Inside Monumental Sports Network's New ST 2110 Production Facility: A National-Network Feel at DC's New RSN Flexibility is the mantra, with five control rooms, public/private cloud, virtualized editorial By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. Thursday, March 21, 2024 - 1:43 pm
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A new era in DC sports television dawns tonight. The recently launched Monumental Sports Network (MNMT) will debut its new multimillion-dollar, state-of-the-art production studios for the Washington Wizards-Sacramento Kings broadcast. Adjacent to Capital One Arena in Downtown Washington, DC, the SMPTE ST 2110, 1080p facility is among the most technologically advanced of any regional sports network in history.
We are committed to building the best local-media sports experience for our fans, says Zach Leonsis, president, media and new enterprises, Monumental Sports & Entertainment. You can't do that without building a world-class, national-broadcast-level production facility. We not only are able to improve the quality of our live game broadcasts, which is where the lion's share of the value is for our network, but can also build a platform to produce more great programming outside of live games.
All five of the Monumental Sports Network's new control rooms, including this one, are 4K HDR-capable.
MNMT's two-story, SMPTE ST 2110 production center features two studios that can combine on non-conflict nights to create a single national-telecast-worthy experience. With systems integrated by Diversified, the facility is also home to two insert studios, five control rooms to produce multiple events simultaneously, and office space for more than 150 Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE) employees.
In addition to [providing] a top-of-the-line look in the studio, says MSE CTO Charlie Myers, we spared no expense [to ensure] the infrastructure was top-notch as well. I was appreciative of the direction from Zach and our leadership team, which was let's do this the right way so that we can scale in the future and be ready for whatever comes our way.'
Moving on From the Peacock, Creating a New Monumental Home Even before MSE - which owns the Wizards, Capitals, Mystics, and G-League's Capital City Go-Go, along with Capital One Arena - closed its deal to acquire all of NBC Sports Washington in September 2022, Leonsis and Myers had begun designing the new facility.
Through the end of the 2022-23 NBA and NHL seasons, the network continued to operate out of NBC's production center via a transition-services agreement. For the 2023-24 season, MSE's team found space for a temporary control room on the concourse level at Capital One Arena and housed its pre/postgame studios in MSE's nearby District E esports venue.
PCR2, 3, 4, and 5 are outfitted with Panasonic KAIROS software-based production switcher.
In 2022-23, we were flying the NBC Sports Washington plane while simultaneously developing, designing, and beginning to construct brand-new solutions in the background, says Leonsis. 2024 is going to be a transformational year for us with launch of a lot of new initiatives and infrastructure. Opening this new facility before the end of this season is a great mile marker for us.
I think the 2024-25 season is going to be the new normal for how we want this network to look and feel, he continues. This IP-based facility has tremendous capability and scalability and prepares us for a future when we're going to be distributing our video continually, not only on linear, but also direct-to-consumer. And there will be additional distribution pathways in the future.
Building an IP Facility, Embracing the Cloud, Prepping for the Future Because Capital One Arena is already at full capacity, building a broadcast center there was not an option. MSE secured fresh office space next door at 700 6th St. However, even before the physical space was finalized, the key technical decision for Myers's team and Diversified was whether to build an IP facility based on ST 2110 or stick with baseband SDI.
A lot of people were pushing us to go SDI because they thought 2110 was just too complex and we weren't ready for it, says Myers. But, from my perspective, we had to ask where are we going to be in the next five to 10 years and what are our intentions to grow the business. In my view, 2110 was a must' right off the bat to get where we needed to be.
We wanted to set ourselves up to be ready for 4K, 8K, HDR, or anything else that comes down the line, he continues. We created the foundational network and infrastructure that can support whatever comes our way. All those factors led us to building an ST 2110 facility.
All Lawo audio consoles at MNMT's new production facility can handle 1,536 channels of digital-signal processing.
The ST 2110-07-compliant facility is built on a spine-and-leaf platform with red and blue networks running on an Arista core. The fully redundant, hitless network is capable of 9.6-TBps switching.
The 2110 orchestration system relies on the EVS Cerebrum control and monitoring system and can control, manage, and route 4,096 sources to 4,096 destinations. MNMT deploys EVS Neuron modular glue processors as media gateways throughout the facility and relies on TAG VS multiviewers.
We have a lot of automation built in, so [the producers] are going to be able to focus on the content and not worry about the technical side, says Myers. Under the previous legacy system, it was a dog to get something published and it took a long time, but now we have automated [workflows] in our media asset management that is going to streamline all that. That's going to have a direct impact on our fans and they're going to have a better experience.
All audio consoles are Lawo, and the audio-
