On the Pitch: Sporting KC Focuses on Firing Up Limited-Capacity Crowd at Children's Mercy Park The pandemic also allowed the production team to dive deep into the club's history By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 - 9:15 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The past 10 months have been a whirlwind for Major League Soccer. After last summer's MLS Is Back Tournament in the Orlando bubble and the eventual return to empty home stadiums, the attendance of some clubs in the league are returning to pre-pandemic levels. Much like At the Ballpark, On the Gridiron, On the Hardwood, and At the Rink, SVG's On the Pitch takes you into the control room with in-venue crews to understand what their job is like before, during, and after the official's whistle is blown.
Sporting KC is off to an impressive start in the 2021 season: second place in the MLS's Western Conference and third-best team in the league with 13 points in seven games. For its four home games, the club has entertained a limited capacity of 6,500 fans, with a production plan that includes engaging videoboard prompts, digital and social content, and natural sound from supporters in the stands.
It has been exciting to have more of our fans back, says Blake McFarland, senior manager, match presentation and esports, Sporting KC. Our jobs are getting more fun every time we've added more people to this building.
MORE ON THE PITCH INTERVIEWS:
Real Salt Lake Shares Rio Tinto Stadium With Vancouver Whitecaps FC
Setting the Foundation: Team Goes Back to the Drawing Board for Upcoming Season Sporting KC fans came together through a Virtual Watch Party during last summer's MLS Is Back Tournament.
As with any season, the club re-evaluated the effectiveness of its strategy during the offseason, but, with number of fans in the stands increasing, the staff had to come up with a plan that both blended the new ideas of COVID-era production and returned to more-traditional standards. After meetings, rehearsals, and constant testing, the club found a sweet spot that hit all areas of necessity.
When it comes to the energy inside the stadium, we want to make 40% capacity feel like 100% capacity, says McFarland. We took the time to audit what we were doing and asked ourselves what we wanted to change and how to get better from this situation. We found some ways to do that.
Over the past year, the team has experimented with a handful of ideas to get their supporters involved from afar. During the MLS Is Back Tournament last summer, fans could watch matches as a community through Virtual Watch Party presented by Continental Tire. The activation leveraged the functionalities of a normal video call on Zoom. Now pre-match shows are being live-streamed on social media and also shown live on the videoboard at Children's Mercy Park. Building on these features, the team aims to enhance the in-venue experience with age-old practices that integrate sponsorship as well as catered material through digital platforms.
It has been a great opportunity for us to take things like PA announcements that everyone loves to listen to and turn them into engaging content pieces, says McFarland. We're learning how to become more gamified and digitized.
At home at Children's Mercy Park, Sporting KC is live-streaming pre-match shows to its social-media channels.
Away from the pitch, the club's digital team is generating a connection with fans still unable to return to the venue. After returning to Kansas City in fall 2020, the organization dedicated a four-episode series, Become One: Sporting Kansas City, to chronicle the team's journey through the pandemic. Also carried over into the current season is Behind the Shield, a cinematic recap of recent activity on the pitch and the storylines surrounding each of the club's matches.
Back on the stadium side, the club wanted to proceed with health and safety protocols in mind for those that can grab tickets and head to a match. With ever-changing advice from the CDC and other medical professionals, the in-venue personnel needed to adapt with the changes, which also meant highlighting individuals in the crowd who promoted the desired behavior.
The challenge of showing our fans doing it as much as we can while making sure that they're following the correct safety protocols, like the 6 ft. of social distance and mask, says Stewart Pirani, director, stadium and video production, Sporting KC. Being at a limited capacity is a bit of a downer for our [match-day] environment, but we'll continue to create engaging and exciting content for our fans.
New Start: Pirani Reflects on a Season in a Pandemic During the pandemic, many creatives and other professionals in the industry have taken a leap of faith and transitioned into new roles. Pirani took on a new role right before the sports-world shutdown, joining the club in December 2019. He set high expectations for himself and the content that he was ready to work on, but, after the delay of the season, he relied on the relationship that he forged with McFarland.
The production team developed a four-episode series, Become One, to highlight the trials and triumphs of the 2020 season.
In January and February, he says, I had grandiose plans because I was about to start my first MLS venture in a new stadium with a new crew and fanbase. Working with Blake has helped me tremendously, and [the postponement] gave me time to reflect on the club's needs and culture.
From the onset of the pandemic 'til now, Pirani has been able to dust off the history books and get a chance to learn about the club's roots, which extend to 1995. The history lesson not only helped him bond with the city but also enhanced his storytelling abilities.
Says McFarland, I've for
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...
On the Pitch: Sporting KC Focuses on Firing Up Limited-Capacity Crowd at Children's Mercy Park The pandemic also allowed the production team to dive deep into the club's history By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor 
