
CFP National Championship 2025: Van Wagner To Hype Up Buckeyes, Fighting Irish Fans From New IP-Based Control Room Facility was upgraded prior to latest Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta United seasons By Kristian Hern ndez, Senior Editor
Monday, January 20, 2025 - 11:33 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Fans of the two best college football programs in the nation - the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish - will fill Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium tonight for the title game of the College Football Playoff National Championship. The venue will be alive with excitement, and the Van Wagner crew will fire up the fans even more with a videoboard show from a new IP-based control room.
The in-venue production team during rehearsals at Mercedes-Benz Stadium over the weekend
This has been one of our lighter shipments of equipment because of the new workflows, says Patrick Stedman, tech manager, Van Wagner. The building can pretty much handle most of what we need.
IP-Driven Show: Team Adapts to New SMPTE 2110 Workflows Mercedes-Benz Stadium isn't unfamiliar territory for Van Wagner. The in-venue-production company played a role in back-to-back major events shortly after the stadium opened in 2017: the CFP National Championship in 2018 and Super Bowl LIII in 2019. A lot of the LLED video displays are still the same, including the massive Halo Board above the playing surface, but the behind-the-scenes workflows received an upgrade after the conclusion of the 2023 NFL season. Among the changes are routers upgraded to SMPTE 2110, new Ross Video Acuity production switchers, and a communications backbone bolstered with 35 Riedel Bolero beltpacks.
I supported their NFL games for the Falcons during the 2023 season, so I know the facility relatively well, says Stedman. The bulk of their workflows went to IP, and they're still in that process: they're building a secondary control room to produce smaller shows without activating their full control room.
The view of the field from the control room
When the venue opened, the massive Halo Board display was one of the largest double-sided LED fixtures in any building. Now seven years old, the stadium is still a huge draw for fans and still requires much coordination and planning in laying out content. After many seasons of Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United games, populating the display and executing a show with it at the center has become easier, but the new IP-centric workflows need to be factored in.
MORE FROM THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME:
It's All Hands on Deck for ESPN's Massive Production in Atlanta
ESPN To Deliver Main Game Telecast in 4K for the First Time
ESPN's MegaCast Menu Highlighted by REMI Production of Field Pass With The Pat McAfee Show
Inside Ohio State Football's Creative Storytelling at Monday's Title Game
It's an added layer, notes Daniel Zerunyan, senior producer, Van Wagner. There have been little challenges that have taken away from our programming time, but preparation has gone really well. We were lucky that the Falcons didn't have a home game because a bunch of contingency plans were put in place. It wouldn't really impact us if there was a game two weekends ago, but, if there was one this past weekend, we would have been in and out of the control room.
Collaborative Effort: Stadium Staff, Ross Video Offer Helping Hand As with any large-scale show that Van Wagner participates in, the host stadium's internal staff and vendors are crucial to the show's success. In this case, the staffers responsible for Falcons, Atlanta United, and other sports events at Mercedes-Benz Stadium are assisting on the production and operations fronts. From Stedman's point of view, any tech or engineering inquiries have been answered by Chief Broadcast and Network A/V Engineer Cole Gallagher. Zerunyan's team worked with Senior Director/Executive Producer, Game Presentation and Stadium Productions, Julia Chongarlides, but the main production contact has been Producer, Third Party Events/Game Presentation, Steve Smith.
The IP-based control room will house Van Wagner's crew as well as staffers from the stadium.
A key contributor to many of Van Wagner's shows, Ross Video Senior Graphic Programmer, Content and Workflow, Sports and Live Events, Josh Weber is onsite to manage and troubleshoot graphics-related issues.
Josh has been helping us on the content side of things for the last few years, including at the NCAA Final Four, says Zerunyan. [The stadium] has full-timers that handle a lot of their XPression [solutions], but he's working with their in-house team and being our lead [contact] that reports to their team.
Telling the Story: Production Folds-In Content From Each Program's Postseason Run The culmination of the college football season is an opportune time to tell the fans in the stands how each university got to the championship game. In previous years, Van Wagner would mix in regular-season highlights with footage from their respective semifinal games. In the new era of the 12-team expanded playoffs, Zerunyan and company couldn't possibly fit everything in this short hype video played before kickoff.
We're just going to focus all of our footage from the College Football Playoff and not the regular season, he says. Since they played in the first round [of the bracket], we had more footage to utilize from ESPN and Two Circles, the social team that the CFP hires.
Another view from the control room
With the Halo Board available, Van Wagner is supplementing its open with other elements. An NFL-style venue offers a variety of capabilities for entertainment in the lower bowl, including a top-tier lighting system that adds to the cinematic atmosphere.
We're going with this d
North America Stories
10/02/2025
MELBOURNE, Fla., Feb. 10, 2025 - L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) has introduced AMORPHOUS , its new software that features a single user interface to operate ...
10/02/2025
NEW YORK and MEXICO CITY Spanish-language media conglomerate TV Azteca has inked a two-year deal with WSC Sports for the AI-powered sports content technology pr...
10/02/2025
TORONTO Jordan Bartow, a 15-plus-year industry veteran with a history of driving artificial intelligence, media and enterprise cloud transformations, has joined...
10/02/2025
LA Wildfire Victims Fundraiser - Entertainment Industry
Erik Smalls February 10, 2025
0 Comments
Join us for an exclusive networking event designed fo...
10/02/2025
OWC and ARCHIWARE Partner to Deliver Seamless Shared Storage, Cloning, Backup, a...
10/02/2025
Berklee's Signature Series Celebrates the Music of Fleetwood Mac The concert will feature a global cast of over 90 students performing a career-spanning s...
10/02/2025
Super Bowl LIX: Tubi Leads All Streaming Platforms in Least Lag Time, According ...
10/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame Camera Operator Don C...
10/02/2025
Back to All News
Netflix ISP Speed Index for January 2025
Mulitcolor streaks on a black background curved right to foreground with the Netflix logo N at the t...
10/02/2025
Back to All News
Dive into the 1960s and 80s Korean Music Scene with Upcoming S...
09/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: FOX Sports Highlights Celebrity Fashion With Productio...
09/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: NEP Specialty Capture Adds Key Cameras for Game Broadc...
09/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Augmented-Reality Graphics Play Starring Role in FOX S...
09/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Telemundo Deportes Goes All Out in Miami for Spanish-L...
09/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: FOX Sports Highlights Celebrity Fashion With Productio...
09/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Augmented Reality Graphics Play Starring Role in FOX S...
09/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: NFL Tech Ops Rides Years of Experience for Biggest, Mo...
08/02/2025
The American Forces Network (AFN), the U.S. government's television and radio broadcast service for military personnel and their families stationed overseas...
08/02/2025
In his Joshua Tree studio, cinematographer Timur Civan recently lensed a new music video Resurrection for gothic country artist Blood Nebraska. Working in col...
08/02/2025
DoPchoice debuts Spill Killer designed to prevent light leakage and ensure a clean, professional look for set or location lighting.
The elegantly designed butt...
08/02/2025
ESPN and Major League Rugby (MLR) have announced a multiyear media rights agreement that will bring MLR games to ESPN platforms. Under the new deal, live covera...
08/02/2025
Grammy-Nominated Alum Shares Berklee Wisdom with His Student Sister I thought graduating with a double major would be the key to success, Carlos Perez de An...
08/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Inside the SkyCam and Sony Efforts To Make 4K 240-fps ...
08/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Inside the 10,000-Sq.-Ft. Tech Center With FOX Sports ...
08/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: CMSI Uses the Big Game To Push Workflows Forward The company is providing edit support for pregame, Tubi Red Carpet Show By Ken Kersc...
08/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Inside SkyCam and Sony's Efforts to Make 4K 240 fp...
08/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: FOX Sports Digital Leans on Vizrt's TriCaster Vizi...
08/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: ESPN Studio Ops Spreads Across Big Easy From Fulton St...
08/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Verizon's Joe Russo on How 5G Can Get to the Next ...
08/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Inside the 10,000 sq. ft. Tech Center with Fox Sports ...
07/02/2025
L3Harris Commercial Aviation sector has entered into a significant licensing par...
07/02/2025
NFL, Red One, Carry On, Elf, A Christmas Story, Home Alone and Virgin River Among Top Programming for the day
Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, MAX, Disney , Peac...
07/02/2025
NEW ORLEANS Each broadcast network responsible for the production personnel, technologies and distribution deployed to present the Super Bowl takes the opportun...
07/02/2025
ATLANTA Gray Media has announced that it will be using NextGen TV broadcasts to offer enhancements to its coverage of the Super Bowl. As part of the effort, Gra...
07/02/2025
This Sunday February 9 sees the annual return of the US biggest television event, the Super Bowl LIX. Jamie McCombs, Fox Sports Audio Consultant / Sr. Audio wil...
07/02/2025
Get all your Blender add-ons on BlenderKit
Brie Clayton February 7, 2025
0 Comments
BlenderKit offers an ever-growing asset library seamlessly integr...
07/02/2025
Douglas Delaney Joins Light Iron as Supervising Colorist
Brie Clayton February 7, 2025
0 Comments
Esteemed colorist complements Light Iron's world...
07/02/2025
Resolve Fusion: Snow Settling Tutorial
Simon Ubsdell February 7, 2025
0 Comments
How to create this snow settling effect in Fusion a simple but effe...
07/02/2025
Grammy Nominated Alum Shares Berklee Wisdom with His Student Sister I thought graduating with a double major would be the key to success, Carlos Perez de An...
07/02/2025
WASHINGTON FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has called for new spectrum auctions for wireless mobile as well as revisiting rules regulating TV loudness....
07/02/2025
BRISTOL, UK Consumption of long-form YouTube content is rising rapidly in the U.S., accounting for 73% of all viewing time on the platform by the end of October...
07/02/2025
ATLANTA Gray Media has announced a deal with baseball's Kansas City Royals in which its stations will simulcast 10 regular-season game telecasts with incumb...
07/02/2025
LONDON The IBC has extended the deadline for the 2025 Technical Papers Program to February 14. Entries can be submitted here....
07/02/2025
SAN FRANCISCO New data from Samba TV shows, as expected, that time spent streaming continues to grow at a rapid pace, growing year-over-year by 56% in the secon...
07/02/2025
NEW YORK BrightLine, a provider of interactive, and shoppable CTV ads, and the ad tech platform TripleLift have announced that they have planning to offer premi...
07/02/2025
MURRIETA, Calif. The American Forces Network (AFN), the U.S. government's television and radio broadcast service for military personnel and their families s...
07/02/2025
Sony Electronics Enhances Creators' Cloud with Addition of Direct Transfers ...
07/02/2025
World Chase Tag Uses Blackmagic Replay
Brie Clayton February 6, 2025
0 Comments
Replay solution enhances fast turnaround highlights for social media a...
07/02/2025
Getting the Right Creative Content in Front of the Right Audience
Andy Marken February 6, 2025
0 Comments
Just relax, darlin'. This is the Big Ea...