Unrivaled Deploys Conventional Sound Elements for an Unconventional Sport We're trying to create the ambiance of a championship game every game night' By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Friday, January 31, 2025 - 7:00 am
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Imagine an early-evening 3-on-3 basketball pickup game on the gritty concrete courts of the Frederick Douglass Playground in Harlem, a regular location for classic Law & Order episodes. Now imagine it as a set designed by Ridley Scott.
That's one way to describe Unrivaled, a new women's basketball league, which kicked off its inaugural season Jan. 17 with a doubleheader on TNT. Six teams - the Lunar Owls, the Phantom, the Mist, the Roses, the Laces, and the Vinyls, six players per team - are banging the backboards in production partner Mediapro's sleek, massive Miami-area facility. TNT Sports broadcasts the thrice-weekly, eight-week-long schedule Friday and Monday nights on TNT and Saturday nights on TruTV. They are also streamed on Max.
Coaches and one player per team are miked on Unrivaled's 3-on-3 games played on a court at Mediapro's facility in Miami.
These new teams play on the court that Mediapro constructed there, 72 ft. long, versus the WNBA's regulation 94 ft., and under new rules, such as allowing only one free throw per foul.
It's a new experience for fans, in-venue and at home, as well. No fan in the arena is farther than 35 ft. - or, as Unrivaled Chief Content Officer John Learing put it to the New York Times, about five Brittney Griners - from courtside. The main camera is only 51 ft. from center court, compared with 81 ft. for a typical N.B.A. game. It's close-up action, just like on the playground.
Audio Has a Familiar Ring Unrivaled's sound, on the other hand, resembles what millions of viewers have come to expect from TNT Sports' long association with NBA basketball broadcasts and deploys a lot of the same gear and techniques to capture it. For instance, players, coaches, and officials are wired for sound - with Q5X PlayerMics, CoachMics, and RefMics - for in-game audio. Six shotgun microphones are mounted on each basket: two facing the court, two facing each side of the court, and Shure Twinplex lavalier mics attached to the net. Multiple Shure MX391 boundary microphones placed under the court capture court-contact sound. An additional 12 DPA 4107 shotgun mics are positioned in each section and near the VIP booths to capture crowd sound.
The events also have their own music: the Unrivaled broadcast theme song is Let's Go, licensed from the Offstream Music Catalog.
The philosophy for Unrivaled is that we're trying to create the ambiance of a championship game every game night, explains Matt Miller, EVP, broadcast and production, Unrivaled. Since every seat in the house is close to the court; we wanted that to be evident in the broadcast. We also want to highlight the players and coaches as much as possible, bringing their audio into the broadcast throughout the game to give the viewers at home an intimate sense of what's happening on the court. We mike both coaches and one player in each game.
The audio for game coverage is mixed, on a Calrec Alpha console, in 5.1 surround for delivery to TNT from Mediapro's Alto mobile unit, which sends live feeds to TNT Sports' Techwood facility in Atlanta for studio coverage.
It's about creating a great listening experience in 5.1, Miller says, delivering the fast-paced game action, player audio, and the buzz of the crowd into homes.
Says Chris Brown, VP, technology and operations, TNT Sports, We are relying on Mediapro to handle the production for the actual game-production elements. We are simply providing them with our audio layout so that we can effectively handle an S&P delay.
TNT has been the broadcast home for NBA games for 35 years, from 1989 through the end of the current 2024-25 season. Last year, the NBA inked three multibillion-dollar deals - with Amazon, NBC, and ESPN parent Disney - that will last through the 2035-36 season, and it has been a bumpy breakup for a long relationship. But, with Unrivaled, TNT Sports is setting itself up for the next era of sports broadcasting, one in which everything from football to golf will take place on utterly new platforms and formats.
Unrivaled, along with the addition of Max as an outlet, has changed how we approach new properties as well as their associated workflows, Brown says Overall, it has been a good fit.
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Unrivaled Deploys Conventional Sound Elements for an Unconventional Sport We're trying to create the ambiance of a championship game every game night' By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
