Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

College Hoops Tip-Off 2021: Big Ten Network Heads to Full Venues for 200-Game Schedule

10/11/2021

College Hoops Tip-Off 2021: Big Ten Network Heads to Full Venues for 200-Game Schedule The network's MICR' workflow will supply remote support By Kristian Hern ndez, Associate Editor

Wednesday, November 10, 2021 - 12:43 pm

Print This Story | Subscribe

Story Highlights

The Big Ten Network tipped off its nearly 200-game (134 men's, 60 women's) basketball schedule last night with a men's non-conference doubleheader featuring Eastern Michigan-Indiana and Jackson State-No. 11 Illinois. The schedule will take at-home viewers to venues with full crowds around the country, and the production crew will deploy new elements - notably, a graphics package - and pandemic-era production tools - such as a remote workflow.

We learned a lot out of necessity last year, says Alex Bertsche, senior coordinating producer, men's basketball, Big Ten Network. We'll use some of these technological aspects moving forward, but, as we get closer to pre-pandemic normal, we'll need to balance [new workflows] with what we did last year to give our viewers the best coverage possible.

Broadcast Enhancements: Graphics Package, On-Air Rebrand Headline Additions Both men's and women's basketball will receive a handful of upgrades this year. Similar to partner Fox Sports, productions of the men's games will have a new graphics package that contrasts with what was seen last year and in prior years. The look of the broadcast will be distinctly different, with the new package developed with Fox's help.

Big Ten Network basketball coverage has a new graphics package this season.

It's bright, bold, colorful and will convey a real sense of energy and excitement, says Bertsche. It has been fun to see it come together, and we're very grateful to have the partnership with Fox Sports to get it implemented.

On the women's side, telecasts have undergone a rebranding. For example, every Thursday night will be referred to as B1G Access Thursdays. To generate extra buzz on each of the conference's campuses, the network will tap into the production crew of each institution and will also use social media to drive interest.

Our on-campus producers will continue to create content profiling players, coaches, trainers, and anyone else connected to the program, says Sue Maryott, coordinating producer, women's basketball, Big Ten Network. We have also asked our teams to submit [suggestions] for a B1G women's basketball hashtag. Similar to our #B1GBlockParty for volleyball, we will have a hashtag exclusive to our women's-basketball coverage to create a dialogue with our viewers during the games.

Cloud-Based Solutions: Remote Workflows Take Over Men's, Women's Productions Essential production personnel will be onsite in the television compound and inside the venue, but, with the pandemic continuing, remote workflows will again be deployed throughout the college basketball season. This season, Big Ten Network will have its announcers and normal in-venue staffers - camera operators, courtside audio specialist - once again onsite. Starting in January, talent - including Kevin Kugler, Brandon Gaudin, Dave Revsine, Cory Provus, Jason Ross, Telly Hughes, Jeff Levering, Lisa Byington, and Jason Horowitz - will be onsite for every game.

A handful of men's games will be produced via the at-home production workflow that the network calls MICR. Crew members will work from the network's Chicago headquarters. Although others may see this approach as a drastic change that may hamper the production, Bertsche views MICR productions as a chance to keep the core of the production crew intact without worrying about travel.

Although the crew was onsite at last season's Big Ten Tournament, more than 90% of women's basketball games this season will be produced remotely in Chicago.

We don't look at MICR productions as a downgrade but as an incredible advantage, he says. The ability to keep consistent crew, from the producer/director to other technical staff, has been beneficial for our on-air product. They're also able to do a Maryland game on Friday night, a Nebraska game on Saturday afternoon, and still sleep in their bed in Chicago.

The camera complement for the men's-basketball productions will be fairly standard, unless it's a marquee matchup. For example, a non-conference doubleheader (No. 21 Maryland vs. Florida and No. 7 Purdue vs. NC State) on Sunday, Dec. 12 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY, and Iowa vs. Utah State on Saturday, Dec. 18 at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, SD, will get a 10- to 12-camera setup including multiple super-slo-mo cameras and robos through and above the backboard.

In the later months of the schedule, Bertsche will assess what's working and add technologies that have become synonymous with the Big Ten Tournament. This season's will be at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis March 9-13, 2022.

Analyst Andy Katz will be another familiar face on men's-basketball broadcasts.

As the season progresses, he explains, we'll continue to assess what additions we can make for our most important games. But, for some, we'll also utilize Rail Cam or Skycam as we did at Lucas Oil Stadium last year for our coverage of the Men's Basketball Tournament. We loved that a lot of people got to see a lot of different angles of the play on and surrounding the court.

As for women's-basketball broadcasts, the MICR model will handle more than 90% of games, with the producer/director duo as well as replay, graphics, and other crew members working from a control room in Chicago. These games will be called by newcomer Sloane Martin as lead play-by-play voice, Mike Hall, Chris Vosters, and Matt Schumacker.

These shows will run as they have for years with cameras, video, A2
LINK: https://www.sportsvideo.org/2021/11/10/2021-22-college-basketball-prev...
See more stories from svg

More from Sports Video Group

11/07/2025

Behind the Mic: Amazon Prime Preps for First Season of NBA Action; MSG Networks Adjusts Broadcast Booths for Rangers, Devils

Behind the Mic: Amazon Prime Preps for First Season of NBA Action; MSG Networks ...

11/07/2025

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Suite Studios' Craig Hering on Adapting to Clients' Needs With Scalable Cloud-Based Storage

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Suite Studios' Craig Hering on Adapting to Client...

11/07/2025

2025 SVG Content Management Forum Breaks Down AI's Impact, Continued Transition to the Cloud

2025 SVG Content Management Forum Breaks Down AI's Impact, Continued Transit...

11/07/2025

A Journey HOME: University of Nebraska's HuskerVision Goes IP

A Journey HOME: University of Nebraska's HuskerVision Goes IP Leaders from the HuskerVision and Lawo share their IP learnings By SVG Staff Friday, July 1...

11/07/2025

CMSI, Remote Picture Labs, Ace ESPN's Cloud-Based Editing Efforts for Wimbledon

CMSI, Remote Picture Labs, Ace ESPN's Cloud-Based Editing Efforts for Wimble...

11/07/2025

Netflix Enters the Live-Boxing-Production Ring for Round 2 With Historic Taylor-Serrano 3 Card at MSG

Netflix Enters the Live-Boxing-Production Ring for Round 2 With Historic Taylor-...

10/07/2025

5G for All? What the DFL's Use of Easy5G, RefCam Could Mean for Events in the Future

5G for all? What the DFL's use of Easy5G and RefCam could mean for events in...

10/07/2025

Save the Date: PGA TOUR Studios Welcomes SVG Remote Production Summit on Oct 14-15

Save the Date: PGA TOUR Studios Welcomes SVG Remote Production Summit on Oct 14-...

10/07/2025

Cloud on the Road: How Remote-Production-Service Providers Are Adapting to a New Era

Cloud on the Road: How Remote-Production-Service Providers Are Adapting to a New...

10/07/2025

Seattle Kraken's Ryan Schaber on the NHL Team Taking Live Game Productions In-House

Seattle Kraken's Ryan Schaber on the NHL Team Taking Live Game Productions I...

10/07/2025

FOX Sports Reboots Small Control Room in Los Angeles as Hub for Vertical-First Production

FOX Sports Reboots Small Control Room in Los Angeles as Hub for Vertical-First P...

10/07/2025

SVG Sit-Down: MSE's Zach Leonsis, ViewLift's Rick Allen Go Deep on Joint Venture Targeting Local-Sports-Media Market

SVG Sit-Down: MSE's Zach Leonsis, ViewLift's Rick Allen Go Deep on Joint...

09/07/2025

Monumental Sports & Entertainment, ViewLift Unveil Broadcast/Streaming Joint Venture as Regional Sports Market Transforms

Monumental Sports & Entertainment, ViewLift Unveil Broadcast/Streaming Joint Ven...

09/07/2025

SVG Europe Audio - State of Wireless Mics Forum: If We Lose the Spectrum, It's Going Back to the Boring Stuff

SVG Europe Audio State of Wireless Mics Forum: If we lose the spectrum, it...

09/07/2025

Tech Focus: Athlete Audio - Venues Provide Sound Just for the Players

Tech Focus: Athlete Audio - Venues Provide Sound Just for the Players From locker room to field of play, personalized systems help rev up the athletes By Dan D...

08/07/2025

Groundbreaking Gamecocks: Inside University of South Carolina's Four-Control Room Production Palace

Groundbreaking Gamecocks: Inside University of South Carolina's Four-Control...

08/07/2025

Monumental Sports & Entertainment's Samantha Brady on the Power of the RSN's Direct-to-Consumer Streaming Service Monumental+

Monumental Sports & Entertainment's Samantha Brady on the Power of the RSN&#...

08/07/2025

Live From 2025 FIFA Club World Cup: FIFA, HBS Focus on Tournament Wrap, With an Eye to 2026 Men's World Cup

Live From 2025 FIFA Club World Cup: FIFA, HBS Focus on Tournament Wrap, With an ...

08/07/2025

SVG Rewind: NESN Goes Behind the Scenes of 1975 Red Sox Retro Broadcast

SVG Rewind: NESN Goes Behind the Scenes of 1975 Red Sox Retro Broadcast NESN is following up the retrocast with a week-long celebration of the Green Monster By...

07/07/2025

1-2 Punch: The Cloud, Generative AI, and the Future of Sports-Content Distribution

1-2 Punch: The Cloud, Generative AI, and the Future of Sports-Content Distributi...

07/07/2025

Formula E: Host Broadcaster Aurora on Launching New AR Graphics at the Jakarta E-Prix

Tests and decisions: Formula E host broadcaster Aurora on launching new AR graph...

07/07/2025

Formula E: Using New AR Graphics for Storytelling at the Formula E Penultimate, Final E-Prix of the Season

Building tension: Using new AR graphics for storytelling at the Formula E penult...

07/07/2025

SVG Rewind: Four NFL Clubs Bring Us on Set of Respective Media Day Shoots

SVG Rewind: Four NFL Clubs Bring Us on Set of Respective Media Day Shoots An in-depth conversation with 49ers Laura Johnson, Ravens Jay O'Brien, Las Vegas R...

07/07/2025

Cosm To Build Fifth Shared Reality Venue in Cleveland as Part of Bedrock's Rock Block' Development

Cosm To Build Fifth Shared Reality Venue in Cleveland as Part of Bedrock's ...

02/07/2025

World RX of Sweden: Aurora's Matt Beal on Taking Up the Broadcast Reins Alongside the FIA

Progressive realism: Aurora on taking up the broadcast reins for World RX alongs...

02/07/2025

World RX of Sweden: Getting the Production Together With NEP Finland, Cloudbass Graphics

Great speed: New host broadcaster Aurora on getting the World RX 2025 season pro...

02/07/2025

World RX of Sweden: Host Broadcaster Aurora Looks Ahead to This Weekend's Second Race of the Season in Hljes

Seat of its pants: Aurora boxes clever and looks ahead for the FIA as new host b...

02/07/2025

UEFA Women's Euro 2025: EBU, BBC Sport, Sunset+Vine Talk Coverage Plans, Distribution and Maintaining Momentum

UEFA Women's Euro 2025: EBU, BBC Sport and Sunset Vine talk coverage plans, ...

02/07/2025

UEFA Women's Euro 2025: Women's Super League Launches New Content Series to Support Teams, Players Over Summer of Football

UEFA Women's Euro 2025: Women's Super League launches new content series...

02/07/2025

UEFA Women's Euro 2025: Ignite Puts Fans, Players Front and Center With Title Sequence for ITV

UEFA Women's Euro 2025: Ignite puts fans and players front and centre with t...

02/07/2025

Storytelling in the Live Game Broadcast: ESPN Director Jimmy Platt Breaks Down the Craft

Storytelling in the Live Game Broadcast: ESPN Director Jimmy Platt Breaks Down t...

02/07/2025

CONCACAF's Miguel Angel Garcia on the Gold Cup's Enhanced 2025 Production Plan

CONCACAF's Miguel Angel Garcia on the Gold Cup's Enhanced 2025 Productio...

01/07/2025

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Spyrosoft's Jonathan Witty on Futher Business Expansion in the U.S.

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Spyrosoft's Jonathan Witty on Futher Business Exp...

01/07/2025

The NIL Effect: How the Shifting Business of College Athletics Impacts On-Campus Video Production

The NIL Effect: How the Shifting Business of College Athletics Impacts On-Campus...

01/07/2025

Cherry On the Cake: Inside the Technical Production of the Tour de France 2025 with EMG / Gravity Media

Cherry on the cake: Inside the technical production of the Tour de France 2025 w...

01/07/2025

NESN's Josh Jun on Keeping Alternative Broadcasts Fresh for Boston Red Sox, Boston Bruins Fans

NESN's Josh Jun on Keeping Alternative Broadcasts Fresh for Boston Red Sox, ...

01/07/2025

TNT Sports Races Back Into NASCAR With Fresh Look, Familiar Edge

TNT Sports Races Back Into NASCAR With Fresh Look, Familiar Edge Production approach emphasizes creative freedom, bold storytelling, casual-fan-friendly tone B...

27/06/2025

How Smarter Video Compression is Creating a Sustainable Future

How smarter compression is creating a sustainable future By Michael Burns Monday, June 23, 2025 - 14:13 Print This Story Live sport is especially vulnerab...

27/06/2025

RTL Group To Acquire Sky Deutschland

RTL Group To Acquire Sky Deutschland By George Bevir, Editorial Director, SVG Europe Friday, June 27, 2025 - 8:00 am Print This Story | Subscribe Story ...

27/06/2025

Frictionless, At Scale: The Current State of Live Video Streaming Techology

Frictionless, At Scale: The Current State of Live Video Streaming Techology Leaders from Bitmovin, Comcast Technology Solutions, Harmonic, IMAX, and Phenix brea...

27/06/2025

Marquee Sports Network's Nick Steger on Meeting the Moment of the Contending Chicago Cubs

Marquee Sports Network's Nick Steger on Meeting the Moment of the Contending...

27/06/2025

NHL Draft 2025: The League Is Primed for First Decentralized Draft in Non-Pandemic Era

NHL Draft 2025: The League Is Primed for First Decentralized Draft in Non-Pandem...

26/06/2025

10th-Annual SVG Regional Sports Production Summit Presents Useful Roadmap for the Future of the RSN, Local Media Business

10th-Annual SVG Regional Sports Production Summit Presents Useful Roadmap for th...

26/06/2025

The Big Cloud Debate: Public vs. Private vs. Hybrid

The Big Cloud Debate: Public vs. Private vs. Hybrid Tech leaders from CineSys, Diversified, and Net Insight breaks down all flavors of cloud By Jason Dachman, ...

26/06/2025

Program Productions' Jess Kowatch on Training the Next and Current Generation of Sports TV Technicians

Program Productions' Jess Kowatch on Training the Next and Current Gener...

25/06/2025

SVG College Summit 2025: Select Sessions Now Available to Watch on SVG PLAY

SVG College Summit 2025: Select Sessions Now Available to Watch on SVG PLAY Tackling the latest in college sports video: NIL, live production, virtual productio...

25/06/2025

ESPN Is Set To Bring AR Graphics to Wimbledon, Revamps Bunker and Studio 18 VO Booths

ESPN Is Set To Bring AR Graphics to Wimbledon, Revamps Bunker and Studio 18 VO B...

24/06/2025

2025 NBA Draft: ABC/ESPN Prepares for Two-Day Draft at Barclays Center

2025 NBA Draft: ABC/ESPN Prepares for Two-Day Draft at Barclays Center Partners Game Creek Video, CP Communications, NEP Specialty Capture will be on hand By M...