Agentic AI is changing the way users get work done. Following the success of OpenClaw, the community is embracing new open source agentic frameworks. The latest...
13/05/2026
Reinforcement-learning agents - AI systems that learn by trial and error - can c...
12/05/2026
Beyond the Hype: A Strategic Post-Hoc Analysis of NAB 2026 If NAB Show 2026 had an underlying theme, it was a quiet, industry-wide pivot from the high-energy sp...
12/05/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D), a Panoptec Technologies Group company, and CT Square, led by Chandresh Shah, have announced a joint venture to distribute G&D and V...
12/05/2026
With 30 days until the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Telemundo, the exclusive Spanish-language home of the tournament in the United States, has announced th...
12/05/2026
The NHL has announced the return of Stanley Pup for its third consecutive year, a 90-minute special featuring adoptable rescue dogs competing on a miniature rin...
12/05/2026
NBCUniversal presented its 2026 Upfront to advertisers at Radio City Music Hall, detailing upcoming programming across NBC, Peacock, Bravo, and Versant properti...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced funding for the Fandom and Social Connection Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Publ...
12/05/2026
TNDV and Live Media, both divisions of Live Media Group, supported live broadcast coverage around NCAA Final Four weekend in Indianapolis, including the March M...
12/05/2026
The European Football Alliance (EFA) has announced a content distribution agreement with Fubo Sports Network, the free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel ...
12/05/2026
For the first time, Spanish-speaking fans in the U.S. will have two separate tel...
12/05/2026
CP Communications led a comprehensive spectrum management initiative on behalf of Churchill Downs during Kentucky Derby week, coordinating RF assets across the ...
12/05/2026
LiveU has announced a strategic partnership with DRONERESPONDERS, a 501(c)3 non-...
12/05/2026
Open Broadcast Systems has announced that BMC TV, a specialist in IP transport of broadcast content, has selected the Open Broadcast Systems 5G Flyaway solution...
12/05/2026
NEP Europe, part of NEP Group, has announced it will deliver broadcast solutions...
12/05/2026
Grass Valley has announced continued collaboration with Ravensbourne University ...
12/05/2026
Stats Perform has announced the launch of Opta Pulse, an AI-assisted video creation and distribution platform for leagues, rights holders, and broadcasters. The...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced a collaboration with Sesame Workshop to integrate Sesame Street characters into FOX Sports' FIFA World Cup 2026 programming. Conten...
12/05/2026
To date, NHL Productions has produced 19 broadcasts with commentary in American Sign Language
NHL in ASL (American Sign Language) may be just one show, but the...
12/05/2026
Google's Brian Albert: creators, athletes, highlights, nostalgia, second-scr...
12/05/2026
A still from Past Lives by Celine Song, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | p...
12/05/2026
Spotify is where fans and artists come together, turning discovery into somethin...
12/05/2026
Features patented Marco-MMC clocking technology
Black Lion Audio's latest release combines the company's expertise in clocking with their renowned p...
12/05/2026
New Track Panel, sequencer upgrades & more
Following their recent public beta release, Reason Studios have announced the full release of Reason 14. With the...
12/05/2026
One month to go! SBS reveals expansive FIFA World Cup 2026 lineup beyond the pi...
12/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz presents its advanced solutions for power electronics testing at...
12/05/2026
aconnic AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), Munich, has developed a modified fund raising p...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Tyrell Corporation, specialists in high-end live sports and entertainment broadcasts, was tasked with delivering compelling broadcast coverage of premier equest...
12/05/2026
Registration is now open for IBC2026 as the global media, entertainment and technology community prepares to converge on the RAI Amsterdam from 11 14 September ...
12/05/2026
Ross Video, a global leader in live video production technology, will present its latest innovations and integrated production workflows at BroadcastAsia 2026, ...
12/05/2026
500 selected leaders from around the world across start-ups, corporates, and venture capital. Over 50bn in assets under management among attending investors, a...
Australia's NRL Brings 4K Production to U.S.; FOX Sports U.S. and Australia Collaborate on Production Historic show features two studio sets, onsite operation from NEP trucks By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
