Altitude's Kroenke Network Operations Center Becomes Multi-Purpose Centralized Production Hub

Altitude's Kroenke Network Operations Center Becomes Multi-Purpose Centralized Production Hub Several different onsite, remote models are available to the RSN By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor

Monday, March 7, 2022 - 11:54 am

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Over the past half decade, the centralized-production revolution has brought more and more operations and personnel back to the broadcast center in an effort to reduce the onsite footprint at remote productions. With the trend accelerated by the pandemic, regional sports network Altitude Sports & Entertainment is fully embracing centralized production in a variety of ways at the KSE Network Operations Center (KNOC) just south of Denver.

The Cloud Control director has access to all feeds via a multiview at KSE Network Operations Center (KNOC).

[Here's] what I found to be the most important thing since the pandemic started: flexibility, says Tim De Lay, operations manager, Altitude Sports & Entertainment. No longer are we held to just one method of doing productions. We have several, and that gives RSNs (like us) flexibility as we work on our budgets going into the next season. I think most folks in tech ops agree that the pandemic has pushed us faster into our future. What we thought was five years out is now our present.

Bustling Facility: Much More Than Just Avalanche, Nuggets Broadcasts Located in Centennial, CO, about 17 miles south of Denver's Ball Arena - home of the Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche, and Colorado Mammoth - KNOC houses the Altitude and Outdoor Sports Group Production teams as well as KSE Network Operations, Engineering, Broadcast Services, and Traffic Departments.

As Altitude's primary studios and production facilities - in addition to serving as the main master-control center for KSE properties Altitude, Outdoor Channel, Sportsman Channel, and World Fishing network - KNOC also supports more than 50 editorial and media-prep workstations, almost all of which have been functioning fully remotely for the past two years.

Producers and directors see the multiview monitor wall and have RTS communications as if they were in the truck.

The KSE team produces a variety of broadcasts using its studio and new remote-broadcasting booths (converted conference rooms) in Centennial. The broadcasts include Nuggets and Avalanche pregame/postgame/intermission/halftime shows, Altitude's You Bet Tonight sports-betting show (launched last fall), Colorado Rapids (MLS team also owned by KSE) away games, and season-preview and wrap-up shows.

In 2020, after the pandemic arrived, Altitude produced host feeds for away RSNs from Ball Arena and Nuggets and Avalanche away host productions from KNOC. In December 2021, the RSN launched its first Cloud Control room there in collaboration with Mobile TV Group. In addition, broadcasting booths there serve the remote-radio-call needs of Altitude Sports Radio's KKSE-FM for Avalanche, Nuggets, and Rapids away games.

In addition, every year, Altitude Sports also produces the three Los Angeles Rams (also part of the Kroenke Sports empire) preseason home games, which air on KABC and an affiliate network throughout the western U.S.

On top of all that, the KNOC has also spun up remote systems in Centennial to support KSE sibling Skycam, as well as NBC's Sunday Night Football. According to Dave Zur, SVP, ops and engineering/GM, KNOC, KSE/Altitude, soon after the initial shock of the pandemic subsided, KSE COO/CTO, SkyCam division, Stephen Wharton reached out to Zur regarding installation of a Skycam remote-control and network-ops center at KNOC as a precautionary measure.

Altitude's EVS replay operator at KNOC during an MTVG Cloud Control Dual Feed production

We launched the SkyCam remote operation in fairly short order, says Zur. The idea being that, if Skycam operators couldn't get to or into the venues, we could provide operators to fly out of our facility. Even as a complete novice test pilot, I was able to remotely fly the Wildcat at the Meadowlands with pretty darn good results. It was a tremendous eye-opener.

Through Wharton, this led to a request from NBC Sports Senior Director, Technical Operations, Keith Kice in November 2021. Zur and his team set up a remote EVS configuration that was used through the Sunday Night Football regular season and in NBC's postseason coverage (including the Super Bowl).

Not only was it a blast to work with family, old friends, and new ones, says Zur, it forced us out of our comfort zone and outside of our facility walls to interface with multiple vendors and solve the challenges of integrating brand-new live workflows. While there are clearly pros and cons, we hope to do much more of this. With the wide skillsets of the freelance crew here in Denver, we've actually considered taking the model forward and creating what could be a regional remote-ops hub.

Pandemic Punch: How Altitude Adapted to Unprecedented Challenges In mid March 2020, having essentially shut KNOC productions down like the rest of the industry, Altitude quickly found a way to stay connected to its viewers and fans via a Zoom-produced show called Sports Social, which aired on both the linear network and Altitude's social and digital outlets. The show, which launched March 31, just two weeks after the shutdown, allowed talent working from home to interview coaches, players, and local health officials from Denver and environs.

For Cloud Control shows, all RTS intercoms are tied directly into the mobile unit onsite, allowing the team back home to feel as if they were in the truck.

When the NBA and NHL restarted later that summer, Altitude used its facilities at Ball Arena to deal with any conflicts between Nuggets and Avalanche schedules.

We were able to have what we called an empty venue' production: we h

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2022/03/07/altitudes-kroenke-network-opera...
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