EMG Handles A Comet Tail of Complexity' for NFL London Games

EMG handles A comet tail of complexity' for NFL London games By Adrian Pennington

Wednesday, October 18, 2023 - 10:23

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Two NFL games came to London earlier this month, with the Buffalo Bills facing off against the Jacksonville Jaguars on 8 October, before the Tennessee Titans took on the Baltimore Ravens at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on 15 October.

Apart from the vibe of the fans, which is different in Europe, the NFL international games, which this year were held in London and Germany, are a mirror of a regular season American Football Conference match from a broadcast point of view, so facilities providers and production teams have to bring their A game.

There's a comet tail of complexity to the operation, says Bill Morris, Emmy Award-winning technical consultant and technical supervisor for NFL London games, speaking ahead of the Titans game. We don't just do a major full traditional OB onsite but a completely remote production for the wrap-around shows. It is that combination which makes NFL Europe games unusually complex.

Morris has been involved in the NFL Europe games since their launch in 2007, first at CTV, then at EMG and latterly as head of his own consultancy BMTV, which Morris dubs as broadcast enablers in terms of managing a lot of the planning to facilitate the smooth running of each live show onsite.

In Europe, EMG predominantly works with two major clients, Fox and CBS, depending on NFL rights deals. This year two of the three London games have landed with CBS, both held at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (the third game was held at Wembley Stadium on 1 October). CBS is producing the game within an envelope for NFL Network.

This means NFL Network (NFLN) produces the wrap around pre-game, half-time and post-game show and CBS produces the actual game as part of that show. It is aired on both networks but it's an NFLN show with NFLN talent, Morris explains.

This follows the same pattern from 2022, which was a Fox show again within an NFLN envelope, but differs from previous years when the European games were done by unilateral broadcasters, CBS, Fox or ESPN (which produced this season's Jaguars vs Falcons game from Wembley in concert with NEP in continuation of a relationship established in the US).

EMG's soup to nuts provision on site in N17 ranges from accommodation for all production crew to complex transmission delivery.

It's a highly populated OB compound at Tottenham but geographically quite small, says Morris. We've had to think outside the box in terms of how we can accommodate all production needs.

EMG has built a small town of stacked cabins and brought its own power generation units, and an enormous amount of tertiary kit for production needs. EMG's Nova 111 is the lead truck supported by smaller units. The main gallery is in Nova 111, but EMG builds bespoke galleries for graphics and transmission in cabins which it fit out with flypack systems.

The scale of the game is on a par with a regular AFC Championship Game and as such attracts a raft of senior broadcaster execs to the venue who need to monitor and make editorial decisions onsite. To facilitate this, EMG builds them separate galleries too.

There's a lot of editorial work on site in terms of shaping the show, what needs to be seen and analysis, he explains. The broadcasters have a team of execs who are ultimately responsible for delivery so we give them access to all the sources. They have the ability to route monitoring sources to their own monitoring stack and we build a working environment where they can monitor the game in detail and have their own editorial discussions in a quiet environment rather than in the noisy cut and thrust of the main gallery.

NFLN opens the show with an external presentation position looking at the stadium, and moves into the stadium with a custom-built NLF branded field set built by EMG's contractor. Gradually the show moves via a reporter position pitch side up to the booth which also has a custom desk manufactured by EMG with construction partners Trans Sport.

Camera and format

Last year was the last interlaced production which has shifted to 1080p 50 SDR. Progressive elevates the look without doubt while bringing us into line with the US broadcast norm, Morris says. And that's straightforward because EMG, along with all the major OB companies, have the ability to shoot P' since we're all UHD capable (of which Progressive is a byproduct).

This year's European games have more cameras than ever before. This game features 30 coverage cameras along with five presentation cams.

In addition, there are robotics on each goal provided by EMG's specialist camera unit ACS; Spidercam, which is provided by the NFL itself; and POV cams capturing the team entrance to the field.

This year, for the first time, coverage includes Pylon Cams. The orange Pylons at each corner of the field are mounted with two cameras: one with a fixed standard lens, while the other carries a 360 lens in a feed produced by US developer C360. C360 supplies a baseband camera output from each pylon and the analyst camera.

Within that 360 camera they are able to zoom, pan, tilt and identify action within the frame. It's a really good system, it's intuitive and it hit air nine times during the last game for analysis, Morris says.

Another brand new piece of tech is the RF line to game' cameras which are designed, installed and operated by C360 in collaboration with EMG Connectivity. Operators carrying small orange Pylons move with the 1st and Ten line.

As the action progresses down the field these RF Pylons follow to provide analysis on the line of action, he continues. These were used extensively at last week's game and provide a level of analysis and level of detai

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