CBS Sports Goes All-In on Cloud Playout for Launch of Golazo Network By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor
Tuesday, April 11, 2023 - 2:03 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The launch of the CBS Sports Golazo Network today marks not only one of the biggest swings in the history of soccer programming but also one of the biggest cloud deployments in the history of broadcasting. All switching, routing, recording, clipping, and distribution is being done entirely in an AWS cloud environment for the 24-hour direct-to-consumer streaming network, which is dedicated entirely to domestic and international soccer coverage.
Everything is actually built in the cloud in terms of the network playout, says Corey Smith, senior director, advanced production technologies, CBS Sports. The only thing we're [producing] live from outside the cloud are our desk shows coming from Ft. Lauderdale or Stamford or CBS Broadcast Center - or it could be anywhere else in the world. Our cloud-based infrastructure can pull in all the external feeds coming in and route them logically - just like you would in a fixed facility but removing the dependency on a physical facility - to package all of the broadcasts. It's quite the machine we've built.
System Overview: GV AMPP, AWS Play Key Roles Golazo Network's cloud-based ecosystem is based on Grass Valley's GV AMPP (Agile Media Processing Platform) and has been built out across multiple AWS instances. GV AMPP handles all playout, recording, routing, and switching from its broadcast facilities (the system also features GV Replay and Live Touch Integration), and Net Insight NIMBRA manages all routing of SRT feeds within the cloud. Other key vendors are OpenDrives for cloud-based storage, EEG's Lexi encoders for automated captioning, and a mix of Ross Video Xpression, Chyron, and Singular.Live for graphics. The ticker is supplied by a set of servers in Dublin routing over NDI into playout and keyed in cloud.
CBS Sports Golazo Network's Morning Footy debuted this morning, featuring (from left) Susannah Collins, Charlie Davies, Nico Cantor, and Alexis Guerreros.
We're truly embarking on a new mission where we're not allowing physical constraints to dictate what feeds we get and who we get them from, says Smith. The biggest challenge is how to globally scale this. How do we bring up environments in a blue/red network design just like you would for a traditional high-profile television network? You need to make sure you have zero points of failure, everything's redundant, and things are all backed up.
The primary AWS data center for the Golazo Network operation is in Virginia, which is close to CBS Sports Digital's studios in Stamford, CT, and Ft. Lauderdale, FL, as well as the CBS Broadcast Center in New York. In total, the ecosystem comprises five AWS regions: Virginia, Dublin, Frankfurt, Oregon, and Sao Paulo.
Inside each environment, several layers of technology are deployed. The primary regions for AMPP are Oregon, Virginia, Dublin, and Sao Paulo - the last also serving as a hub for Paramount Global's Latin American operations in Argentina and Brazil. All recording infrastructure is run out of Virginia, Oregon, and Dublin; the playout systems come out of Virginia and Oregon. Asset-management nodes are in Virginia, Dublin, Oregon, and Sao Paulo. Net Insight NIMBRA infrastructure is deployed in all five regions.
It's a fairly crazy undertaking to put this much switching, routing, and recording capability in cloud, says Smith. I don't know that that I've seen anybody else doing this - at least not at this scale.
Since all infrastructure is in the cloud, all operators for the Golazo Network are able to work remotely. Currently, master-control operators are located in Tennessee, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Texas, Mississippi, Colorado, and other places.
Recording, Storage, MAM: OpenDrives and GV AMPP Elastic Recorder One of the biggest challenges CBS Sports faced was figuring out how to deploy enough storage in the environment to record all the feeds - including all live matches and studio shows - for re-airing later. CBS Sports opted to deploy a model in which three regions have OpenDrives storage built in the cloud. Each environment has roughly 500 TB of storage, totaling 1 PB of cloud storage across the three regions.
Those regions are equipped with a GV AMPP Elastic Recorder, providing 40 channels of live-recording capacity. The asset-management layer indexes the content based on storage location and makes it available to all playout nodes and the operators in master control to clip the content for playout.
Box to Box, with Poppy Miller (left) and Aaron West, launched today.
It's a very complex mesh of storage locations, says Smith. Every box can reach every storage region, and every storage region is accessible to every box that it needs access to. When we're doing a primary and a backup record, we may be recording into Virginia as primary and into Dublin as secondary. We always have a backup file copy somewhere on the network. If we lose Virginia, for example, we can still bring those files back to our playout nodes in Oregon. We're actively redundant on multiple layers.
OpenDrives helped solve a key issue for CBS Sports when constructing the ecosystem: AWS doesn't have the functionality to do live read/write on S3 until the file is closed. 0
We needed to be able to take the assets coming into the system and subclip them so we can roll it to playout, says Smith. As we are clipping content internally, we can basically drag those clip assets directly from asset management into the playlist as we're building our 24-hour program schedule throughout the course of the day.
Contribution, Routing, Switching, Captioning: GV AMPP, Net Insight NIMBRA, and EEG Le
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...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
CBS Sports Goes All-In on Cloud Playout for Launch of Golazo Network By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor 
