Behind the Scenes With NBC's Sunday Night Football Operations Team Despite the lack of preseason prep, the productions are as big and impressive as ever By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor Monday, September 21, 2020 - 4:41 pm
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When it comes to live sports productions, it simply doesn't get any bigger than NBC's Sunday Night Football. In 15 years together, NBC's SNF production and operations teams have seen just about everything. However, with no preseason games on which to prepare for the SNF slate this year, the crew found itself in Kansas City for the highly anticipated NFL Kickoff Game two weeks ago facing a challenge unlike any they had seen before. And despite an array of obstacles, the SNF team pulled it off.
Al Michaels (left) and Chris Collinsworth are socially distanced inside the NBC SNF booth.
It felt like we were sitting there with our parking brake on, says NBC Technical Manager Keith Kice, and then we had to go a hundred miles an hour instantly. That's how we started off the season.
The production team started off strong, delivering a top-flight NFL Kickoff Game at Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium on Thursday, Sept. 10 and following it up with the debut of Los Angeles's SoFi Stadium on Sunday, Sept. 13 and the heart-pounding Patriots-Seahawks matchup despite smokey conditions in Seattle on Sunday, Sept. 20. With the SNF season in full swing, NBC Sports Group VP, Operations, Tim Dekime looks back at the taxing weeks leading up to Week 1.
Those two weeks prior to the kickoff game were probably the most difficult weeks that Keith and I have ever worked on, says Dekime. We had to set up an entire game production - not just a preseason-level but a full SNF-level show. Right out of the box, we had to live up to the standards that we've established over the years to make it a perfect game. It was a thrash, and it was extremely difficult, but we got through it, and we're really proud of the entire team.
Stamford Steps Up: New Workflows for Social Distancing, Remote Working NBC has relocated SNF's graphics and edit teams to its broadcast center in Stamford, CT (seen here handling NBC's Tour de France coverage this month).
To socially distance the crew, NBC added a truck, NEP Supershooter 22B, to its fleet of NEP ND1 mobile units onsite and shifted both graphics and edit teams to its broadcast center in Stamford, CT (one editor is also working remotely from his home in Daytona Beach, FL). With fewer bodies onsite, NBC moved its replay room into areas previously housing graphics and edit.
To manage this decentralized workflow, NBC added 18 JPEG 2000 circuits to its normal transmission plan. The broadcaster has increased the number of muxed paths in and out to help accommodate the edit and graphics operations and now has a total of 45 transmission paths between Stamford and the onsite production. Although NBC Sports Group is no stranger to this at-home production model, having used it for multiple Olympics and several events during the pandemic (including the NHL, NASCAR, Triple Crown horse races, and the Tour de France), SNF takes the involvement of Stamford to a new level.
We've done this before, says Kice, but not to this magnitude. It's great that we weren't the first ones to have to do this and figure the whole thing out. NHL and several of the other sports have already done [remote production] back in Stamford. That way, we already had plenty of experience to get it done right.
NEP ND1's mobile units are back for another season of Sunday Night Football.
In addition to graphics and edit, NBC has relocated rules analyst Terry McAuley to a studio in Stamford, where he is connected to the SNF announce booth. This provided NBC with the necessary space to socially distance announcers Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth. NBC also added four panels to the background LED screen to cover the foot and a half of space between Michaels and Collinsworth (also due to social distancing is the much ballyhooed Collinsworth Slide ).
In all, Dekime says, about 15 people have been relocated from onsite to Stamford, including researchers, loggers, and the replay operator who works directly with Collinsworth.
I have to be honest: it has gone very well so far, says Dekime. We've done it for three games now, and we haven't had any difficulties in handling graphics, edits, or anything else from Stamford.
SkyCam Goes 4K for SNF With no fans in the stands this season, SkyCam will have extra space to fly.
SNF once again has one of the largest camera complements of any live sports production, rolling out 40-plus cameras, largely a mix of Sony HDC-4300's and HDC-4800's.
After initially exploring the use of a C360 system attached to the SkyCam, NBC instead opted to deploy a 4K SkyCam system - the first ever to be used on an NFL production. The SkyCam system's 4K camera is integrated with a Sony record/playback server that allows the replay operator to pan, zoom, and cut out HD images from the 4K frame. Beginning last night, the SkyCam system was upgraded to a Sony HDC-P43 4K camera running at 120 fps.
For years, says Kice, we've talked with [SNF Executive Producer Fred Gaudelli] about going to a high-speed camera on the SkyCam, but it never ended up happening. So, when the opportunity presented itself to do a 4K SkyCam and he saw what he could get out of it with no limitation to the normal flight of the SkyCam, he was pretty excited. And we're really excited to have the opportunity to be the first NFL games with a 4K SkyCam.
Empty-Stadium Impact: Adjust Camera Positions in the Stadium, in the Booth The Sunday Night Football booth features large LED board and new Panasonic robo.
With largely empty stadiums as a backdrop this season, NBC ha
