US Open Returns: How ESPN's Biggest Production Was Transformed Health and safety needs add a complicating factor By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Wednesday, September 9, 2020 - 1:52 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
ESPN's production calendar has plenty of huge events, but none is larger than the US Open. Even in a good year, the production takes months of planning at a scale that can impress anyone in the industry. Add in COVID-19, and the accomplishment the team pulled off to get to this point is even more impressive.
It's a huge, stressful event because we're the host broadcaster for the world, says Dennis Cleary, director, remote production operations, ESPN. And now we add in the pandemic, and people are concerned about their health and safety while they're doing their job. It's a side we haven't really dealt with before.
The US Open Broadcast Building provides ample space for social distancing.
Health and safety is job one, he notes, and, with the USTA as lead partner, a key goal is to make sure all protocols follow both USTA and ESPN guidelines.
The biggest thing for us is we have 600 people onsite, Cleary explains. Where do they sit and work? How much more space could we acquire for them because the international broadcasters aren't here?
In the age of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the first big challenges was to make sure that everyone could get onsite. A key technology partner for ESPN is Gravity Media, which provides the equipment and integration support for the Open.
The Gravity Media team is from the UK, and all of the equipment comes from the UK, says Cleary. There were a lot of unknowns about whether we would be able to get their engineers and personnel into the country when there was a travel ban.
The USTA faced a similar situation and worked closely with various federal, state, and local government agencies to get the necessary clearances.
Until we knew that we could get people in, Cleary explains, we needed a plan B where we would bring in mobile production units to cover Ashe, Armstrong, and Court 17 because we wouldn't have enough engineers available to build the flypack.
Gravity Media ultimately was able to get its crew in place, but August brought another challenge: preparation for the US Open had to occur while the Western & Southern Open was being held on the same courts.
Gravity Media has been a great vendor for us as they were also the provider for ATP Media at the Western & Southern Open, says Cleary. The turnaround time from Western & Southern to the US Open was one day less, and we also have maximized the facilities that were being used at the Western & Southern, like the NCP VIII truck, which was used for our ITV coverage.
ESPN worked closely with the USTA team to draw out the spacing needs to the inch so that every operator could work in a socially distanced way. International rightsholders are not at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center, and many personnel who would usually be onsite are working remotely. Those two factors allowed the ESPN and USTA teams to work more safely.
Wherever there was a seat for an operator in the EVS area or the control room, we would draw a 6-ft. bubble around that position, says Cleary. And we did the same thing with those who were in the office space.
One dramatic change is the expanded space needed for the ACES production team. Last year, for example, nine two-person ACES production teams produced all of the outer-court action from an expanded production area on the second floor of the ESPN administration building. Each two-person team comprised a director/operator of a Simply Live ViBox system and a camera operator controlling four cameras, two of which are automated via the Fletcher Trace player-tracking system. Those nine teams were co-located with two audio rooms crammed with audio operators handling audio needs for coverage of multiple courts.
This year, we have 10 ACES courts and have socially distanced everyone. Last year, we fit everyone working the ACES courts inside one large room; this year, we need to spread them all out over the entire second floor of the administration building. Each ACES court has a dedicated, socially distanced workspace with the robo operators and directors sitting 6 ft. apart. The video operators are in their own room, all socially distant, and the two audio operators are in their own dedicated rooms mixing the 10 courts.
One great thing about ESPN having its own building for domestic- and world-feed production is that the control rooms are larger than the space typically afforded in a production truck.
Most of those control rooms had only three people in them: the technical director, someone in the director/producer combo role, and a graphics person, says Cleary. So we basically spread the SMT graphics people into other areas. Everybody has a home.
The long days at the Open also mean multiple shifts of production personnel, adding another layer of complexity to sanitizing workstations as well as having relief staff available.
You unplug your headset and wipe down your equipment, and then the relief or next shift comes in, says Cleary. They plug their headset in and know that it is sanitary and clean.
The biggest production change is that there are only three TV courts: Arthur Ashe, Armstrong Stadium, and Court 17. All the others are produced using the Simply Live ViBox because of the requirement to limit the production team to as few people as possible.
We've also added eight more robotic cameras and a jib camera to Armstrong and changed some of the angles by moving cameras from being on the court to being in the stands, adds Cleary. This is a one-year opportunity to try something different that we can't [do] when there are fans in the stands.
A four-point camer
Most recent headlines
09/11/2025
Dalet today announced a transformative leap forward for media operations: Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) that unifies the Dalet ecosystem under one natura...
28/10/2025
ESPN Announces Monsters Funday Football', Its Latest Real-Time Animated Bro...
28/10/2025
SVG All-Stars: Catherine Chalfant, Manager, Remote Operations, ESPNThe Ole Miss alum is an operational force behind ESPN's extensive college-football catalo...
28/10/2025
Elevating the experience: AI and data take Ryder Cup to the next level By Joe OHalloran
Tuesday, October 28, 2025 - 10:25
Print This Story
NBC produced th...
28/10/2025
Conquering the Air (waves): Taking a close up look at the IBC Accelerator Priva...
28/10/2025
World Series 2025: Spectrum SportsNet LA Brings Dodgers Fans Closer to the Actio...
28/10/2025
Dylan Southern and Benedict Cumberbatch at the premiere of The Thing with Feathers (photo by George Pimentel / Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)...
28/10/2025
For three weeks in Lagos, Spotify's Greasy Tunes Caf pop-up brought the cit...
28/10/2025
Once a niche subculture, German rap has evolved into an influential cultural movement. Now, Spotify is giving the genre a new home with OFFCULT, a playlist dedi...
28/10/2025
Shane Delia's Malta serves up the Mediterranean this summer
28 October, 2025
Media releases
Feast on 9,000 years of culinary history Mondays from 24 No...
28/10/2025
SBS's global sporting festival continues with the FIVB Beach Volleyball Worl...
28/10/2025
Bilbao, October 28, 2025 - AgileTV, a leading technology solutions company for t...
28/10/2025
Disney, NBCUniversal, FOX, Paramount Each Achieve Double-Digit Monthly Growth
...
28/10/2025
CINCINNATI The E.W. Scripps Company has announced an agreement to sell WRTV, its local ABC-affiliated station in Indianapolis, to Circle City Broadcasting for $...
28/10/2025
Berklee College of Music and Berklee Valencia Named to Billboards 2025 Top Music...
28/10/2025
NEW YORK As AI usage continues to spike, a new study from IAB delves into an important aspect of how AI is transforming the advertising business with new data s...
28/10/2025
Charlie Jablonski, a broadcast tech pioneer who helped shape the modern era of Olympics television coverage, died Oct. 25 at his home in Lake George N.Y., the N...
28/10/2025
VIENNA, Austria Bitmovin has launched Bitmovin Observability, a new stand-alone video data solution that delivers real-time insights into video playback. The so...
28/10/2025
LOS ANGELES LucidLink, the file streaming platform, has announced a Frame.io integration and expanded mobile capabilities at Adobe Max....
28/10/2025
Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitably connect the right content to the right audience, today announced that it has joined the Ama...
28/10/2025
Lightware, an industry leader in connectivity and signal management solutions, has announced a major update to its Taurus
platform, which now delivers flawless...
28/10/2025
Following a successful mid-September International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam, Hiltron Communications will promote its full range of satellite communi...
28/10/2025
Open Broadcast Systems has chosen MC&S (Media Consulting & Services) as a reseller to help strengthen its presence in France.
With over twenty years of experi...
28/10/2025
Bitmovin, leading provider of video streaming solutions, has launched Bitmovin Observability, a new stand-alone video data solution that delivers real-time insi...
28/10/2025
Ease Live, the leader in interactive TV technology, today announced the successful launch of interactive graphical overlays for UEFA Champions League matches fo...
28/10/2025
LucidLink, the file streaming platform, today at Adobe MAX announced a Frame.io integration and expanded mobile capabilities, streamlining collaboration and hel...
28/10/2025
ATLANTA Gray Media has promoted Nick Hasenecz to general manager of WNDU, its NBC affiliate in the South Bend-Elkhart, Ind., market....
28/10/2025
Applications Open for Berklee Fenway Neighborhood Improvement Grant Boston nonprofits can apply by December 12 for funding to support community projects that ...
28/10/2025
28 Oct 2025
VEON's JazzCash Wins Silver Award for Innovation in Lending at ...
28/10/2025
Guests include Wayne Rooney, Maya Jama, Dame Laura Kenny, Chloe Kelly, Chris McC...
28/10/2025
The two-hour special, recorded live from the iconic Dolby Theatre in LA, will ai...
28/10/2025
Eutelsat upgrades teleports with Rohde & Schwarz satellite uplink amplifiers High efficiency and resilient Ku-band amplifiers for excellent RF performance
...
28/10/2025
These appointments come at a pivotal time for ABC, as the organisation continues to evolve to meet the changing needs of a digital-first media ecosystem. The ne...
28/10/2025
Scripps Research awarded $4 million to advance platform for neurodevelopmental disorders The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) grant support...
27/10/2025
You can touch this: Haptics becoming central to the virtual live experience By Adrian Pennington
Friday, October 24, 2025 - 09:12
Print This Story
The vid...
27/10/2025
A tale of two trailers: France's Stop & Go doubles up with its new hybrid tr...
27/10/2025
Pro Padel League Stages City's Cup Finals Inside NYC's Hammerstein Ballr...
27/10/2025
World Series 2025: Sportsnet Delivers Made-in-Canada' Moment for a Nation U...
27/10/2025
ESPN Extends Partnership With Sony's Beyond Sports To Expand Animated Altern...
27/10/2025
Reid Davenport attends the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Life After at The Ray Theatre on January 27, 2025, in Park City, UT. (Photo by Robin Marsha...
27/10/2025
As the days grow shorter and the nights get darker, there's nothing like getting swept up in a story that sends shivers down your spine. In honor of spooky ...
27/10/2025
UPDATE: Both parties have reached a new carriage agreement....
27/10/2025
LONDON As Hollywood jumps into the production of mini-dramas, a new study from Ampere Analysis finds that more than one in 10 internet users have watched drama ...
27/10/2025
LONDON Yealink, a provider of unified communication and collaboration solutions, has joined the NDI ecosystem with the availability of its SmartVision 80 premiu...
27/10/2025
ATLANTA Gray Media has named Chris Conroy as general manager of its stations in Cleveland, leading WOIO, a CBS affiliate, The CW station WUAB and Telemundo outl...
27/10/2025
ESPOO, Finland European connectivity leaders Nokia and Ericsson, have partnered with Berlin's Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI), to shape and drive ...
27/10/2025
PHILADELPHIA Comcast has expanded NOW TV Latino, its Spanish-language live TV and streaming offering, adding five more channels from Univision, ViX Premium with...
27/10/2025
Test & measurement innovator, Leader Electronics, will present its latest products and solutions at InterBEE 2025 (Hall 5, Booth 5218) Makuhari Messe in Chiba, ...
27/10/2025
Back to All News
City of Shadows, the New Netflix Thriller Arrives on December 12
Entertainment
27 October 2025
GlobalSpain
Link copied to clipboard
Downl...
US Open Returns: How ESPN's Biggest Production Was Transformed Health and safety needs add a complicating factor By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
