SVG Sit-Down: Grass Valley's Robert Erickson Plots New Course for Company's Venue Efforts Priorities are streamlined workflows amid a more complex control room By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor
Thursday, February 27, 2020 - 12:44 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
In-venue production is on the cusp of a new era. Highly debated topics like HDR and IP are causing in-venue production teams to reconsider habits that are deeply rooted in the past. Many have launched the difficult effort to make their control room compatible with the new practices.
One of the most active technology vendors in the sports-video-production industry, Grass Valley has appointed Robert Erickson to lead its initiatives as the new strategic account manager for sports and venues. Since joining the company in 2008, he has served in a variety of roles, including advanced technology director. Overall, Erickson has more than 21 years of experience in the broadcast and IT markets and is committed to designing solutions based on new and emerging technologies for production facilities.
At Grass Valley since 2008, Erickson will now lead the company's efforts in the sports-venue side of the business.
SVG had the chance to speak with Erickson about his new role with the company, what he's seeing in in-venue production, how the company's recent acquisition by Black Dragon fits into the equation, how Grass Valley's line of products can better serve the community, potential applications coming down the pipeline, and more.
What industry trends are currently happening in the venue space?
We're seeing that the customer experience is driving more-complex facility designs with more-complex graphics packages. These complexities are pushing the quality of the in-venue production higher. That current trend, which is fantastic for the people working inside of the venue, is also driving operations and is significantly changing the details of their roles. In the past, sports-video professionals had to worry about creating only one video feed for the entire facility, but now they have to create multiple feeds: some for the suites, some for multiple banners, some for the main board, and some for other things. It has become a very complicated environment.
What are some solutions that Grass Valley is developing to better serve these needs?
As a vendor, we need to ask how we can develop workflows that allow the staff to create improved content that better engages the fan. We also need to ask how we can create tools that will allow users to pull graphics, switchers, replays, and things of that nature into one simplified, easy-to-use interface. The discussion went from I'm going to buy this switcher or this graphics package because it's the most powerful in the world to How do I obtain a holistic solution that takes all of the equipment and puts it into a user-friendly interface that people can learn while still delivering very high-quality and flexible content?
One of our biggest goals is to streamline these workflows. We're creating software just for stadiums and venue spaces, and we'll be showing some of it at NAB this year.
Is the company interested in playing a role in building an entertainment district that surrounds a venue?
That's something we absolutely want to be involved and actively engaged in. I think one of the most important parts about Grass Valley is that we are an engineering company at our core. It is our job to listen to what our customers want to be able to do and deliver solutions.
We've got 500 engineers working at our company, so a lot of the job of myself and our sales teams is to work with the customers and say, Hey, we get you and understand that you want to bring your fans in earlier and you want them to stay later. What can we do to help create the solutions that you think you need? At the root of it all, that's what we have to be doing.
How does the recent Black Dragon acquisition impact business in Grass Valley's venue sector?
Black Dragon's experience leading companies through digital transition will accelerate the next step in Grass Valley's evolution, enabling us to bring more innovative products to market faster in all of the verticals we serve, including venues.
While the development of new solutions will be accelerated, there will be no reduced focus on existing platforms, which customers have counted on for years for their reliability, dependability, and high performance.
What specific technologies do you foresee happening to in-venue production in the next 12-24 months?
You're going to see a lot with the push of 5G and a lot of higher-quality Wi-Fi being installed into stadiums since what was considered a traditional second-screen experience could very much become a [primary] player now. They're adding more bandwidth for [cellular] capacity and the ability to interact in real time at the facility. For example, we are involved in real-time polling at this one stadium, where they will put up a graphic and ask a trivia question. It's about users texting this service, and then, in real time, we can pull that data and put it back on the screen.
With the addition of LED science and its role on videoboards, the need for higher-quality video, in terms of HDR and UHD, has become very popular. We'll need to help with giving them cameras and image processors in their facility that can capture higher-quality video with better dynamic range, colors, and so forth. It's really important to us because that comes back to being able to deliver a better experience for the fans.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
23/07/2026
Illusionfx is finally coming!
Alex Perea July 23, 2026
0 Comments
The new website is now live to mark the occasion.
Since the last update, feedback h...
23/07/2026
Evergent (5.A86) will showcase its Agentic Revenue Orchestration Platform for streaming services, sports leagues, pay-TV operators at IBC2026 (RAI Amsterdam, 11...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
David Dvir, 2D founder (left), Sundeep Reddy (center), and Jean-Marc Bouchut (right), both of Zeiss...
23/07/2026
Screen Australia announces new national documentary accelerator program 23 July 2026
Screen Australia has today announced the Above the Line Documentary Accel...
23/07/2026
RT Commercial has today announced Centra as the official food partner once again of The Traitors Ireland, coming to RT One and RT Player later this year.
Ce...
23/07/2026
RT Commercial today announced Honda as sponsor of Today with David McCullagh RT Radio 1, weekdays 9am 11am.
Broadcasting directly after Morning Ireland in ...
23/07/2026
RT News is pleased to announce Barry Gallagher has been assigned as the new journalist covering news from Cork, Kerry and the wider Southern region
Working al...
23/07/2026
Lock in and load up the cloud. GFN Thursday brings fresh updates and new adventu...
22/07/2026
Among other tweaks to coverage, the broadcaster added announce positions in the ...
22/07/2026
The Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) has reported a sharp acceleration in Australia's sportstech sector, with revenue growth rising from 10% in...
22/07/2026
From a retrofitted broadcast bus to packed Match Day Live! events, Bennett detai...
22/07/2026
TMRW Sports has named Brendan Donohue as President, Flag Football, where he will lead the company's professional flag football business in partnership with ...
22/07/2026
Stephen Arnold Music (SAM) designed and produced soundtracks for nine projection...
22/07/2026
Harmonic has announced a $25,000 donation to Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) fo...
22/07/2026
Telemundo has announced it has acquired from UC3 exclusive U.S. Spanish-language...
22/07/2026
The Rest Is Football, hosted by Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Micah Richards, ...
22/07/2026
Sports Studio has announced a partnership with TheSoul Group to distribute Free ...
22/07/2026
Daktronics has concluded its 2026 High School Video Summit, a two-day hybrid event combining virtual sessions with hands-on host school visits across the countr...
22/07/2026
FOR-A America will exhibit at the MMCA Show in Pensacola, Florida (July 21-24), marking the company's first appearance at the house of worship AV event. FOR...
22/07/2026
The New York Yankees have selected Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) to connect Ya...
22/07/2026
Calrec will exhibit at IBC 2026 (Stand 8.C47) with demonstrations of its IP-native audio ecosystem built around the Argo console range, and will announce two ne...
22/07/2026
Solid State Logic has announced the appointment of Algam EKO as its distributor for SSL large format consoles in Italy, covering the Live, Broadcast, and Studio...
22/07/2026
FloSports has announced the launch of the FloSports Channel, a free ad-supported streaming channel premiering on Prime Video in the U.S. on July 21. The channel...
22/07/2026
Banana Ball TV (BTV), the broadcast operation of the Savannah Bananas, has insta...
22/07/2026
SiriusXM and Audacy have announced an agreement bringing 42 Audacy sports, news, and talk stations from 29 U.S. markets to SiriusXM. Twenty-three Audacy sports ...
22/07/2026
The collaboration produced more than 500 short-form videos across four cities th...
22/07/2026
At 2,600 sq. ft., the new home of digital content houses a main studio, podcast space, and an auxiliary control room
NFL franchises are accelerating their prod...
22/07/2026
Library now available in Engine Player
Another of Eduardo Tarilonte's popular sample libraries has just been moved over to Engine Audio's Engine Pla...
22/07/2026
All-in-one mic & DSP interface overhauled
Cloudvocal have just refreshed the design of their all-in-one mic, audio interface and DSP processor, introducing ...
22/07/2026
The final boss of the lost dual-op-amp circuit
Electro-Harmonix have just introduced the Deluxe Big Muff Pi 2, which they say offers their latest take on t...
22/07/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Proven managed IP solution helps broadcasters confidently navigate the future of broadcast distribution
LTN announces it has completed successful satellite-to-...
22/07/2026
Today, Chaos announced V-Ray 7, update 4, eliminating the need for asset conversions and tool switching, which slow down media and entertainment pipelines. Arti...
22/07/2026
An AI playground for the Project Indigo camera app
Marc Levoy July 22, 2026
0 Comments
At left is the user interface of our Playground, running on an ...
22/07/2026
Custom Consoles announces the completion of a large technical furniture project for Radio T l vision Suisse (RTS) at the networks recently inaugurated productio...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Culver City, CA, July 21, 2026 3D streaming infrastructure provider Miris today announced glTF intake, including the binary .glb form, to its spatial streamin...
22/07/2026
Documentary Lo Invisible Captured with Blackmagic PYXIS 6K
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
Camera's versatile design allowed filmmakers to c...
22/07/2026
AAF Bridge converts AAF and XML Timelines to Ableton Live - and back
Jerome Gardier July 21, 2026
0 Comments
A two-way converter for macOS and Windows...
SVG Sit-Down: Grass Valley's Robert Erickson Plots New Course for Company's Venue Efforts Priorities are streamlined workflows amid a more complex control room By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor 
