
US Open 2025: ESPN Aims To Bring Viewers' Ears Closer to the Net The audio team is serving up more player and coach audio, reduced latency By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Wednesday, August 27, 2025 - 7:00 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
It has been a long time since Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker had to take the No. 7 train out to then-Shea Stadium. In 1999, he described the ride: Imagine having to take the 7 train looking like you're in Beirut, next to some kid with purple hair, right next to some dude who got out of jail for the fourth time. A quarter century later, Shea is now Citi Field, and fans heading to the US Open this week will find an upgraded subway replacing the funky train of Rocker's description.
New York City's annual tennis moment also has some nice upgrades to experience this year, particularly when it comes to audio.
Athlete Audio In fact, says Audio Supervisor Florian Brown, the audio team is taking a page out of the MLB audio playbook, updating the wireless bodypacks used on players for courtside interviews during practice to the Q5X PlayerMic QX5100 bodypacks that FOX and ESPN have deployed on baseball broadcasts. In addition, a Bluetooth IFB and a Sennheiser Presence earpiece will have a lighter configuration that he says encourages conversation and thus viewer engagement. The new transmitters will come with their own ready-to-wear vest, making the process even more transparent.
We're not going to try to sew anything into anyone's outfit, he explains, but we're going to give them a vest with a microphone on it. That way, they're able to run around, hit the ball, be a little more aggressive, and get into their mindset while they're practicing.
Florian Brown (left) and Leonard Fisher head the audio team for ESPN's coverage of US Open tennis.
Viewers will also hear more conversations with the coaches via a Sennheiser SK2250 bodypack transmitter, which will be active when they're in the coaches box.
We're going to try to do some in-game interviews with coaches. We'll put a [lavaliere] and an IFB on them and talk during the match, he says, pointing out that there were as many as two dozen such interviews with coaches and players last year. Where we can't get to the player, we can get to the coach.
There's also a third serve microphone along the sideline near center court, something the team has tried in the past and plans to refine this year to fill in that space a little bit more, Brown says. Management of those and other mics will be via a total of nine Calrec Artemis console - covering domestic, host, and international feeds - around the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center campus.
To Cover the Player Journey Brown, who's pairing again this year with Audio Supervisor Leonard Fisher, notes that snoop cameras liberally deployed in the player warmup areas, entrances, and hallways will be accompanied by microphones.
We basically want to try to cover the journey that the player makes from the practice court, Brown explains, noting the use of the Dante connectivity format throughout the broadcast-audio infrastructure. Through the building to the main court where they're playing and places along the way, we just try to follow them along and make sure we've got audio and video along their journey.
RF Challenge New York City's sports-sound b te noir is always RF interference. The solution, says Brown, is strategic placement of Riedel Bolero antennas and transmitters throughout the grounds.
The problem in New York, as you know, is that the RF signal is always a little bit dicey, he laments. In New York, you can put up all the antennas you want, but that doesn't mean your RF's going to work.
That stronger signal acquisition also offers a boost to sonic tonal quality, not something Bluetooth is noted for.
Another potential challenge is audio latency, which can create disorienting echoes in user earpieces and are a byproduct of a sprawling broadcast campus and, particularly, the multiple transitions the audio makes between digital and analog platforms, such as consoles and earpieces.
That's really where our biggest sticking point is, Brown explains. I go from a digital device into a digital console; then I go into an analog ADAM [intercom] frame and right back out again to digital. We're getting more confident in our abilities to manage these networks, he adds. We're able to speed that buffer time up a bit more each time, and, as we start getting more comfortable with ST 2110, we're getting more confident in bringing that latency time down even further.
In Control The control rooms for Ashe and Armstrong stadiums - where A1s Tim Bischof and Jason Polansky, respectively, are mixing the domestic feeds - have Dolby Atmos 5.1.4 monitoring using Genelec 8320 and 8330 speakers, part of the larger infrastructure installed again this year by Gravity Media. World-feed clients have the option of taking the immersive feed.
ESPN's domestic feed remains in surround because of infrastructure limitations. That's a constraint Brown expects to be lifted with the US Open acquiring a new media-deal landscape next year and parent organization USTA taking over host-broadcasting duties from ESPN. He notes the ongoing infrastructure upgrades taking place at most of the major broadcaster as the inflection for the US Open's audio format.
It's probably going to be a couple of years, he says, but, once the ST 2110 infrastructure starts getting into all these older control rooms - ESPN's updating, NBC's going through a major technical update starting in 2026, all these people are trying to get up to ST 2110 - then you're going to have the resources to be able to push that Atmos across and move it and
Most recent headlines
09/11/2025
Dalet today announced a transformative leap forward for media operations: Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) that unifies the Dalet ecosystem under one natura...
07/11/2025
PARIS Ateme said it has been working with Spain-based multinational telco Telef nica to deploy a cloud-native media processing platform for next-generation vide...
07/11/2025
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers has announced it will hold its annual meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 10, via a Zoom webinar at 11 a.m. ET....
07/11/2025
NEW YORK The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) and TVB have released a study examining how local viewing is measured across television, mobile d...
07/11/2025
LONG ISLAND CITY, N.Y. Altice USA announced it will change its corporate name to Optimum Communications Inc., effective Nov. 7. The company will cease trading u...
07/11/2025
07 11 2025 - Media release Screen Australia announces Gillian Moody-Ardler as Head of First Nations Content
Gillian Moody-Ardler. Photo credit: Sally Flegg. ...
06/11/2025
Media organisations from across the globe are uniting to promote media and information literacy (MIL) to help ensure their future survival and win back the trus...
06/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Athlos NYC CEO Kayla Green on Building the Brand of the Young Trac...
06/11/2025
ESPN Exits ESPN BET Deal With PENN, Goes Into Business With DraftKingsDraftKings will integrate innovative fan experiences' across ESPN platforms and DTC s...
06/11/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Voyage Audio's Colin Ritchie on How the Spatial M...
06/11/2025
Ben Whishaw at the premiere of Peter Hujar's Day (photo by Robin Marshall / Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)
By Bailey Pennick
The premise is si...
06/11/2025
At Spotify, we're always finding new ways to bring you closer to the music that moves you, turning sound into something personal. From the playlists that ma...
06/11/2025
O mundo est ouvindo a Am rica Latina. Os artistas da regi o est o constantement...
06/11/2025
The world is listening to Latin America. The region's artists are consistent...
06/11/2025
El mundo est escuchando a Latinoam rica. Los artistas de la regi n marcan const...
06/11/2025
After nine months of fiscal year 2025, SGL Carbon generated sales of 652.9 million, down 16.5% on the previous year (9M 2024: 781.9 million). This is attribut...
06/11/2025
Contact information:
Miriam Johnson, Website Lead, Fotoware Group
miriam.johnson@fotoware.com
Oslo, October 2025: As part of our brand unification, the Pic...
06/11/2025
Calrec's 36-fader Argo M in Steiger Media's newly equipped OB truck parked outside the venue will showcase a live remote workflow connected to the Calre...
06/11/2025
With nearly 50% of streamers willing to cancel a service based on difficulty fin...
06/11/2025
BRISTOL, Conn., and BOSTON ESPN and DraftKings today announced an agreement naming DraftKings the sports programmer's exclusive official sportsbook and odds...
06/11/2025
MELVILLE, N.Y. Canon USA has launched the CR-N400 and CR-N350, two new Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) cameras designed to deliver high image quality, versatile connectivit...
06/11/2025
NEW YORK Fox Sports said its coverage of the Los Angeles Dodgers' win over the Toronto Blue Jays in the decisive Game 7 of the 2025 World Series delivered 2...
06/11/2025
NEW YORK DoubleVerify and Roku, Inc. are reporting that they have seen a marked reduction in fraudulent ad requests imitating Roku device traffic across the s...
06/11/2025
CAMBRIDGE, England Faced with rising inflation and worries that the economy is weakening, consumers are prioritizing their spending on popular streaming service...
06/11/2025
STAMFORD, Conn. NBC Sports is mounting mics in unconventional places to bring the sounds of NASCAR into the living rooms of sports fans....
06/11/2025
BRANSON, Mo. Link Electronics has partnered with Aberdeen Broadcast Services to provide a real-time, dual-stream translation and captioning service....
06/11/2025
Venture will deploy and commercialize Level-4 autonomous driving technologies
P...
06/11/2025
Strategic execution and operational optimization lay foundation for sustainable growth
Space Services returns to growth following Thuraya-4 start of operations...
06/11/2025
06 Nov 2025
VEON Appoints Sebastian Rice as General Counsel Vitaly Shmakov promoted to the newly created Chief Investment Officer role
Dubai, November 6, 2025...
06/11/2025
Telos Alliance Partners to Showcase Professional Audio Processing and Next-Gen ...
06/11/2025
The prequel to the Sky Original mob crime saga is a six-part drama tracking the ...
06/11/2025
The six-part drama, set in a close-knit Welsh town fractured by an unspeakable c...
06/11/2025
Rohde & Schwarz at productronica 2025: Innovation and production - hand in hand As a trusted partner for electronics manufacturing, Rohde & Schwarz will prese...
06/11/2025
Back to All News
Mystery Thriller The Price of Confession' Starring Jeon D...
06/11/2025
The company will highlight its recent ecosystem expansions and strategic innovat...
06/11/2025
Red Seat Ventures Announces Partnership with Renowned Entrepreneur, Author and M...
06/11/2025
We're delighted to announce the appointment of Max Mehta and Mark Fannon as Junior Systems Engineers, further strengthening our growing Technology team.
Ma...
06/11/2025
RT Announces Alex Walden as General Manager of the
RTE Concert Orchestra
Alex Walden, renowned orchestra manager, most recently for the BBC Concert Orche...
06/11/2025
Actors Steve Coogan and anna Hardwicke will be on the Late Late Show this week ...
06/11/2025
In the third episode of The 2 Johnnies Late Night Lock In actor Danny O'Carr...
06/11/2025
NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang and chief scientist Bill Dally were honored ...
06/11/2025
Editor's note: This blog has been updated to reflect the correct launch date for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7', November 14.
A crisp chill's in the...
06/11/2025
Scripps Research team identifies sugar molecules that trigger placental formation Study reveals how sugar-protein interactions are critical for the placenta dur...
05/11/2025
College Hoops Preview 2025: ESPN Remote-Ops Team Preps for Massive Slate of Men&...
05/11/2025
University of Iowa Centralizes Video Production With Dual Control Rooms at Carve...
05/11/2025
On Monday night, Ed Sheeran and Spotify lit up The Royal Dublin Society in Dublin for a one-night-only performance. The occasion? The third installment of Billi...
05/11/2025
Cumbia has long been woven into daily life in Argentina, and its popularity on S...
05/11/2025
La cumbia forma parte del d a a d a de los argentinos desde siempre, y su popula...
05/11/2025
Earlier this year, our in-house publishing imprint, Spotify Audiobooks, put out ...
05/11/2025
SBS showcases next generation of pro cyclists in extended broadcast deal with Pr...