2020 in Review, Part 3: How US Open Tennis, Golf Majors, College Football and NFL Productions Returned in the Age of Coronavirus By SVG Staff Friday, January 8, 2021 - 8:29 am
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When the pandemic caused the U.S. sports world to suddenly grind to a halt in mid-March, broadcasters and live-event producers were faced with one of the greatest challenges in the industry's history: How to bring back live sports broadcasts safely.
In the ensuing months, sports broadcasters, technology vendors, and production-service providers worked together to develop unique new workflows - both on-site and remote - that would pave the way for live-sports broadcasts to resume. Despite a litany of unknowns and a 2020 sports calendar thrown into chaos, all four major U.S. sports leagues returned along with the bulk of the major American sports events - providing a much needed respite for content-hungry sports fans struggling during the pandemic.
Here is the final chapter in SVG's three-part series The Comeback: How Live Sports Production Returned in the Age of Coronavirus , which provides an in-depth look at the industry's monumental efforts to bring back live sports production in the face of coronavirus in 2020. The Comeback was originally published in the 2021 SVG Sports Production Yearbook, which you can read in full HERE. And make sure to check out the hyperlinks throughout this story for more in-depth articles on these groundbreaking productions.
USTA, ESPN Serve Up Covid- Safe US Open in Queens Serena Williams conducts an interview inside ESPN's contactless studio at the US Open.
This year's US Open effort was the result of months of planning, contingency planning, and taking some risks with new technologies by the USTA. The USTA held weekly calls with key organizations, including Hawk-Eye, SMT, ATP Media, WTA Media, NEP, and ESPN leading up to the tournament. The goal was to pull off the first tennis major to be played in the age of COVID-19 and to hold it in New York City, arguably ground zero of the pandemic here in the U.S. No fans, no international rightsholders onsite, no media were part of the solution. Plenty of strict protocols to make sure everything was as safe as possible was the other part.
Videoboards positioned around the US Open Arthur Ashe Stadium court featured fans from around the world supporting their favorite players with cheers submitted through an app.
For its part, host-broadcaster ESPN was tasked with producing the US Open - its largest event of the year - under unprecedented circumstances. Even in a good year, the production takes months of planning at a scale that can impress anyone in the industry. Add in COVID-19, and the accomplishment the team pulled off was even more impressive.
ESPN worked closely with the USTA team to draw out the spacing needs to the inch so that every operator could work in a socially distanced way. International rightsholders were not at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center, and many personnel who would usually be onsite were working remotely. Those two factors allowed the ESPN and USTA teams to work more safely.
The US Open Broadcast Building provided ESPN's production team with ample space for social distancing.
The biggest production change was that there were only three TV courts: Arthur Ashe, Armstrong Stadium, and Court 17. All the others were produced using the Simply Live ViBox because of the requirement to limit the production team to as few people as possible. In addition, ESPN expanded its ACES automated-production operation with 10 courts being produced using Simply Live ViBox system and robotic cameras controlled by the Fletcher Trace player-tracking system.
In addition, the incredible effort of the USTA digital team served up supplemental content on the US Open App and USOpen.org for avid and casual tennis fans alike.
Big-Time Productions Return With CBS and NBC's Golf Major Coverage CBS Sports' massive footprint for the 202 PGA Championship
For golf broadcasters, this year was a year unlike any other: the Majors schedule was shuffled, events were canceled, and fans were rarely permitted at professional golf events.
The 4D Replay system will capture tee shots on the 14th hole during the PGA Championship.
And that is why the production plan CBS Sports put together for the PGA Championship in August at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco was so important: it signaled the return to producing a sports event in a big way. CBS Sports' production marked the largest remote presence for a live sports event since the whole pandemic began with 22 mobile units, a two- story tech structure, and a multitude of office trailers.
A two-story tech building is on site at TPC Harding to handle production demands for the PGA Championship.
While the production included fewer people onsite than in the past, the production quality and dedication from the crew remained the same. NEP Supershooter CBS handled back-nine coverage; Game Creek Video's Encore, the front nine, while NEP ND7 handled a variety of tasks for CBS and ESPN.
Just over a month later, the second major of the year teed off with the U.S. Open. Producing a golf major typically takes one (if not two) full years of planning. So, when NBC Sports took over the 2020 U.S. Open from Fox Sports just two months before it was set to tee off at Winged Foot, it kicked off an accelerated planning process that would challenge any production team. The result of all the effort was an NBC production that had upwards of 74 cameras, an aerial shot, a massive compound featuring NEP and BSI production units, and three on-course studios.
More than 190 countries broadcast the U.S. Open via a world feed produced by the USGA out of NEP's NCP14 production unit.
NEP's ND4/Double Eagle A, B, and C was at the cor
