Commitment to Storytelling, Flexible Facilities Keep San Francisco 49ers on Cutting Edge of Team Video Operations 49ers Studios' Robert Alberino, Aron Kennedy offer peek inside impressive infrastructure By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - 3:09 pm
Print This Story
Story Highlights
Robert Alberino Jr. is a football lifer, dirtying his hands and knees not with a set of pads on his shoulders but, rather, with the weight of a video camera.
49ers Studios, the in-house media-production team of the NFL's San Francisco 49ers, features robust technology for video production, including this studio in Levi's Stadium that can be converted to shoot content in seven positions.
Schooled on the streets of Philadelphia and the studios of Steve Sabol, Alberino has forever altered the video-production landscape. (Okay, okay, this might be a little dramatic, but that's the way Alberino likes it). In a media era that seems to reward churning out quantity, he remains a staunch disciple of the Church of Quality.
High-end storytelling is his mantra and plays a major role in the direction of the video-production group he leads as VP/executive producer for the San Francisco 49ers.
Football's Storytelling Roots
With a career in which he has built up and overseen in-house media operations at the Kansas City Chiefs (2010-13) and the Philadelphia Eagles (1997-2010) after cutting his teeth as a young editor at NFL Films (working under the late great Sabol), Alberino is a key figure in the history of the NFL video industry. He has seen the concept of team-produced media from the days of its early infancy. In fact, his roots at NFL Films have played an incalculable role in molding the approach to video storytelling that he instills in his producers today.
To this day, there is not a time when I don't think What would [Sabol] do?' says Alberino. How would he create? How would he take music and emotion and cultivate this incredible product that we have? My entire philosophy is based on what NFL Films would do: not news and fast food but filet mignon made with an incredible soundtrack and imagery. Storytelling.
MORE: 49ers' Robert Alberino Talks Video Strategy on the latest episode of The SVG Podcast
It's the philosophy he has worked to instill in the organization since he came to town in spring 2013. His calling was to build the 49ers in-house media operations, with the understanding that a brand-spanking-new stadium would soon be completed.
Today, Levi's Stadium is one of the top sports facilities in the country, and his staff has grown to approximately 35 strong, led by Director, Game Day Production and Broadcast Operations, Aron Kennedy; Director, Production, Wil Blackwell; Director, Digital and Social Media Marketing, Meghan Ryan; and Art Director Aaron Llavore. Everything - from production to digital media to social media, creative, and marketing - falls under Alberino's purview. Basically, any piece of content that meets the eyes of a fan is produced by his team.
We believe that we are the direct connect to the fan, he says. We are the window to the world.
How Flexibility Keeps 49ers Studios on the Technological Forefront
Alberino's approach to media and storytelling began with establishing a solid technological infrastructure, and anyone who has built out a major video facility gets it: you have to make your one shot count because it might be the only one you get.
That's where Alberino called on the help of Kennedy. A longtime friend and a former colleague, he joined Alberino in the Bay Area in winter 2013. Armed with a robust budget, the two laid the groundwork for what keeps Levi's Stadium and 49ers Studios humming at a high level today.
San Francisco 49ers' Aron Kennedy (left) and Robert Alberino Jr. built an infrastructure designed to keep 49ers Studios nimble.
For Kennedy, the key was to keep his facilities nimble enough to meet the needs of any major outside league or broadcaster that might want to push the envelope - be it WWE's Wrestlemania or the NHL's Stadium Series (both of which were here in 2015), CBS and Super Bowl 50 (which rolled into town in 2016), or the College Football Playoff National Championship Game (just last month).
The technological key to 49ers Studios' success rests in its flexibility to accommodate future growth and its ability to welcome in those major outside events. That is attributed to the investment in and commitment to an infrastructure built around single-mode and SMPTE fiber.
The vision to implement all of that back in 2013, says Kennedy, was very forward-thinking.
Today, 49ers Studios remains built around a baseband core but with a conscious push to begin branching out into IP. The rack room inside the Levi's Stadium control room features an Evertz Magnum Unified Facility Control system (with Vistalink Pro for monitoring) and an Evertz EQX router. Recently, the 49ers installed new Evertz EQX-IP cards (providing 32 IPGs in and out) to support future IP-based workflows.
Kennedy acknowledges that it doesn't make sense to go all-in on IP just yet, although the recent ratification of the SMPTE 2110 standard does have the industry moving in the right direction.
We're not going to rip everything out and go all IP-based video at this point, he says. Maybe in five, six years when we redo everything. I wanted to have that ability to add equipment that is IP-based instead of SDI-based. Now we have the best of both worlds.
Although the Levi's Stadium videoboard is not a 4K screen, 49ers Studios has worked in some 4K for replay and high-quality archival content. The main control room has five Evertz DreamCatcher replay systems and a series of Sony-based gear that is very 4K-friendly. In addition to the Sony MVS-7000X producti
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...
Commitment to Storytelling, Flexible Facilities Keep San Francisco 49ers on Cutting Edge of Team Video Operations 49ers Studios' Robert Alberino, Aron Kennedy offer peek inside impressive infrastructure By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
