From The Jump to Korean Baseball, ESPN's Live From Home' Efforts Keep the Content Factory Churning At-home studios, remote commentary kits, and ViBox REMI workflows have played key roles By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor
Wednesday, May 13, 2020 - 3:56 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
When the coronavirus pandemic brought the sports world to an abrupt halt two months ago, ESPN quickly formed a Live From Home committee to evaluate options that would allow on-air talent and crew to produce live studio shows from the safety of their own homes. In the months since, efforts by the committee - led by the Remote Operations department and comprising 30+ staffers from several ESPN departments - have resulted in the launch of more than 60 at-home studios for talent, five remote-commentary kits for live KBO League (Korean Baseball Association) telecasts, and a full REMI production workflow for several ESPN studio shows.
ESPN MLB analyst Eduardo Perez prepares for a KBO telecast using the a remote commentary system at his home (credit: Eduardo Perez/ESPN)
Obviously, we all continue to plan for live sports to return, says Chris Calcinari, SVP, remote operations, ESPN. We're on calls every day with our production partners and our league partners trying to work through scenarios and plans to come back once it's safe to hold sporting events. But, in the meantime, we've been keeping busy coming up with homegrown, innovative solutions that allow our production teams to work from home. And we believe these innovations will prove to be extremely valuable once live sports return.
Live From Home' Studios: Keeping Commentators Active
ESPN's Live From Home studios have become the backbone of the network's studio operations since reduced staffing measures were put in place at ESPN's Bristol, CT, campus. Although several shows are still being hosted out of the Bristol studios, nearly all analysts and reporters have been outfitted with robust studio facilities at their homes to enable them to contribute to ESPN programs.
ESPN college hoops analyst Jay Bilas using his remote home studio (credit: Shea Byram/ESPN)
We had a pretty strong network of home studios even before the pandemic happened, says Shea Byram, senior remote operations manager, ESPN, but we've taken it to the next level now. Thankfully, we had a good system in place, which allowed us to get things done as quickly as possible and get the [studio kits] out to our talent.
When the sports world suddenly shut down on March 12, Byram and her team anticipated an increased need for at-home studios and ordered gear for an additional 30 studio kits.
A three-person team composed of Byram, Senior Remote Operations Coordinator Ryan Bastek, and Remote Ops Coordinator Leah Morgenstern constructed the kits and deployed them to talent throughout the country. In addition, Byram relied on the entire ESPN remote-operations team to perform the installations at commentators' homes, walking them through the process via Facetime.
ESPN FC soccer analyst Frank Lebeouf's at-home studio in Paris (credit: ESPN)
That has been a lifesaver, says Byram. Normally, we are out on the road every week installing home studios at different locations. But, as soon as we got our travel ban, we had to enlist the help of everyone else in remote operations. At this point, we have a nice network of installers that are able to help us. We're still [installing at-home studios] in the Tri-State area ourselves, but we are getting as much help as we can around the country from the rest of the team.
The sophistication of the kits varies from a simple system comprising an iPads, lighting lights, and a transmission app to higher-end systems that are equipped with an IP-based PTZ camera and a more advanced transmission device for hosts who are on-air for several hours at a time. The 60+ systems installed over the past two months are in addition to ESPN's pre-existing installations, and the team will continue to deploy more in the coming weeks.
Leveraging Seaport Studios: REMI Workflows
After initially exploring a variety of cloud-based solutions to produce studio shows remotely, ESPN quickly pivoted and opted to leverage the Simply Live ViBox multi-camera production system and other resources at its South Street Seaport Studios in Manhattan to create a fully REMI (remote-integration) production workflow.
ESPN's Chris Strong supports the REMI studio-show productions from his home office in Texas (credit: Chris Strong/ESPN)
We were tasked with coming up with a solution to help the company put shows back on-air without straining folks in Bristol that are already producing shows safely using [social distancing] and using resources that we already had available, says Chris Strong, senior remote operations specialist, ESPN. We decided to leverage equipment and resources that were already at our Seaport [location], where we have a ViBox and an open studio available.
Prior to the pandemic, ESPN had deployed ViBox to streamline several of its productions, including most notably at the U.S. Open as well as for its coverage of Little League baseball/softball, high school basketball. Strong says the thought of controlling the ViBox remotely had been considered for years and the company had already been testing a REMI ViBox workflow with SimplyLive for the past eight months.
Just one EIC - such as Wes Glogg seen here - is on-site at a time to manage ESPN's Seaport Studios in NYC for the REMI productions (credit: Wes Glogg/ESPN)
When we first started this review to create Live From Home workflows, says Calcinari, the main goal was to give our production teams the tools that they're used to having. We evaluated a lot of cloud-based solutions and found a lot of limitations in terms of large volu
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
In a live broadcast from the Reagan National Defense Forum, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher Kubasik joined Morgan Brennan on CNBCs Closing Bell: Overtime. Ku...
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils the First Look for Land of Sin' - Premier...
05/12/2025
Introducing New Perks to Help You Get Even More from LinkedIn Premium Published on Dec 5, 2025 Categories: Company News, Product News
LinkedIn Corporate Co...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
From The Jump to Korean Baseball, ESPN's Live From Home' Efforts Keep the Content Factory Churning At-home studios, remote commentary kits, and ViBox REMI workflows have played key roles By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor 
