ESPN Plans Major Onsite Effort for Women's Final Four, National Championship The production will involve 185 crew members, 27 cameras, and NEP EN1 A, B, and D units By Karen Hogan Ketchum, Senior Editor
Friday, March 30, 2018 - 10:46 am
Print This Story
Story Highlights
The NCAA Women's Final Four tips off tonight at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, OH, and, for the fourth time in tourney history, all four No. 1 seeds will be there. And, although ESPN found success with a REMI, or at-home, production model throughout the tournament, the network will be onsite in full force for tonight's games and Sunday's National Championship.
That onsite presence includes NEP's EN1 A and B units for game production of the Final Four and National Championship and D unit for studio programming. Because many on ESPN's Women's Final Four crew also work Monday Night Football (EN1 is the main MNF unit), the inherent familiarity with the facilities benefits the production as a whole. Says ESPN Associate Director of Operations Larry Wilson, Having that relationship and that familiarity with [EN1] is a real efficiency for us to coordinate our activities between game and host effectively.
According to ESPN Operations Producer Barb Williams, between production and operations, ESPN will have 185 credentialed personnel onsite.
ESPN's road to the 2018 Women's Final Four began almost a year ago with its first site surveys of Nationwide Arena. Because the arena is home to the NHL's Columbus Blue Jackets and does not have a year-round basketball tenant, ESPN needed to construct a camera platform at center court for the main game camera.
Nationwide Arena has hosted two college championships in the last two years - volleyball and now women's college basketball - so we've had some definite challenges because it is a hockey arena, says ESPN Operations Manager Donna Capone. We're definitely making some adjustments on some angles for college basketball versus hockey.
The network also looked to bring in Spidercam for its Final Four and National Championship broadcasts, which required separate surveys to determine cable and camera placement.
We started working on organizing this tournament operationally with the NCAA in June, so it's been about a 10-month effort of doing site surveys and [being in] constant communication with the NCAA and Nationwide Arena, notes ESPN Operations Producer Traci Flohr. It's been a great effort all the way around by building vendors, ESPN, and the NCAA to make this event special.
ESPN will deploy 27 cameras, including the Spidercam aerial camera system, two Sony HDC-4300 cameras operating in 6X super-slo-mo, and an NAC high-speed camera. EN1's complement of Sony cameras with Canon lenses will be supplemented by above-the-rim camera systems on each backboard, 10 Marshall POV cameras, an RF Steadicam, and an outdoor jib to capture red-carpet arrivals. An indoor jib and three additional cameras will handle the studio coverage, and CP Communications will be responsible for all RF.
Two onsite Avid Symphony systems will support preproduction pieces for both game and studio, and ESPN will leverage its file-transfer portal to exchange content with its Bristol, CT, facility. ESPN's ART system (telestrator device) will be used in the telecasts for the seventh consecutive year.
New this year, ESPN has shifted its Women's Final Four transmission to the XAVC Intra codec. It's fairly transparent to most users, Rainey explains, but, under the hood, it means a lot for us going forward in being able to embrace more high-resolution media and move into the future.
The first of tonight's Final Four games tips off at 7:00 p.m. ET, with Louisville taking on Mississippi State. At 9:30 p.m., perennial powerhouse UConn faces longtime rival Notre Dame. Both games will be broadcast on ESPN2. The winners will compete in the National Championship on Sunday at 6:00 p.m. on ESPN.
Most recent headlines
09/11/2025
Dalet today announced a transformative leap forward for media operations: Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) that unifies the Dalet ecosystem under one natura...
21/10/2025
As Amazon's Prime Video prepares to launch its coverage of NBA basketball under a major new deal, Grup Mediapro has announced that it is working with the st...
21/10/2025
ATLANTA Good news for consumers using an Atlanta DTH receiver to watch ATSC 3.0: with a new software update, they will be able to blanket their homes with Wi-Fi...
21/10/2025
While recent news has been heavily focused on Hispanic migration into the U.S., The 2025 Hispanic Market Report from Claritas highlights the fact that this gr...
21/10/2025
MAIDENHEAD, UK RWS has hired Michael Wayne as its head of media and entertainment in Los Angeles where he will lead the company's media localization busines...
21/10/2025
Imagine Communications and Rohde & Schwarz today announced a definitive agreement under which Imagine will acquire Pixel Power Limited, a wholly owned subsidiar...
21/10/2025
Atlanta DTH (ADTH) today announced a major update that will expand the functionality of its NEXTGEN TV receiver by enabling gateway capabilities allowing viewer...
21/10/2025
Heartland Video Systems, Inc. (HVS), a premier video systems integration, consulting, and expert ATSC 3.0 implementation firm announces that it has partnered wi...
21/10/2025
QuickLink, the leading provider of award-winning video production and remote guest integration solutions, today announced the appointment of Austin Hinton as it...
21/10/2025
nternet connectivity startup Miri Technologies Inc. will use this week's NAB Show New York as the launch pad for its latest ground-breaking innovation, the ...
20/10/2025
Inside TAMS: How Time-Addressable Media Stores could redefine sports workflows By Paul Markham
Friday, October 17, 2025 - 08:57
Print This Story
A penalty...
20/10/2025
Transformational production: Inside TVN's remote production push for the DFL...
20/10/2025
How NBC Sports Transitioned Stamford Facility to One Format: 1080p HDRMulti-year plan harmonizes workflows, simplifies operationsBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial ...
20/10/2025
NBA on NBC' Studio Production Team Is Ready for Tip-Off With Coast-to-Coast...
20/10/2025
Under pressure: TVN CEO Markus Osthaus considers the German sports broadcasting ...
20/10/2025
(L-R) Maria Dizzia, Carmen Emmi, and Russell Tovey attend the Plainclothes pre...
20/10/2025
In March, we launched Concerts Near You to help listeners find concerts from their favorite artists. Since then, more than 3 million people have used it to disc...
20/10/2025
Em diversas cidades do Brasil, um movimento tem se fortalecido para celebrar o poder, a beleza e a profundidade da criatividade negra. O Dia AMPLIFIKA, agora em...
20/10/2025
In cities across Brazil, a movement is growing that celebrates the power, beauty, and depth of Black creativity. AMPLIFIKA Day, now in its fifth edition, return...
20/10/2025
Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft rendering...
20/10/2025
DENVER and MUNICH Imagine Communications today announced its plans to acquire Pixel Power Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Rohde & Schwarz. Financial terms of...
20/10/2025
LOS ANGELES G Morgan has joined Globecast, a provider of broadcast, media and entertainment managed services, as executive vice president of sales, Globecast Am...
20/10/2025
PLYMOUTH, Wisc. Heartland Video Systems and Zixi have partnered to enable broadcast-quality live video delivery over any IP network....
20/10/2025
A. R. Rahman on Facing Fear and Finding the Divine In an interview with Berklee President Jim Lucchese, the Oscar-winning composer reflects on how courage and...
20/10/2025
Monday 20 October 2025
To view this content, please enable our use of cookies. ...
20/10/2025
Rohde & Schwarz transfers Pixel Power to Imagine Communications Companies work collaboratively to ensure continuity and ongoing support for existing customers...
20/10/2025
RT 's Prime Time is set to host the final Presidential Election Debate this Tuesday night, October 21, providing an opportunity to hear directly from Irelan...
20/10/2025
NVIDIA and Google Cloud are expanding access to accelerated computing to transform the full spectrum of enterprise workloads, from visual computing to agentic a...
19/10/2025
Back to All News
Sins of Kujo' Comes to Life in New Live-Action Series Set for Spring 2026
Entertainment
19 October 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to cl...
18/10/2025
New England Sports Network (NESN) has chosen Harmonic, working with Astound Business Solutions, as its enterprise technology partner to transform primary distri...
18/10/2025
NEW ORLEANS, La. In the run-up to the start of the NBA season, WVUE-TV and Gray Local Media have announced a deal with DirecTV that will greatly expand access t...
18/10/2025
Berklee Celebrates 40 Years of the Fall Together Concert Faculty composers Bob Pilkington and Greg Hopkins are among the featured artists for this year's ...
17/10/2025
NEP Group Receives New Equity Investment From 26North Partners LP, Co-InvestorsCarlyle remains the largest shareholder as the company prepares for the futureBy ...
17/10/2025
Apple Lands Five-Year Deal for F1 Distribution in the U.S.Besides airing on Apple TV, the sport will be amplified on other Apple servicesBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Ed...
17/10/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Marshall Electronics' Bernie Keach on the Future of PTZ Camera...
17/10/2025
L2 Productions' REMI Facility in Austin Can Produce Content From AnywhereMusic festivals, sports events are produced via flypacks and remote control roomsBy...
17/10/2025
By Lucy Spicer
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival...
17/10/2025
(L-R) Christopher Meyer, Addison Timlin, Cooper Raiff, Lili Reinhart, Alyah Chan...
17/10/2025
M sica e arte se uniram em uma noite especial na semana passada na ZIV Gallery, ...
17/10/2025
Music and art came together for one special night last week at ZIV Gallery, an i...
17/10/2025
Spotify and FC Barcelona are extending our partnership through 2030, continuing a collaboration that's redefining how fans, players, and artists connect. Th...
17/10/2025
MURRIETA, Calif. The Sports Fishing Championship (SFC) has deployed DigitalGlue's creative.space storage platform to streamline video production by centrali...
17/10/2025
BELLEVUE, Wash. Football continued to cement its reputation as a bulwark of TV advertising in Q3 2025 with new data from iSpot that showed both the NFL and coll...
17/10/2025
The Sports Fishing Championship (SFC), the premier competitive saltwater fishing series, has transformed its production workflow by adopting creative.space, the...
17/10/2025
QuickLink, a leading provider of award-winning multi-camera video productions and remote contribution solutions, announces the release of StudioPro Version 4, ...
17/10/2025
Although the annual Grammy Awards celebration is best known for recognizing achievements in the recording industry, the show often proves a visual spectacle as ...
17/10/2025
OpenDrives, Inc., a leading provider of software-defined data storage and data services, has promoted Alex Dunfey to Chief Technology Officer (CTO) from his for...
17/10/2025
The University of Arizona (UofA) has significantly upgraded its broadcast communication infrastructure with the integration of Riedel Communications' advanc...
17/10/2025
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that New England Sports Network (NESN), owned by Fenway Sports Group and Delaware North, has selected Harmonic as its en...
ESPN Plans Major Onsite Effort for Women's Final Four, National Championship The production will involve 185 crew members, 27 cameras, and NEP EN1 A, B, and D units By Karen Hogan Ketchum, Senior Editor 
