Live From Dublin: Vikings-Steelers NFL Dublin Game Kicks Off 2025 Europe SlateAiring on NFL Network, the show was produced by FOX SportsBy Fergal Ringrose, SVG Europe Monday, September 29, 2025 - 1:21 pm
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The NFL's 2025 international tour rolled into Dublin for Week 4 of the 2025 season, with the Pittsburgh Steelers' defeat of the Minnesota Vikings a 24-21 thriller at Croke Park marking the first-ever league game in Ireland.
The Vikings-Steelers Dublin game aired on NFL Network with play-by-play announcer Joe Davis, analyst Greg Olsen, and sideline reporters Pam Oliver and Jamie Erdahl on the call. Mike Pereira served as rules analyst. Additionally, Vikings-Steelers was available on broadcast stations in Minneapolis (KMSP) and Pittsburgh (WTAE). Croke Park's normal 82,300 capacity was reduced to 75,000 to accommodate the NFL stadium overlay.
The broadcast was a collaboration, with FOX Sports producing for air on NFL Network and the FOX B crew core group onsite. In addition, FOX client NFL Network had a team onsite. Bill Morris, founder/CEO, BMTV, supported with technical plan, local crew, and equipment.
In Dublin's Croke Park compound: (from left) Bill Morris, BMTV; Michael Davies, FOX Sports; Tim Deacon, NEP UK; and Clyde Taylor, FOX Sports
Vendors onsite included NEP Europe (facilities), Film & TV Services (power), Chapman Grip London (carts), and Trans-Sport.tv (rigging, transport, and storage). IP-based NEP Ceres and Mercury triple-expanding UHD HDR A and B units were in the compound: Ceres handling FOX host production, engineering, and EVS; Mercury providing audio submix, graphics, control for all robotic cameras (booth, goal, and corridor robos for team walkouts), and accommodation for NFL Network executives.
NEP UK Caspian truck was on hand for NFLI Screens. NEP Atlantic OB was working for Channel 5 UK, with Hungry Bear Media producing coverage. NEP Ireland provided facilities for Virgin Media Ireland's live broadcast, and NEP Germany's Edit 8 OB was in the compound for RTL Germany. Additionally, Sky Sports was onsite with an in-house presentation unit for its remote-production live coverage, and NEP provided fiber interconnect around the stadium for M6 France.
The camera plan was something Croke Park had certainly never seen before: a full NFL game setup involving near and far RF line-to-gain; three pylon cams on each corner flag provided by BSI USA; four-axis Spidercam overhead; six Sony HDC 5500 super-slo-mos; 100:1 carts high and low; two pitch-side Steadicams; two RF handhelds, far left and near left slash; goal robos at each end; three 14:1 NFLN field set cameras; far-sideline handheld and reverse 50; near- and far-side reporters with SWIT field monitors; talent-spotter camera; home and away coaches' booth POVs; and Steelers and Vikings locker PTZs. Game- and play-clock Sony HDC-3500 cameras were provided by NEP UK.
Brand NFL: Super Bowl Protocols in Dublin At NFL Network, says Margaret Thompson, manager, production operations, NFL Media, we don't traditionally do a lot of our own game coverage, so we don't have the same crew infrastructure as other American broadcasters. In the past, we have hired one of the broadcasters to do the games on our behalf as they have the full infrastructure. We have our producers here giving creative input, and some of the talent is ours, but the game crew - the director and the nitty gritty of the production - is all FOX Sports.
Chad McKelvey (left) and Margaret Thompson in NFL Network's TX MCR cabin onsite
Bill Morris and NEP, Trans-Sport.tv, and a small NFL Network team are going to do the whole international series, she says. It's definitely a competitive game for NFL Network. Our network team here would be 20 people, and there's a larger NFL Media group on the ground as well.
The Croke Park people have been very accommodating, Thompson continues. We did a scouting visit in June to view the location and to ensure we would have the facilities we needed and that we would make Croke Park look good on camera and [excite] the fans. The Appear kits for our encoding and decoding are shipped all over the U.S. for our games, and we've shipped them to Dublin. We use Lumen for our primary transmission and Tata Communications as diverse backup.
Transmission technology for all unilateral broadcasters was provided by NEP Connect operating out of a TOC cabin onsite, a central point where broadcasters came to send and receive feeds, with NEP Net Insight Nimbras sending the feeds out to the world.
Says Thompson, I'm operations manager for shipping, logistics, crew schedules, coordinating with Populous [which runs mapping and space usage for these major events], NFL Events, and the full broadcast. Essentially, we're running all the international games as Super Bowl lite' with not quite the same specification as the Super Bowl but with a lot of the same protocols. With a normal game in the U.S., you wouldn't see the NFL coming in and branding everything around the city, with IT and security as well.
Adds Chad McKelvey, who is serving as transmission tech for NFL Network in the compound, Our Appear chassis is encoding HEVC over IP, 20 encodes and 16 decodes. This kit is built for tallies as well, so, when we send back cameras for remote stuff, we can tally them. It's our second season with Appear kits. We also have Blackmagic Design frame converters here in the cabin to convert from the production in 50 Hz to 59.94 Hz for the United States and back again.
Trickiest game: Overlay and unique camera planBMTV's Morris serves as technical supervisor for NFL London and European games for CBS, FOX, ESPN, and NFLN. He was formerly COO of CTV Outside Broadcasts and EMG UK (now part of Gravity Media)
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