Live From Super Bowl LIX: FOX Sports' Brad Zager on the Bourbon Street Effort and Covering All the Angles We owe it to New Orleans to show that the attack isn't going to stop the spirit of Bourbon Street By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Friday, February 7, 2025 - 11:38 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Since 2021, FOX Sports President, Production and Operations, Brad Zager has laid out the vision for the ambitious Fox Sports efforts for events big and small. He sat down with SVG at the FOX Sports Super Bowl media event yesterday to discuss how the planning for a pregame studio set on Bourbon Street came together, the impact of the terrorist attack five weeks ago, and, of course, making sure game coverage is all it can be.
FOX Sports' Brad Zager: New Orleans built the set for us. Our sets [for other events] are large and over the top, but here we just need to put ourselves in the middle of Bourbon Street.
Walk us through your vision for FOX Sports and Super Bowl LIX, particularly the vision of a pregame studio set on Bourbon Street.
This is a great Super Bowl town, so it's easy when you start planning to kind of copy-and-paste because there have been so many Super Bowls here. We came down here last February on our way to Daytona and walked around. To be honest with you, it felt at that point that everything has been done here, except trying to shut down Bourbon Street. I know that sounds crazy, but you don't get a chance to do the Super Bowl very often. We've been very lucky to do three of the last six or three of the last five calendar years, and we don't get another one for four years. If you're ever going to take big swings and put 100% into figuring out why you shouldn't do something, it's for the Super Bowl.
We left there saying, Hey, let's try to make this happen. It's a big swing, but there are enough fallback locations in New Orleans to go to if we need to. But the idea of people turning on their television on Sunday morning and seeing our guys with Bourbon Street behind them felt exactly how the Super Bowl in New Orleans should be. We're so blessed with the greatest operations team with [FOX Sports, EVP, Technical And Field Operations] Mike Davies and [VP, Remote Studio Operations] Rod Conti. They spent much time down here trying to make this happen. It's a testament to the operational team who figured this out.
Our philosophy has always been to follow the flow of the day. When you're in New Orleans, where do you want the viewer to start their day? It's the French Quarter and Bourbon Street. It may sound simple, but it was very difficult to pull off, and again, Mike and Rod deserve all the credit for making this happen. And now [FOX Super Bowl Sunday Pregame Producer] Bill Richards has this canvas to paint some unbelievable pictures for the viewer when they turn on the Super Bowl.
It also seems like a great example of something that would not have been done without fiber and IP technologies, because you can't put a production truck on Bourbon Street for a week.
Yes. The first thing we had to do was take a step back and say that New Orleans built the set for us. Our sets in Miami or Qatar are large and over the top, but here we just need to put ourselves in the middle of Bourbon Street.
The technical team has to figure out all the connectivity, how to make that happen, the lighting and all that stuff on Bourbon Street, like the scenic to make sure it's popping. I give them all the credit in the world, and it has been a fun evolution to watch from where we started to seeing it now.
The other thing is, most Super Bowl sets are set up and used the whole week, but we don't have that luxury. We can rehearse on Saturday and then tear it down and rebuild it Sunday morning when Bourbon Street closes. We can't sit here today and talk about being ready to go for Sunday because we literally won't know that until late Sunday morning. That is a different feeling going into a Super Bowl weekend.
Five weeks ago, we all saw the tragedy on Bourbon Street. What was that morning like for you, knowing its impact on your plans?
I knew what we were doing in New Orleans for the Super Bowl wasn't going to be what we had planned over the past year. We knew that you want to let the city get through the initial grief, but your head's immediately going to Alright, things have changed, New Orleans has changed.
We started to think immediately what that means. That following Monday, [FOX Sports CEO] Eric Shanks, Bill Richards, and I came down here, met with the governor, met with the state police, and walked the whole scene of where the terrorist attack took place. It was unreal to walk it with the state police officers, whose co-workers and people that they look at as family dealt with [the tragedy] five days earlier. It was still really, really raw; they're still processing everything. There were definitely people that, in that moment, felt like the right thing to do was to stay away from Bourbon Street. And then there were people who felt, Let's just let this breathe a little bit.
To be honest, I felt stronger about the fact that we have to show the country that Bourbon Street's okay, that we owe it to Bourbon Street and we owe it to New Orleans to show that that event isn't going to stop the spirit of Bourbon Street. That's what we're going to try to bring across on Sunday in the pregame, and I think you'll also see something at the start the game that'll show you the spirit of Bourbon Street. It's going to be special.
With respect to the game itself, Mike Davies mentioned how tech for this game is a season-long process rather than a new toy or technology that the team hasn't had a chance to put to use. Can you discuss that philo
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
07/08/2025
July 8 2025, 22:30 (PDT) Tata Motors & Dolby Bring Dolby Atmos to Harrier.ev, R...
11/07/2025
PARK CITY, UTAH, July 11, 2025 - The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the 11 producers chosen for its annual Producers Labs, returning to Ucross Fou...
11/07/2025
If you've ever wondered what might be playing in Clark Kent's headphones...
11/07/2025
L3Harris Technologies President of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Jason Lambert and General Manager of L3Harris Waco facility Sean Ling held a ce...
11/07/2025
ARLINGTON, Va. WETA, the flagship public media station in the national capital area, has launched WETA+, a new streaming service tailored for the local Washingt...
11/07/2025
The Federal Communications Commission has emerged as one of the central players in the broadcast TV landscape in 2025, with its deregulatory policies sparking h...
11/07/2025
Calrec will introduce usability, customization and system enhancements across its entire range of Argo consoles during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Amsterda...
11/07/2025
LONDON Encompass Digital Media said it will support live and on-demand viewing of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup across multiple global regions for sports enterta...
11/07/2025
Two-thirds of broadcast engineers reaped the benefits of a pay raise within the last year....
11/07/2025
CARY, N.C. SmallHD has launched the Quantum 27, a new 26.5-inch Quantum-Dot OLED monitor designed to deliver postproduction image quality in a compact, set-frie...
11/07/2025
The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau and Tegna have entered into a consent decree that will settle an investigation into the accidenta...
11/07/2025
WASHINGTON Following news in early July that Paramount had settled President Donald Trump's lawsuit, Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Ben Ray Luj n (D-N...
11/07/2025
Model/Actriz Performs Lead Single Cinderella on The Late Show with Stephen Colbe...
11/07/2025
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 Client...
11/07/2025
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 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 Wimble...
11/07/2025
Netflix Enters the Live-Boxing-Production Ring for Round 2 With Historic Taylor-...
11/07/2025
Back to All News
Too Hot to Handle: Italy Is Coming on July 18 Only on Netflix
Entertainment
11 July 2025
GlobalItaly
Link copied to clipboard
July 11, 20...
11/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Will Release Death Inc. Seasons 1, 2 and 3
Entertainment
11 July 2025
GlobalSpain
Link copied to clipboard
Season 1
Season 2
Se...
11/07/2025
AI and Multimedia Authenticity Standards Collaboration launches two papers to guide the future of AI integration, today at the AI for Good Global Summit
The...
11/07/2025
Ceramics - the humble mix of earth, fire and artistry - have been part of a global conversation for millennia.
From Tang Dynasty trade routes to Renaissance pa...
10/07/2025
The current holder of the prestigious Thomson Foundation Young Journalist of the Year Award has been forced to stop reporting over fears for her safety in Afgha...
10/07/2025
Spotify is turning up the volume on Australian music with a multipronged initiative designed to highlight the dominance of Australian artists on the global stag...
10/07/2025
This is not a drill: Oasis is back on the road-marking its first live performanc...
10/07/2025
The music industry depends on fresh ideas, bold voices, and emerging talent. Yet across the U.K., too many young musicians lack the space to develop their craft...
10/07/2025
NEW YORK - July 10, 2025 - Nielsen, the global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics, today announced that it appointed Richard Pacheco as head of ...
10/07/2025
Local newscasts don't exist in a vacuum. News directors and station management constantly evaluate what's working, what isn't and perhaps most impor...
10/07/2025
Lawo has announced that Stuttgart Media University (Hochschule der Medien, HdM) has comprehensively modernized its central recording studio after selecting an I...
10/07/2025
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) has opened early-bird registration for the Media Technology Summit, which will take place in a ne...
10/07/2025
NASHVILLE, Tenn. TNDV Television has launched Aspiration 35, a new version of its 40-foot Aspiration truck reimagined for cinematic multicamera productions....
10/07/2025
BURBANK, Calif. Key Code Education, a provider of instructor-led postproduction training, is growing its curriculum with new programs for beginner and intermedi...
10/07/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. Actus Digital will demonstrate how broadcasters can transform compliance monitoring from a necessary expense into a strategic revenue driver at...
10/07/2025
The Federal Register has published a summary of the Federal Communications Commission's Public Notice seeking comments on its ownership rules that lists a d...
10/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Presents the Official Trailer for SuperestarPlay Video
Play Video
Entertainment
10 July 2025
GlobalSpain
Link copied to clipboard...
10/07/2025
In the race to understand our planet's changing climate, speed and accuracy are everything. But today's most widely used climate simulators often strugg...
10/07/2025
As one of the world's largest emerging markets, Indonesia is making strides toward its Golden 2045 Vision - an initiative tapping digital technologies and...
10/07/2025
10 Jul 2025
VEON and Cohen Circle Secure Investor Commitments for Kyivstar Listing Kyiv, New York, Dubai, and Philadelphia - July 10, 2025 - VEON Ltd. (Nasdaq:...
10/07/2025
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-...
10/07/2025
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 I...
10/07/2025
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...
10/07/2025
Thursday 10 July 2025
The Very Small Creatures
Jaime's Treetop Tales
Emerald
BooSnoo! Christmas Mashup
Pip & Posy's Spooktacular Party
The Very Sm...
10/07/2025
Thursday 10 July 2025
Brand new rewards are coming to Sky customers, with free ...
Live From Super Bowl LIX: FOX Sports' Brad Zager on the Bourbon Street Effort and Covering All the Angles We owe it to New Orleans to show that the attack isn't going to stop the spirit of Bourbon Street By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
