ESPN continues to cultivate its GREMI (Vizrt graphics/ EVS replay remote integration) hybrid at-home production workflow.
Originally published by SVG.
ESPN gets back in its NBA groove tonight with a regular-season-opening doubleheader featuring Pelicans-Rockets and Mavericks-Suns matchups. The network will continue to blaze a technological trail with innovations like the use of removable robos in locker rooms and, potentially, SkyCam at some point in the season. In addition, ESPN continues to cultivate its GREMI (graphics/replay remote integration) hybrid at-home production workflow, which debuted on its NBA shows last year after first being deployed on its MLB coverage in 2017.
We are extremely proud of our technical managers and specialists in the field for NBA, says Wendell Grigely, senior director, event operations, ESPN. They have put together the GREMI operation to make it seamless and continue to find new ways to innovate. It was a lot of hard work and communication between our ops in Bristol and ops people in the field [to refine the GREMI model], but everyone just refused to let it fail, and the result was a huge success.
GREMI Model Is in Full SwingLast year, ESPN launched its GREMI model across all its NBA productions, and, according to Grigely, the effort was a rousing success. With the GREMI approach, two EVS operators, a graphics operator, and a graphics producer are located in Bristol, CT, but use equipment - EVS servers and Vizrt graphics systems - housed on the truck. Between two and four additional replay operators (depending on the size of the show) are located on the truck.
The GREMI operation has been incredibly successful, says Grigely. In the beginning last year, we expected to have a few issues, but we really didn't, and it was totally seamless. Everyone in production has embraced it, and it has worked out for both the remote side and our operation back in Bristol. Plus, we get consistent operators because we have the same people working more shows.
This year, the clock-and-score-graphics operator will also be located in Bristol.
Everyone got on board really quickly from a technical and operator standpoint to make sure this succeeded every single week, says Grigely. And we developed great relationships between production people in the truck and our operators back in Bristol. The communication was excellent throughout the year so we could make little improvements every week.
Building Off Summer League SuccessESPN will continue to deploy eight to 12 cameras on the majority of NBA games, with the count jumping to 16 or 17 for marquee and primetime games, such as this Saturday's Rockets-Lakers matchup in Los Angeles. The through the glass shot that has become a staple of ESPN's NBA coverage will be back for selected games this year, with Sony HDC-P43 6X-slo-mo robotic cameras (provided by Fletcher) mounted behind the glass.
After a successful test at NBA Summer League, ESPN and the NBA will deploy breakaway robos in locker rooms throughout the season (pending team approval). New mounts allow the robotic cameras to be easily mounted for pregame, halftime, and postgame segments and then quickly removed.
Another successful Summer League experiment may also make its way into ESPN's coverage this year. The network may deploy SkyCam on tentpole games later in the season.
We are looking into using SkyCam after its success at Summer League, says Grigely, but nothing is definite yet. We are working with the league and the individual teams, but there is a lot of interest. We definitely want to try to get it [located] over play on the court. I think it offers some interesting angles, and we're working to make that happen.
He pinpoints Christmas Day - always a big day for ESPN's NBA coverage - as a potential debut for SkyCam with more appearances possible during the second half of the season.
ESPN will also continue to mic players and coaches for its Wired segments as much as possible this season, according to Grigely.
EN3, Victory Trucks Are Committed to HardcourtESPN will rely on two dedicated mobile units for its NBA shows this season: NEP's EN3 and Game Creek Video's Victory. Although ESPN will deploy a handful of other trucks when necessary, the operations team has been able to customize EN3 and Victory for the specific needs of its NBA productions.
It's great to have dedicated trucks that we can load up with our [custom] gear [complement] for the season, says Grigely. It allows to do less shipping because the mobile units show up with everything we need. We can often knock out four games with just those two trucks in a week, which will be really great for our operations team.
ESPN Turbocharges Content-Sharing Effort With CMSIESPN continues to bolster its file-transfer operations from games, enlisting Creative Mobile Solutions Inc. (CMSI) to manage content sharing not only with Bristol but also with the league and Turner Sports.
Our file-transfer operation now is pretty large, says Grigely. It really allows the content to be shared across all of ESPN's platforms, as well as NBA and Turner. File transfer has helped speed up that process and make it a much tighter operation overall, and we've continued to refine that.
Related articles
NBA Summer League Spotlight: A Breeding Ground for Production-Tech Innovation
NEP Group, Bexel support March Madness broadcasts with Vizrt graphics tools
Related articles
NBA Summer League Spotlight: A Breeding Ground for Production-Tech Innovation
NEP Group, Bexel support March Madness broadcasts with Vizrt graphics tools
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...
31/08/2025
Legrand | AV, a global specialist and industry leader in audiovisual solutions, returns to CEDIA Expo 2025, taking place Sept. 4-6 in Denver, with a powerful li...
31/08/2025
Global media technology company Backlight will unveil new capabilities in its Iconik, Wildmoka, and Zype product lines at IBC2025 (booth #1.D09), September 12 1...
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...
ESPN continues to cultivate its GREMI (Vizrt graphics/ EVS replay remote integration) hybrid at-home production workflow.
