Live From Super Bowl LIX: Inside the 10,000-Sq.-Ft. Tech Center With FOX Sports VP, Field Ops and Engineering, Kevin Callahan Areas in the facility including editing, AR, drone prep, transmission management, and power By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director Saturday, February 8, 2025 - 12:39 pm
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The FOX Sports compound for Super Bowl LIX features a new two-story technical building encompasses about 10,000 sq. ft. of space. Featuring nearly floor-to-ceiling exterior windows, glass doors, and 10-ft. ceilings, it arguably signals a new era in compound office facilities, offering plenty of natural light, proper workstations with power, and other benefits not found in the traditional office trailer.
FOX Sports tapped Infinite Structures to build a two-story technical building for Super Bowl LIX.
The building houses everything from our edits to our video and audio sub-switch to video-transmission management, broadcast communications, and central distribution for the entire compound, says Kevin Callahan, VP, field operations and engineering, FOX Sports. We also have our network-engineering and -architecture team here because every remote these days relies on that network-engineering team for transporting not only video signals but communication files and everything else needed to do a broadcast. That convergence has truly happened at this point: they're as much a part of the team as everybody else.
At the center of the technical facility, which was built by Infinite Structures, are two of FOX Sports' Jewel Event Kits, which made their Super Bowl debut two years ago in Glendale, AZ. The Jewel kit serves as the hub for all incoming video and audio sources and makes them available to the trucks and facilities in the domestic and international compounds (as well as at the FOX Pico facility in Los Angeles).
The core Jewel technology has changed little since the flypack was first built for the 2022 World Cup. In New Orleans, one operates as an IBC and distribution point; the other handles full remote studio production needs.
The equipment remains the same as when they were first built, notes Callahan. We've been very happy with the equipment choices we've made. The Calrec IP Hydra cores, Arista switches, EVS Cerebrum, TAG multiviewers, Ross switchers and Ultrix routers, Calrec audio console, and Grass Valley production switchers are still best of breed and still doing the jobs we need them to do.
The FOX Jewel Event Kit plays a big role in connecting the compound and more at Super Bowl LIX.
The Jewel kits not only make signal management and access easier but also have some additional features making it easier to create a viewing room at a hotel or support requests from any FOX entity. Says Callahan, They can make our shows bigger but also do it economically.
This year, the Jewel Event Kit has some company in the kit world: FOX Sports' new Broadcast Remote IP Studio Kit (BRISK). Deployed at the Bourbon Street studio operation, the small unit allows video, audio, and data signals to be sent from Bourbon Street to the compound as well as to FOX Sports' Pico broadcast facility.
It has multiple paths and multiple redundancies built into it, Callahan explains. It's the first time that we really have cameras in a Home Run Production kit. It was created with remote shows in mind, where we may need to set up quickly. Bringing mobile units and a larger system like the FOX Jewel Event system in isn't always practical. BRISK, on the other hand, is nimbler and can be carried up a flight of stairs [such as at the Krazy Korner bar on Bourbon Street]. If we build a couple of them, they can hopscotch around different venues and still have the same network architecture and technology.
The BRISK unit comprises camera-control units, multiviewers, video-shading components, and a Calrec Hydra core as well as an audio frame. Explains Callahan, It's all being controlled with an RP1 here at the stadium or in Los Angeles to allow remote IFB mixing that needs to occur in order to have those remote studio shows happen.
Without it, he adds, something like Super Bowl LIX Pregame studio show on Bourbon Street would have been impossible. We are at a point with the shows now where productions can get bigger but we don't need to have the technology infrastructure get bigger. At Super Bowl LIV in Miami, we were sending all the signals from a mobile unit at South Beach to the production truck in the stadium. On Bourbon Street, there's no room to put a mobile unit on the street. We had to fit everything into that second floor of Krazy Korner, and this was the best way to do it.
Areas Are Dedicated to Different Functions The technical building houses several areas supporting the needs of the production trucks across the compound as well as of the team in Pico. For example, four Adobe Premier edit bays, two After Effects edit bays, and media management are connected to the Los Angeles facility.
Most of the edits are happening in Los Angeles, notes Callahan., but we do have these four edit stations because it is a collaborative process. This allows producers here to collaborate with the editor in person.
A broadcast comms area ensures users on either the RTS or Riedel intercom systems can communicate with each other seamlessly.
Located next to the Jewel Event Kit area, transmission management oversees all inbound and outbound feeds, ensuring that they are all routed to the right place. They make sure everything is in time and everything is correct, he says. We have close to 150 paths, inbound and outbound, between camera isos used for edit in Los Angeles or just for the watch parties, hotel remotes, all sorts of things like that.
The broadcast-comms area houses two systems from two manufacturers: RTS in
