Live From NCAA Men's Lacrosse National Championship: ESPN Travels Down I-95 to Familiar Lincoln Financial Field Philadelphia has hosted three of the five title games since 2019 By Kristian Hern ndez, Senior Editor
Monday, May 27, 2024 - 9:00 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Passionate sports fans and Philadelphia go hand in hand, so it's not surprising that the City of Brotherly Love has become a destination for the NCAA Men's Lacrosse National Championship. Hosting the title game for the seventh time overall - just behind Maryland and Rutgers since the sport joined the NCAA in 1971 - and the third time in the last five tournaments, Lincoln Financial Field is friendly confines for ESPN's production and operations teams.
We've been there several times in the past decade, so familiarization is helpful, says John Kettering, producer, ESPN. All of our technicians have been here before, so they know how this place runs.
Back-to-Back Productions: Team Works in Recognizable Surroundings The crew has frequented this venue on numerous occasions, including for last year's National Championship. When a broadcaster and its crews have the chance to work in the same venue in consecutive years, the job is definitely less of a lift: from understanding sightlines and knowing what works - or not - from a production standpoint to knowing the cabling situation and the best camera positions from an operations perspective. In addition, Kettering has worked closely with NCAA Coordinator, Championships and Alliances, Broadcast Services, Tom Barrett to satisfy the organization's broadcast needs.
Lincoln Financial Field is hosting its eighth National Championship in its 21-year history.
Our operations team is also very familiar with the team that works at Lincoln Financial Field, says Kettering. They're all professional and extremely helpful, which makes it a lot easier for us to get set up.
With a well-rounded venue ops team, a healthy working relationship with the NCAA, and a blueprint for how the event is done, the broadcaster has significant tech firepower to deploy. Working out of the A and B units of Game Creek Video Nitro, Kettering and his team will tap into numerous workflows and enhancements, including a Skycam, an abundance of Marshall POV cameras for atmospheric shots from around the stadium, and miked-up referees for clear explanation of critical calls.
We're certainly elevating our complement and increasing the number of cameras exponentially, adds Kettering. We always want to have more bells and whistles for coverage on the game's biggest stage of the year.
Two Tourneys: Besides Philly-Based Shows, There's Women's Lacrosse in North Carolina Men's lacrosse may be taking over South Philadelphia, but 410 miles south in Cary, NC, ESPN wrapped up coverage of women's college lacrosse with the National Championship on Sunday. In what has become an annual tradition on Memorial Day Weekend, the broadcaster logged four straight days of productions: a women's semifinal doubleheader on Friday, a men's semifinal doubleheader featuring No. 1 Notre Dame vs. No. 5 Denver and No. 7 Maryland vs. No. 6 Virginia on Saturday, the women's title game on Sunday, and the men's title game on Monday. Besides four consecutive days of activity, the team had to overcome a big logistical hurdle in deploying a single production crew and a single operational team to handle simultaneous championships in separate locations. Fortunately, Kettering is joined by a team of experienced veterans, including SVP, Production, Michael Shiffman and Coordinating Producer Ericka Galbraith. Shiffman, for example, has been pivotal in coordinating ACC Network studio programming during concurrent events like the Men's and Women's Final Four.
We have a team in Cary that's responsible for women's lacrosse, and my team is responsible for men's lacrosse in Philadelphia, Kettering explains. [Michael, Ericka, and I] oversee the overall production of both tournaments. We're here to support everything that's needed to put each production on, but, once the teams get onsite, it's up to them to carry out the actual show.
A Skycam system is capturing aerial shots of the action.
Producing the two tournaments requires a ton of planning and collaboration before the teams go their separate ways. From a creative point of view, on-air talent and the front bench must understand the storylines of the respective brackets. Whether that takes sifting through copious amounts of film to dissect players' or teams' tendencies for analysis or combing through player or coach interviews to get a sense of playing styles or philosophies, a clear plan of attack with talking points needs to be established.
Because of ESPN's commitment to NCAA men's and women's lacrosse throughout the season, says Galbraith, our team [is positioned] not only to be aware of various storylines but also to develop relationships across both sports to accentuate remarkable stories. Our talent works together to share ideas and opportunities, and, truly, the hardest part in identifying storylines is knowing we can't tell them all.
Game Creek Video's Nitro A and B are being used in Philadelphia.
For Monday's title game, the other juggling act for the broadcaster is to produce this game while also planning for next year's championship at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, MA. With a venue that has hosted three of the last 12 Championship Weekends and back-to-back editions in 2017 and 2018, ESPN is looking to leverage a successful formula.
We're already planning a site visit to Gillette next month to make sure everything is up to standard and is the same as in the past, says Kettering. We're not looking past
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
13/06/2026
Latest expansion pack includes 252 presets
Devious Machines have recently introduced another expansion for their powerful multi-effects plug-in, Infiltrator...
13/06/2026
Create custom DAW/plug-in controllers using prompts
MetaGrid have recently introduced an all-new AI Builder function to their touchscreen-based control surf...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production, Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it has given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what o...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Simple Steps to Better Acoustics - Taming The Small Room
Most of us mix in spare rooms and small spaces, where the acoustics fight us at every turn. At Gear...
12/06/2026
Latest addition expands vintage-inspired effects palette
Meris' Ottobit pedal range draws its inspiration from vintage gaming consoles, and the latest a...
12/06/2026
Soundbox-based chamber strings series expanded
Sonora Cinematic have just announced the launch of the second instalment in their Soundbox-based chamber stri...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
How Aussie indie games and screen are levelling up with IP 11 June 2026
Ari Harrison, Pro Jank Footy
Head of Games Joey Egger and Ari Harrison of Umbrella sha...
12/06/2026
AgentPerf from Artificial Analysis, the industry's first agentic AI benchmark, gives developers, enterprises and infrastructure providers a clear way to com...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils First-Look Images from Villaflor, Santiago Mitre's New Film
Entertainment
12 June 2026
GlobalArgentina
Link copied to ...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Cross the Boundaries of the Real World into the Spirit Realm i...
12/06/2026
With John Daro, DI Colourist at Warner Bros. Water Tower Color Tuesday 23 June, 10am-1pm or 3-6pm
Restar Corporation
Tokyo
Register here
John Daro is the ...
Live From NCAA Men's Lacrosse National Championship: ESPN Travels Down I-95 to Familiar Lincoln Financial Field Philadelphia has hosted three of the five title games since 2019 By Kristian Hern ndez, Senior Editor 
