
Super Bowl LVII: Phoenix, State Farm Stadium Raise RF Coordination to New Level Sieve-like venue in RF-dense town makes for challenging RF environment By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Wednesday, January 18, 2023 - 11:36 am
Print This Story
As NFL teams vie to go to Super Bowl LVII on Feb. 12, a different kind of battle is taking place behind the scenes and could determine the quality of the event's overall broadcast production.
Every year, sports production depends more heavily on wireless systems for audio and video. In terms of RF operations, however, State Farm Stadium in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale is described by experts in the field as perhaps the most challenging of all NFL stadiums. That's due to a combination of the venue's construction materials and design and the density of its immediate RF neighborhood.
[Super Bowl at this venue] is a parking lot that has fewer spaces than the number of cars that want to park there, says Cameron Stuckey, RF engineer, Professional Wireless Systems. The city has no vacant TV channels for wireless-microphone operations, and the stadium has minimal RF shielding. That's what our scans showed in October, and that's what everyone else has been experiencing [during] the rest of the regular NFL season. PWS is contracted by ATK Clair Global to manage the wireless systems for Super Bowl LVII's entertainment elements: the iconic halftime show, headlined this year by Rihanna, and the opening and closing performances.
PWS's Cameron Stuckey: [Super Bowl at this venue] is a parking lot that has fewer spaces than the number of cars that want to park there.
Stuckey attributes the stadium's recent increase in RF challenges to an influx of broadcast operations in the wake of the FCC frequency repack, which was completed in 2020 and incentivized RF users to move to 600 MHz spectrum, the portion recently vacated by a spectrum auction by the agency to free up RF space for consumer mobile devices. The spectrum repack moved nearly 1,200 U.S. TV stations to new UHF and VHF frequencies.
They rolled the dice, says Stuckey, and a lot of Phoenix-area broadcasters took that opportunity to continue broadcasting [in those bands]. He adds that the Super Bowl increases the amount of RF needed beyond what is usually required for a typical regular-season game: Super Bowl is a high-stress, high-focus environment. There's zero margin of error.
Tools and Techniques For Minimizing Interference Frequency managers have many tools and techniques to use, including multiplexing microphones, carefully positioning highly directional antennas, and coordinating the opening and closing of adjacent frequencies at certain points in the event. None of them, though, may be more useful than the Special Temporary Authority (STA), through which the FCC grants provisional access to additional radio frequencies in a specific time and place.
It should be called the standard temporary authority, because it has to be used so often now, says Joe Ciaudelli, director, spectrum and innovation, Sennheiser, noting that he has seen PWS's RF scans of the stadium. There are virtually no major professional or collegiate sports events that do not require one or more STAs, depending on location. But Phoenix is the most challenging of all of them.
It's the one market that does not have a single vacant UHF channel available, he continues. It does have some low-power channels that can be used, and the STAs can be used to scope those out. There's also some VHF available, but there's very little in the way of VHF-compatible equipment left that can use it, and [it's] best-suited for less critical, off-air/off-stage communication channels, such as intercom systems. It's going to be the diligent planning and resourcefulness of the RF engineers that will make this fly.
(However, Ciaudelli adds, success can bring its own challenge: No one should conclude, looking in from the outside on this Super Bowl, that there is no spectrum crunch, even though this may make it look like that. )
Inside the Venue State Farm Stadium presents its own problems. PWS GM Jim Van Winkle cites the stadium's high degree of RF reflectivity and lack of shielding, which makes isolating indoor and outdoor RF signals from each other more difficult. That, he says, is a function of construction materials and architectural design.
PWS's Jim Van Winkle: You can [use] all the tricks that professional coordinators and RF engineers have, but, at some point, you're going to run up against FCC regulations that say you can't operate on these frequencies in this city.
No one expects a Faraday cage, he explains, but some buildings have solid walls with big steel beams; sometimes, a lot of flat sheet metal; sometimes, even wire mesh - all of which can shield RF. We won't have any of that in Phoenix. The design of the building is not to our benefit.
Furthermore, adds Stuckey, wireless microphones are subordinate to DTV stations in the DTV UHF spectrum, per the FCC. And rightsholders for any event's broadcast are generally given deferential treatment by its RF coordinators.
Entertainment frequencies at a sporting event are second among equals, he explains. Sporting and entertainment, as secondary users, have to fit into the spectrum unused by [FCC] Part 73 broadcast DTV stations.
If a DTV channel is occupied above -84 dBm, Stuckey continues, we are not authorized to use that channel. In places like Phoenix and Orlando, another city that has a pretty high post-repack density, there's not a lot of spectrum between 470 and 608 [MHz] that's legal for Part 74 secondary users. You can try to avoid the interference by using all the tricks that professional coordinators and RF engineers have, but, at some point, you're going to run up
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
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...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
01/04/2026
As sports media organization continue to seek out new ways to streamline their p...
01/04/2026
The SVG GFX Forum hit New York City earlier this month for a day packed with sessions focused on the creative strategy and technology behind today's cutting...
01/04/2026
This year, Spotify celebrates the five-year anniversary of EQUAL, our global pro...
01/04/2026
Analogue-style tape splicing in the digital domain
In this era of digital recording and multiple layers of Undo, it seems that the fading art of tape splici...
01/04/2026
Latest release introduces new Orbita Engine
Zero G's latest release marks the start of a new series of libraries, as well as introducing an all-new engi...
01/04/2026
Until now, one format has largely been left behind
Warm Audio's extensive product range includes modern-day recreations of all manner of sought-after s...
01/04/2026
A piano with glass vessels for strings!
The Crow Hill Company's recently released Gong Piano offered a refreshing new take on piano libraries, harnessin...
01/04/2026
Remote Streaming Studio Condenser
Aim Audio have just revealed their latest creation, the ESSENCE RS Remote Streaming Studio Condenser, which becomes the wo...
01/04/2026
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) is pleased to announce that the ca...
01/04/2026
Bilbao, April 1st, 2026 - AgileTV, a leading provider of end-to-end TV technolog...
01/04/2026
Green Hippo is excited to announce the launch of its new Hippotizer Media Server training courses at Pixel Academy, a purpose built AV learning hub combining ha...
01/04/2026
TAG Video Systems, a global leader in IP-native broadcast monitoring, multiviewing, and quality control, today announced a collaboration with Oracle Cloud Infra...
01/04/2026
Professional Wireless Systems (PWS), a leading provider of wireless audio solutions and RF management, was on site at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, wher...
01/04/2026
AgileTV, a leading provider of end-to-end TV technology solutions, has deployed next , the new IPTV platform of the Austrian telco LIWEST, marking the first st...
01/04/2026
LTN, a leader in fully managed IP video transport, and Ateme, a global leader in video compression and delivery solutions, today announced a collaboration integ...
01/04/2026
Adobe Unveils Powerful New Innovations for Creative Pros in Adobe Illustrator
Deepa Subramaniam April 1, 2026
0 Comments
I'm excited to share that...
01/04/2026
Boland Communications Introduces QD4K315HDR10 QD-OLED Series Monitors for Live P...
01/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/04/2026
Mediagenix Showcases Semantic Intelligence-Powered Title Management, Schedule Op...
01/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/04/2026
Victoria Mon t Brings the Multi-Hyphenate Mindset to Career Jam 2026 The Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and producer shared how versatility and self-inves...
01/04/2026
A New Season of Expression: Save 30% On Ivory 3There are moments in music when everything changes-when new ideas break through and redefine what's possible....
01/04/2026
Wuppertal April 1, 2026
Binghamton University Strengthens Student Run Producti...
01/04/2026
Back to All News
A Demon Falls for a Human in Long Vacation: Netflix Greenlight...
01/04/2026
Back to All News
All WWE Is Now Live Only on Netflix in Italy
Entertainment
01 April 2026
GlobalItaly
Link copied to clipboard
ALL WWE IS NOW LIVE
ON NET...
01/04/2026
Harmonic's Media Processing Solutions Maximize Bandwidth Efficiency for Terrestrial Broadcast Delivery SAN JOSE, Calif. - April 1, 2026 - Harmonic (NASDAQ: ...
01/04/2026
Rugby fans won't miss a moment of the action this spring, with full Women...
01/04/2026
T Bluey ag teacht go RT ! Beginning on Monday 6 April 2026, Bluey will be available as Gaeilge on RT KIDSjr and RT Player. Children will be able to connect w...
01/04/2026
January 4 2026, 18:00 (PST) DOLBY AND DOUYIN EMPOWER THE NEXT GENERATON OF CREATORS WITH DOLBY VISION
Douyin Users Can Now Create And Share Videos With Stun...
31/03/2026
MeyerPro delivered the LED production for the Microsoft Ignite 2025 keynote at Chase Center in San Francisco, using more than 2,700 ROE Visual panels across mul...
31/03/2026
The Media Coding Industry Forum (MC-IF) is expanding membership outreach in 2026...
31/03/2026
ViewLift and MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) have announced the launch of ViewLift Conversational AI Search on the MyOutdoorTV platform. The feature enables natural language...
31/03/2026
The Atlanta Braves and Gray Media have announced a multi-year agreement to simul...
31/03/2026
Gravity Media has delivered broadcast services for TAB Golden Slipper Day at Rosehill Gardens on March 21 and will now cover The Star Championships at Royal Ran...
31/03/2026
Synamedia has announced that Mileto Tecnologia, a Brazilian pay-TV operator, has selected the Synamedia Go platform for its OTT expansion. Mileto is also deploy...
31/03/2026
KMH Integration will attend NAB Show in Las Vegas with a focus on what the company calls AV Casting - an approach built on the idea that professional AV and bro...
31/03/2026
Prime Video will carry live coverage of the first and second rounds of the 2026 Masters Tournament, beginning at 1:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, April 9 and Friday, A...
31/03/2026
The NHL and its U.S. and Canadian broadcast partners have announced a collaborat...
31/03/2026
Daktronics has partnered with Wake Forest to manufacture and install a new end z...
31/03/2026
The National Football League has announced that Las Vegas will host Super Bowl LXIII in 2029 at Allegiant Stadium. The announcement was made at the NFL Annual M...
31/03/2026
The NFL has announced a partnership with TMRW Sports to develop and operate a professional flag football league for women and men. The league will launch with i...
31/03/2026
Sennheiser's Spectera wideband bidirectional wireless system was used by bot...