LOS ANGELES—Fox Sports is reporting record viewing levels for the FIFA World Cup 2026, which culminated on Sunday with a historic Final match that saw 38,937,000 viewers watch on Fox, an all-time high mark for viewership as the new most-watched soccer telecast in U.S. television history and most-watched FIFA World Cup™ final ever in the U.S.

According to Nielsen Media Research the record-breaking Final reached its dramatic peak with 51,685,000 viewers watching from 5:45 to 6:00 PM ET as Spain secured a 1-0 victory in extra time over Argentina.

Overall, FIFA World Cup 2026 finished as the most-watched FIFA World Cup in U.S. history averaging 7,737,000 viewers across 104 matches on Fox, FS1 and Tubi up +116% vs. FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 (3,588,000) and up +179 vs. FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 (2,770,000).

Fox Sports' FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage also redefined digital sports consumption, generating more than 17.2 billion content views on Fox Sports digital and social platforms to become the most digitally viewed event in network history.

Across Fox Sports social media, tournament content generated a record-breaking 16.5 billion social impressions with 2,560 of Fox Sports' FIFA World Cup 2026 social videos surpassing one million views. During the tournament’s 39-day run, Fox Sports grew its social media audience by more than 10 million followers.

Fox Sports recorded 542 million social video views on Sunday, July 19 around the FIFA World Cup 2026™ Final - the most socially viewed day in its history.

Other key viewing highlights from the FIFA World Cup 2026 included:

• Up +132% vs. FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Final (France vs. Argentina, Sunday morning 12/18/22, 16,784,000 viewers); up +240% vs. FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 Final, (France vs. Croatia, Sunday morning 7/15/18, 11,441,000 viewers).
• Fox Sports’ jam-packed, four-hour "FIFA World Cup Live" pregame show scored 2,873,000 viewers as America gathered in anticipation for the epic closing ceremony and festivities in the leadup to Spain vs. Argentina.
• The 38,937,000 viewers bested the previous record for most-watched soccer telecast in U.S. history set earlier in the tournament by U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) vs. Belgium in the Round of 16 (33,089,000 viewers).
• FIFA World Cup 2026™ finished as the most-watched FIFA World Cup™ in U.S. history averaging 7,737,000 viewers across 104 matches on Fox, FS1 and Tubi up +116% vs. FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ (3,588,000) and up +179 vs. FIFA World Cup Russia 2018™ (2,770,000).
• On Saturday, July 18, the bronze final on Fox between France and England drew 13,130,000 viewers becoming the most-watched FIFA Men’s World Cup third-place telecast in U.S. history (previous record: Uruguay vs. Germany, FIFA World Cup South Africa 2010, 4,755,000 viewers). France vs. England finished up +232% from the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 third-place match on Fox (Croatia vs. Morocco, Saturday morning, 3,956,000 viewers) and up +330% from the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 third-place match on Fox (Belgium vs. England, Saturday morning, 3,052,000 viewers).
• France vs. England peaked at 18,529,000 viewers from 6:45 to 7:00 PM ET.
• Two FIFA World Cup 2026 matches surpassed 30 million viewers (the Final and U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) vs. Belgium Round of 16).
• Five broke 20 million viewers (Final, USMNT vs. Belgium, USMNT vs. Bosnia-Herzegovina Round of 32, Norway vs. England Quarterfinal and Mexico vs. England Round of 16).
• 11 matches surged past the 15 million viewers markNine FIFA World Cup 2026 telecasts on Fox eclipsed the previous high mark for most-watched FIFA Men’s World Cup telecast of all-time (France vs. Argentina, FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ Final on Fox, 16,784,000 viewers).
• Two FIFA World Cup 2026 matches surpassed 30 million viewers (the Final and U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) vs. Belgium Round of 16).
• Five broke 20 million viewers (Final, USMNT vs. Belgium, USMNT vs. Bosnia-Herzegovina Round of 32, Norway vs. England Quarterfinal and Mexico vs. England Round of 16).
• 11 matches surged past the 15 million viewers mark.
• Nine FIFA World Cup 2026 telecasts on Fox eclipsed the previous high mark for most-watched FIFA Men’s World Cup telecast of all-time (France vs. Argentina, FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Final on Fox, 16,784,000 viewers).
• Fox Sports’ first-ever "Always On" live stream - available exclusively on the Fox Sports YouTube channel, TikTok (starting Round of 32), Tubi, FoxSports.com and the Fox Sports App - launched June 11 and remained live for 974 consecutive hours over the course of the entire tournament and beyond, generating 1.2 billion total minutes of watch time across platforms. Fans watching on the Fox Sports YouTube channel generated more than two million comments, with half of all live stream viewers choosing to watch with live chat enabled to engage with other fans on a second screen.
• Editorial coverage reached historic levels as FIFA World Cup 2026 became the most-read event in Fox Sports history, with time spent across FoxSports.com and the Fox Sports App increasing +73% compared to FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
• Over the span of the tournament, Fox Sports produced over 300 live-streaming shows, pushed out over 27,000 social media posts and authored more than 1,300 stories around FIFA World Cup 2026, representing the most ambitious and successful digital content operation in the network’s history.

About one third of the way through the 2026 FIFA World Cup and Fox Sports is assessing the first two weeks of coverage in the quadrennial tournament. As the host U.S. broadcaster, Fox Sports is working out of the International Broadcast Center at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, where HBS, (Host Broadcaster Services). The facility serves as HBS's global broadcast operations center for 180 broadcasters covering the tournament taking place across 16 host cities in Canada, Mexico and the USA, June 11-July 19.

As expected, the technical operations have run smoothly with the biggest challenges being pure logistics and preparing for the unexpected, according to Kevin Callahan, senior vice president of field operations and engineering for Fox Sports.

“The biggest challenge is by far the weather and travel in North America and the size and enormity of the coverage,” he said. Criss-crossing between stadiums on the west coast to the east coast in one day while managing coverage of multiple matches simultaneously is no easy task but Callahan believes the network has created the kind of memorable event that resonates with soccer fans.

“What we are bringing to the viewer is truly amazing,” he said. “We want to be where the fans are, we want to create that sense of FOMO for fans—if you're not out at the matches, you're missing the big party of this tournament.”

NEVER ENOUGH
In broadcast, one can never have enough redundancy and that philosophy extends to the World Cup like perhaps no other event, especially one played in the middle of summer when weather plays such an important role, from whether a game is played on schedule or technical or on-air talent have to travel from city to city.

“We have plans in place for every scenario that we can think of,” Callahan said. "I have a firm belief, if you have one, you have none; if you have two, you have one. So, when it comes to equipment redundancy, we have that in place. We have some personnel redundancy, but we also have backup plans when it comes to travel.”

One area that Callahan noted was the impact of construction on maintaining connections.

“It’s construction season in the summer in the U.S., particularly in northern routes, and we've certainly dealt with our fair share of fiber cuts,” Callahan said, adding that none of those cuts have resulted in the loss of signal “because of the diversity that our network engineering and architecture team has put in place.”

All matches have commentators in-venue, but Fox Sports’ studio show travels to venues across the three countries as well, giving Fox a presence inside each stadium while keeping much of the production engine in familiar facilities.

Fox Sports is leaning on its HRP (Home Run Productions) workflows for both its match and studio coverage. Upgraded for the World Cup, HRP’s REMI infrastructure is a standards-based IP workflow that uses Appear’s X platform to support both JPEG XS and low-latency HEVC on a single platform.

Although the matches themselves are produced by HBS on behalf of FIFA, Fox picks up the feed at the International Broadcast Center in Dallas and sends it to production facilities in L.A.

The link between traveling studio teams and the L.A.-based hub includes Fox’s BRISK systems, which Callahan describes as ST 2110-based flypacks that integrate with the company’s permanent facilities, with JPEG XS encoding from Appear used to support low-latency feeds from venues back to the control rooms.

In practical terms, the model allows Fox to keep the live feel of a stadium production without having to replicate the same full-scale setup in every city. Commentators and hosts can remain close to the action, while core production staff work from a consistent base.

'MASTERS OF RESILIENCY'
When the HBS opened last month, FIFA President Gianni Infantino hailed the facility as "the most technologically advanced and top of the art international broadcast center that the world has ever seen."

Callahan sang the praises of HBS as well.

“They truly are masters of resiliency and redundancy as well—they have a plan for everything,” Callahan said. “The signals that they've been able to provide us in the world have been, the signals themselves look pristine. The super slow mo replays that they've added more of this year have been fantastic and really help share the emotion of the tournament.”

Callahan was particularly happy with HBS’s increased attention to audio.

"Over the years, we've been commenting to HBS that we want more field effects—we want to hear more of what's actually going on on the pitch,” Callahan said. “One of the challenges that you face when it comes to soccer is just the sheer size of the pitch and the distance you can actually put a microphone from where the sound is coming from. HBS has done a fantastic job at being able to capture those close ball effects a lot better, and what's going on on the pitch a lot better, and I think this tournament they've nailed it more than anything.”

Since early May, Fox Sports has produced all its content in HDR, and Callahan noted the progress the network has made on the standard.

“Fox switched our entire facility to HDR for the first time, so everything that we're doing in the building is coming natively as HDR, Callahan said. “In the past, when we've done these events, [some of] our studio programming would have originated in SDR. So this is the first time that truly everything is HDR.”

Having a consistent look throughout the expanded 104-match tournament has been a goal from the first day and Callahan says HBS’s role is crucial in this respect.

“You'll be hard pressed to be able to tell the difference between one vs. the other when it comes to the quality of replays, the quality of coverage, they're all consistent, which is really what you want.”

As the 2026 FIFA World Cup moved into the 32-team knockout stage, Fox Sports said viewer interest in the tournament is still strong.

Fox’s June 19 coverage of four matches set an English-language record for the largest full-day audience of men’s World Cup coverage in the U.S., the network said.

The United States-Australia match attracted 16.217 million viewers, making it the second-most-watched English-language group stage telecast in the U.S. ever, followed by 9.174 million average viewers (10.548 million peak viewers) for Scotland-Mexico.

The day also saw 8.741 million viewers (9.894 million peak viewers) for Brazil-Haiti and 2.752 million viewers (3.157 million peak viewers) for Turkey-Paraguay.

Team USA’s 2-0 defeat of Australia had a peak audience of 21.219 million and was the top-rated Friday-afternoon telecast on broadcast TV since Fox’s Christmas Day Minnesota Vikings-New Orleans Saints NFL telecast in 2020.

It was also the second-most-watched U.S. men’s national team game since the U.S.-Paraguay group-stage World Cup match on June 12.

The FIFA World Cup, the pinnacle of live sports excitement for hundreds of millions of fans who watch from every corner of the globe, is coming to North America this month, arriving at a scale broadcasters have never before had to handle.

Between the opening games on June 11 and the July 19 final at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., participating countries—from defending champion Argentina to heavyweights France, England and Spain to Iran, Haiti and New Zealand—will play 104 fiercely contested soccer (aka “football”) matches in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, spread across 16 host cities and several time zones.

For fans, that means more than a month of football that will roll from city to city, stadium to stadium and screen to screen. For Fox Sports and Telemundo, the two host U.S. broadcasters, it means building coverage that can follow the tournament wherever it goes.

That’s the fun of this World Cup, and also the challenge: The coverage needs to feel close to the action in each city, with commentators and presenters plugged into the atmosphere on the ground while managing vast scale and maintaining consistency.

For American viewers, the end result should feel pretty simple: turn on the TV, open the app, catch the highlights and follow the story. Behind the scenes, it will take one of the most complex live sports production operations ever mounted.

To help make sense of this mammoth broadcasting event, TV Tech spoke with two key operators—Kevin Callahan, senior vice president of field operations and engineering for Fox Sports, and Miguel Lorenzo, senior vice president of sports for NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises—about their plans and their vision for how the World Cup can run smoothly.

The Broadcast Chain
Before Fox Sports and Telemundo add their own presentation, the World Cup tournament starts with the host broadcast.

For this World Cup, that role sits with Host Broadcast Services (HBS), FIFA’s appointed host broadcaster, which is responsible for the core match coverage that global media partners receive and build upon, a role it has held for the last six men’s tournaments. The central hub for that operation will be the International Broadcast Center in Dallas, which acts as the tournament’s broadcast nerve center from as early as January through the end of July.

To step back for a moment, HBS provides the shared foundation: the match pictures, the stadium coverage and the technical backbone that allows broadcasters to follow the tournament from city to city.

Rightsholders, such as Fox and Telemundo in the U.S. or BBC and ITV in the U.K., then turn that feed into their own coverage, adding commentators, graphics, studio shows, interviews, streaming output, digital clips and the editorial voice their audiences expect.

Across a tournament of this size, that shared foundation keeps the operation coherent as matches move between 16 host cities. The IBC gives the broadcast chain a central point of coordination, while rightsholders use their own hubs to shape the final program.

For Fox, the English-language rightsholder, that means connecting Dallas with production facilities in Los Angeles; for Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo, it means linking match operations with Telemundo Center in Miami alongside its teams on the ground across North America.

Fox’s Remote Production Model
The scale of the tournament has shaped Fox Sports’ editorial plan and its production model.

“The size of the 2026 FIFA World Cup is unlike anything else we have done,” Callahan said. “The distances covered in the tournament—as well as the number of hours of programming—have forced us to shift the way that we’re thinking and how we’re producing this event.

“All 104 matches will have commentators in-venue, which in and of itself is a feat,” he said. “But our studio show will be traveling to venues across the three countries as well.”

Taking this approach gives Fox a presence inside each stadium while keeping much of the production engine in familiar facilities.

“Fox Sports is leaning on our HRP workflows for both our match and studio coverage,” Callahan said. “The matches themselves are produced by HBS on behalf of FIFA. Fox will pick up that feed at the International Broadcast Center in Dallas and send it to production facilities in L.A.”

Upgraded for the monthlong event, Fox Sports’ HRP (Home Run Productions) REMI infrastructure is a standards-based IP workflow that uses Appear’s X platform to support both JPEG XS and low-latency HEVC on a single platform.

“The commentator audio from the venues will also travel through the Broadcast Contribution Network to the IBC and then to our production facilities in L.A.,” Callahan said.

In Los Angeles, Fox will bring those pieces together for its final match coverage: commentator audio and Fox graphics will be combined in a match control room, while studio programming will be produced from two control rooms as presenters move between venues.

The technical bridge between those traveling studio teams and the L.A.-based hub will include Fox’s BRISK systems, which Callahan describes as ST 2110-based flypacks that integrate with the company’s permanent facilities, with JPEG XS encoding from Appear used to support low-latency feeds from venues back to the control rooms.

In practical terms, the model allows Fox to keep the live feel of a stadium production without having to replicate the same full-scale setup in every city. Commentators and hosts can remain close to the action, while core production staff work from a consistent base.

For viewers, the result should be a broadcast that still feels rooted in the stadium, while relying on centralized workflows to keep the overall operation manageable across more than a month of matches.

In a win for those who love high-fidelity TV, Fox said all studio and match content will be produced in 1080p and available via 4K distribution.

Telemundo’s Local and Platform Approach
For Telemundo, the scale of the tournament is tied closely to the communities hosting it.

“The scale is unlike anything we’ve seen before,” Lorenzo said, echoing Fox’s Callahan. “With 104 matches across three countries, this is the largest World Cup ever, and our production reflects that.

“For Telemundo, it means a significantly expanded footprint...more matches, more cities, more talent, more resources and more content across every platform,” he added. “We will have a presence at every match and a much broader operation overall, but the focus remains the same: delivering an authentic, expert, entertaining and high-quality experience for fans.”

Telemundo’s approach is built around making that expanded footprint feel local. Lorenzo describes 2026 as “the most local World Cup ever,” with on-site teams and commentators capturing the atmosphere inside stadiums and across host cities.

“Being on-site is critical for us,” he said. “This historic World Cup is taking place in our country, our cities and communities. It’s the most local World Cup ever and our coverage needs to reflect and tap into that local excitement.

“We want audiences to feel the energy throughout all our coverage and for our commentators to channel the atmosphere in the stadium directly to audiences,” Lorenzo added. “That’s a big part of what makes our coverage unique.”

Telemundo Center in Miami gives the Spanish-language broadcaster’s on-the-ground operation a central base. Lorenzo said the facility allows the broadcaster to connect studio shows, digital and streaming while keeping teams close to the action at the venues.

Lorenzo said Telemundo Center also allows the broadcaster to “scale efficiently” while connecting “studio shows, digital, and streaming,” with NBCUniversal’s wider resources used to “ensure quality, speed, reliability and scale.”

“It’s a hybrid approach that gives us the best of both worlds: authenticity on the ground and the ability to deliver comprehensive coverage across platforms,” he said.

The mix of platforms is a major part of Telemundo’s World Cup plan: Every match will be available across broadcast, streaming service Peacock and the Telemundo app, with FAST channels, social and companion formats extending coverage around the live games.

“The goal is simple: deliver more games, more content, more access, and a seamless viewing experience across every screen,” Lorenzo said.

Test Case for Future Live Sporting Events
The 2026 NAB Show provided a preview of how broadcasters will handle World Cup coverage, with sessions covering live production, streaming scale, platform resilience and the next wave of digital fan experiences.

For Fox and Telemundo, those ideas are already moving from conference talking points into production plans. The World Cup needs people close to the action, with commentators in stadiums, presenters moving between host cities and coverage that picks up the noise and personality of each venue and moment.

Importantly, it also needs centralized control rooms, remote links, IP workflows, and platform teams capable of serving TV channels, streaming apps, digital clips, social feeds and highlights across 104 matches.

That balance makes the upcoming World Cup a useful test case for the next phase of live sports production under an increasingly hybrid model: Enough on-site presence to keep the coverage alive and enough centralized infrastructure to make a geographically scattered tournament feel joined up.

As Lorenzo rightly pointed out: “In the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, all stadiums were basically within a 35-mile radius. In 2026, the closest two stadiums are between New York [East Rutherford] and Philadelphia. The largest distances are between Miami and Vancouver.

“That is a lot of ground to cover but it’s also an amazing and unique position to be in because of the incredibly diverse storytelling opportunities,” he said.

For viewers, the best version of that future should feel straightforward. The match is on, the app works, the highlights arrive quickly and the coverage feels connected to the city where the game is being played.

Behind the scenes, the production chain will be doing far more work than ever to make the biggest World Cup yet feel easy to watch from anywhere in the world.

Whoever you are rooting for, have a fantastic World Cup. Your author will be in Guadalajara to see South Korea vs. Czechia on opening day and cheering on England to the final.

LOS ANGELES—Fox Sports, America's English-language home for the FIFA World Cup 2026, and Fox Corporation have announced community impact initiatives leading up to the tournament that include a $500,000 commitment to Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA).

The investment expands Fox Sports' dedication to growing access to soccer for youth and is part of a broader, multi-year community impact platform collaboration with BGCA and nonprofit organization, Common Goal, designed to create lasting opportunities for young people through soccer across the United States, the company reported.

"As Fox Sports prepares to present the largest FIFA World Cup in history, we have a unique opportunity to ensure the tournament's legacy is measured not only by unforgettable moments on the pitch, but by the lasting impact it creates in communities nationwide," said Eric Shanks, CEO and executive producer, Fox Sports. "We are honored to support the efforts of Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Common Goal, U.S. Soccer Foundation and others to expand access to soccer and create opportunities for the next generation both on and off the field."

The $500,000 investment will support youth soccer programming offered by BGCA, expanding access to the sport and creating new opportunities for young athletes nationwide. The legacy commitment is expected to engage more than 26,000 new youth across the country, while helping to train coaches and create job opportunities for Club teens as referees. The donation also enables local clubs nationwide to host Soccer Forward Fests, community-based events designed by U.S. Soccer to celebrate and deepen engagement in the sport.

"Soccer can open up new opportunities for youth and this collaboration with Fox Sports will allow us to support young athletes across the country," said Jim Clark, President and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of America. "This monumental donation will allow us to uplevel our support for players, coaches, referees and more, contributing to their success on and off the soccer field."

Building on its efforts from FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and FIFA Women's World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023, Fox Sports is expanding its community initiatives ahead of the 2026 tournament through such organizations as Common Goal, U.S. Soccer Foundation, and its own long running Fox Sports University program.

The company said that these combined efforts will increase access to the game, support mental health and create pathways for the next generation of players and professionals.

Fox Sports also noted that it is the only national broadcaster to take Common Goal's 1% pledge, committing one percent of its tournament coverage since 2022 to tell the story of soccer for social good across its platforms.

Together with Common Goal, Fox Sports will continue using the power of soccer to drive positive social impact through initiatives focused on inclusion, well-being and access to the game. This includes the company's commitment to the next chapter of "Create the Space," the mental health initiative led by Common Goal and launched in 2023 together with U.S. Women's National Team defender Naomi Girma and Fox Sports and Fox Corporation during the FIFA Women's World Cup 2023. The initiative delivers youth-focused mental wellness training programs to soccer-based youth organizations across North America and the Caribbean, equipping the next generation with the tools to thrive both on and off the field.

"I'm proud of the work we've been able to accomplish at Common Goal to bring more awareness around how mental health impacts athletes. This support from Fox Sports and Fox Corporation allows us to make even stronger and more meaningful impact and change for good," said Girma.

(Editor's note: Michael Davies will be the featured speaker during tomorrow's TVTech Talk webinar on sports production. He will discuss Fox Sports' preparations for Indy 500 and 2026 FIFA World Cup coverage. Register here to attend.)

SPEEDWAY, Ind.—The crash involving drivers Alexander Rossi, Pat O’Ward and Romain Grosjean during Indianapolis 500 Qualifying Monday once again demonstrated to race fans what in-car cameras bring to coverage as driver view shots from inside O’Ward and Rossi’s cars gave viewers the closest experience they’ll ever have to a smashup at more than 200 mph.

Those shots, however, are only one of multiple different in-car angles viewers can expect May 24 during Fox Sports’ coverage of the 110^th running of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

New for this year’s race coverage from the cars are what the broadcaster has dubbed “Top Gun” cameras, miniature RF cameras pointed at drivers in the cockpit, and what it is calling a Buckeye Camera mounted on the rear quarter panel of Indy cars.

“Inspiration for our ‘Top Gun’ camera comes from some of the films about racing,” said Michael Davies, Fox Sports executive vice president of technical and field operations. “F1: The Movie was a fantastic inspiration to see what we could do, and our director [Mitch Riggin] thought of how to get this amazing shot of the driver’s head looking straight on.”

The addition of the rear quarter panel camera brings another angle to engage the audience with new views of racing and pit action, he added.

“There’s just a lot of inspiration that goes into figuring out how to not only get the cameras that show you the X’s and O’s and the strategy, but also the emotion of it—the kind of thing you might see in a cinematic production,” said Davies.

These two new camera angles join the Racing Force micro-cameras embedded in drivers’ helmets at eyeline for Driver’s Eye shots, which Fox Sports used during its inaugural Indy 500 coverage last year and which captured yesterday’s qualifying round crash in such detail, as well as on-board forward and rear hoop angles and sidepod and suspension views.

To augment the Driver’s Eye shots, Fox Sports will key on its heads-up display (HUD) telemetry, including throttle, brake gear, speed and other key data.

(Editor’s note: Live coverage of the Indy 500 begins at 10 a.m. EDT on Fox. The green flag drops at 12:30 p.m. EDT. Coverage is also available via Fox One and the Fox Sports App.)

By The Numbers

Production of the Indianapolis 500 is a massive undertaking—not only in terms of the technology used to cover the race from the 1,000 acres Speedway property, but also the number of people in attendance. About 350,000 people are expected, including 235,000 in the stands, 100,000 in the infield and about 12,000 workers.

To capture the race, Fox Sports will deploy cameras at about 70 positions around the Speedway to supply more than 100 camera fees. Ten cameras will run at up to 240 fps 4x HFR to deliver what the broadcaster is calling “cinema-grade” slow motion. Fourteen RF handheld cameras and six pit-box cameras from NEP Broadcast Sports International (BSI) will provide roaming shots. The broadcaster will also provide some 30 ISO replay channels from five EVS systems.

Fox Sports is producing the race in 1080p HDR with a crew of about 200 production personnel, some of whom have worked on the IndyCar tour for decades. It will distribute its show in 4K UHD.

Drones and Digital Cinema

Fox Sports is adding a third drone to its airborne complement of cameras for this year’s race. Beverly Hills Aerials, which the broadcaster has turned to for major tent pole events, including NASCAR and IndyCar races, is providing the drone camera platforms and piloting them.

“The thing about Indy is it’s just vast,” said Davies. “To get around very quickly on the track, there’s no real substitute for utilizing drones. Motorsports is one of those sports that lends itself to using drones for actual coverage of the sport, not just beauty shots.”

The three drones and a Helivision helicopter will provide first-person view (FPV) shots, aerial coverage of pre-race events and shots of “some of the more histrionics” of the day at the Brickyard, he said.

The use of drones has evolved over time. While Fox Sports will not fly drones of the track during races, drones have become safer with the addition of features like parachutes and other safety equipment that not only ensure safety but make it legally allowed to fly over people, he noted.

“Certainly, from where we were a few years ago, the drone space and the flexibility in how they are used have opened up, and IndyCar has been a fantastic partner in understanding the importance of drones in the coverage and the overall presentation of the of the product,” Davies added.

For its Indy 500 remote studio show, Fox Sports is deploying more than 10 ARRI digital cinema cameras specially outfitted by The Helm to eliminate operational complexity and enable the broadcaster to integrate them into its live production pipeline, he said.

“We've been convinced these cameras have some interesting properties that can help us in terms of light tolerance and the ability to dial up and down a shallow depth of field, depending not just on the look we want but also because there may be things we don’t want viewers to see,” said Davies.

On-Site Production

As with its coverage of last year’s race, Fox Sports again is partnering with Indy Motor Sports (IMS) Productions, which has rolled its HD-5 IP-based mobile production unit to the speedway. The broadcaster is augmenting HD-5’s capabilities with Game Creek’s Ovation mobile unit, which also serves as Fox Sports’ flagship truck for NASCAR coverage.

NEP BSI, which provides end-to-end, turnkey RF and microwave services for race coverage, has brought a truck to the track as well, as has CE+T, which is providing Fox Sports with power. The broadcaster will use about 2 MWs of power, including primary and backup, across the production compound and its remote sets.

Infinite Structures has also built temporary remote offices and broadcast facilities for the production crew. In all, Fox Sports is deploying 12 mobile units for race coverage.

These units make this year’s Indy 500 a rather “old-school” remote production setup, “but it’ll probably be the last one,” said Davies.

“One of the things we saw when we came in to do our first year of IndyCar was that besides Indy itself [the Indianapolis Motor Speedway], there was virtually no other tracks that had the fiber need to even consider doing distributed production,” he said.

Over the past year, Fox Sports has worked with Lumen Technologies to outfit IndyCar tracks with the fiber optic infrastructure needed to support distributed production. “Indy has always been the outlier in that respect because they always had it [fiber] there,” said Davies.

Even though there are some 20 miles of fiber optic cable is in place around the speedway, “we wanted to sort of crawl, walk and run on this, and didn’t sink too many resources into distributed production methods,” he said, adding that next year will be different.

Remember The Future

Distributed production isn’t the only thing Fox Sports is teeing up for next year’s Indy 500 race coverage. Managing RF cameras more efficiently is also planned. “We’re testing a lot to see what we can bring back, maybe not in terms of the number of cameras, but rather in a more intelligent way,” said Davies. “Even if you were able to bring back five cameras from a car—whether it’s an IndyCar or NASCAR—I’m not sure what you’d be able to do with all of that.”

How those remote camera signals are managed is only one part of the next generation of the connected car, however. Radio and location technology are others, he noted.

Currently, Fox Sports relies on SportsMEDIA Technology for GPS location data and is looking at how it is evolving. “Whether it’s NASCAR or IndyCar, we only have two channels of audio coming back from the cars. We need more.”

All of these sources rely on RF connectivity, and Fox Sports is working with Verizon on using a private 5G network to augment that.

“We’ve been working with Verizon to help understand what their technology can do,” said Davies. “You know, the interesting part is that if you’re going to test something and it has to work at the biggest events, then it’s absolutely essential to bring a testing environment into the Indy 500, because if it doesn’t work there or at the Daytona 500 or Talladega, then it doesn’t work.”

OSLO, Norway & LOS ANGELES—Appear has announced that Fox Sports is deploying Appear’s X Platform, a high-capacity, ultra-dense, low-latency media processing and gateway platform.

Fox Sports using the solution to build a unified foundation to support remote production, premium live events and large-scale IP workflows.

The rollout builds on an initial deployment and now extends across three major areas of Fox Sports’ production infrastructure: a refresh of HRP (Home Run Productions) REMI infrastructure, a standards-based IP workflow supporting coverage of a major global soccer event taking place in the Americas in Summer 2026, and the broadcaster’s Jewel Events production system for its highest-profile live broadcasts.

Appear and Fox did not specify the soccer event but Fox is the English-language broadcaster for this summer’s FIFA World Cup. Following the World Cup, Fox Sports plans to redeploy the same infrastructure across other major national broadcasts, including American football and baseball.

Together, these deployments create a common technology foundation supporting Fox Sports’ production models, from field kits and mobile units to large-scale premium live events.

“By adopting Appear across our REMI workflows, Jewel Events productions and Summer 2026 soccer coverage, we are creating a flexible production architecture that can support the scale and complexity of sports broadcasting today,” said Rob Rees, vice president, live production engineering, Fox Sports. “The ability to choose the right compression and transport approach depending on venue requirements, while maintaining the highest standards of performance and reliability, is critical to delivering the biggest moments in live sport.”

More specifically, the deployment spans three areas of its live production infrastructure:

• HRP REMI infrastructure refresh. Fox Sports’ Home Run Productions (HRP) operation is modernizing its remote production infrastructure, replacing legacy contribution and processing systems across field kits, mobile production trucks and compact deployments. By supporting both JPEG XS and low-latency HEVC on a single platform, Appear enables a consistent production approach across a broad range of live sports, while providing the flexibility to optimise codec choice and bandwidth usage without compromising operational efficiency.
• Standards-based IP production for Summer 2026 soccer coverage. For coverage of a major global soccer event in the Americas in Summer 2026, Fox Sports is deploying a REMI production workflow based on SMPTE ST 2110 and JPEG XS. This standards-based approach will enable ultra-low latency contribution of 104 live matches over 39 days, allowing workflows to seamlessly adapt across venues with different connectivity profiles.
• Jewel Events production system. Appear technology is also being deployed within Fox Sports’ Jewel Events production system, supporting the broadcaster’s highest-profile national live broadcasts with a scalable and robust processing platform.

Across the deployment, Fox Sports’ infrastructure includes Appear X20 platforms across HRP and Jewel environments, alongside Appear X5 systems supporting the commentator workflows.

The X5 provides a compact contribution solution for distributed production, enabling remotely located commentators to receive live feeds and deliver synchronised commentary with ultra-low latency.

Using a single platform, Fox Sports can select the optimal workflow for each production environment, from ultra-low latency JPEG XS over SMPTE ST 2110 to HEVC and SRT for more constrained or variable networks. This approach allows production teams to maintain consistent workflows regardless of venue connectivity conditions.

Looking forward, Fox Sports plans to redeploy the same infrastructure across other major national broadcasts, including American football and baseball, maximizing long-term value while maintaining performance and reliability.

“Fox Sports is setting a benchmark for how major broadcasters are evolving their live production infrastructures,” said Ed McGivern, president and GM, Appear US. “By deploying a single high-performance platform, they can scale workflows from compact field kits to the most demanding premium sports events.”

Join Appear at NAB Show 2026 (Booth: W1531) for live demonstrations of its latest live production solutions. To schedule a meeting, email: appear@platformcomms.com

LAS VEGAS—PSSI Global Services, a provider of live event transmission solutions, has acquired Beagle Networks, a developer of mission-critical IT infrastructure and onsite technical support for media and enterprise customers. Financial terms were not disclosed.

For more than a decade, Beagle has helped develop bespoke, robust IT and networking solutions for some of the largest live broadcasts in North America, including the World Series and the Super Bowl. Beagle has built its reputation on designing secure, resilient networks with both onsite and remote support, along with immediate, 24/7 responsiveness to its customers, PSSI said.

Ryan Werber, Founder and President of Beagle Networks, will continue to lead the team of network engineers and field technicians.

“We could not be more excited about PSSI’s investment in our company,” said Werber. “We’ve been working alongside PSSI for years on TV compounds, and their reputation in the industry is second to none. Combining PSSI’s transmission engineering and project management expertise with Beagle’s IT and network capabilities creates an impressive solution platform for the live events industry.”

One early initiative of the PSSI and Beagle teams will be a consolidated effort to more comprehensively support Fox Sports, a legacy customer of both companies.

“Complexity and innovation are standard across live productions, which is why Fox Sports trusts Beagle Networks and PSSI," said Brad Cheney, vice president of Field Operations and Engineering at Fox Sports. "We’re excited to see how this partnership evolves to navigate the increasing demands of today’s broadcast landscape."

In addition to its service to existing customers, including INDYCAR, NASCAR, and numerous enterprise customers, Beagle will leverage PSSI’s extensive engineering and project management expertise to expand its service capabilities. Beagle will also lend its know-how to ongoing IT upgrades at the PSSI International Teleport (PIT) and PSSI’s professional services portfolio.

“As soon as we met the team at Beagle, we knew they would be a perfect fit for the culture and spirit we have at PSSI Global Services,” said Derek Blount, CEO of PSSI Global. “We’ve been looking for the right opportunities to expand PSSI’s reach in the live event marketplace and beyond. Bringing Beagle into the family will enable us to provide so much more to our customers and their valuable content, from the TV compound to the teleport and to their viewers around the world.”

The PSSI/Beagle team will be in Booth W1543 of the West Hall of the LVCC at the 2026 NAB Show in Las Vegas, April 19-22.

It only makes sense that it took an out-of-this-world effort to produce the 2026 World Baseball Classic, given that the event was broadcast in 172 countries and territories.

That access and the increasing popularity of the event led to record numbers of viewers for the tournament, which was played in Miami, Houston, San Juan, Puerto Rico and Tokyo from March 5-17.

For instance, the championship game, a 3-2 win by Venezuela over the United States, was seen by 10.8 million viewers on Fox and Fox Deportes. That number is nearly double the 4.9 million who watched Japan defeat the U.S. in the 2023 final.

All told, the 2026 WBC averaged almost 1.3 million viewers for its games on Fox, FS1 and FS2, which was more than double the 506,000 for the 2023 tournament.

With viewership and production expectations so high, Fox was well prepared in the camera department, lensing the action from the usual positions and many more: The mostly-Sony package included high home, high first, high third, low first and low third; plus center and tight center; mid-home robotic and dugout robotic, with two bullpen POVs and a booth handheld.

But that still wasn’t all, since the impact of the games―and the production―had much to do with MLB Network’s approach to present the international spectacle through its world feed.

“We employed two shallow depth of field rightfield cameras, also known as ‘The Megalodon’ (the Mirrorless Gyro-stabilized Lightweight DSLR Nano-rig),” said MLB Network Director of Remote Technical Operations Steve Dolce. Those cameras were supplied by St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Faction Media and were paired with wireless RX/TX equipment from CP Communications, also of St. Petersburg.

Other key equipment was provided by L.A.-based Beverly Hills Aerials, for the in-game drone; an RF Wireless for UmpVu, which is an umpire mask with a built-in camera for the behind-the-plate perspective, for all of the USA games; and from Tempe, Ariz.-based Defy Products, the Wirecam and its new Dirt Cam system, which debuted during the WBC.

Indeed, the WBC proved to be the forum to place cameras virtually anywhere possible. “We placed four in-ground cameras to give us a ‘worm’s eye view’ of [the] three bases and home plate,” said Dolce, which gave the broadcast some incredibly unique views.”

As for the most memorable aspect of the expansive broadcast, Dolce said it was simply capturing the excitement of the tournament.

“Across the board, we really wanted to capture the noise and excitement from the crowds. We added a few extra natural sound mics,” said Dolce, to pick up the sounds of the crowd. “You could really feel that passion in the broadcast, which was incredibly cool.”

Secondly, he said, “When you think about the phrase ‘world feed,’ you need to remember it’s your truck and crew providing game coverage to every fan watching. Rights holders could augment the coverage, but it’s your game feed at the heart of it.

And being in that position, Dolce said, “is a daunting, but amazing, feeling.”

Broadcasting the WBC was different from MLB Network’s usual transmissions, because it used NEP Connect as its international distribution hub. “That ensured strong 24/7 performance from the WBC Network Operations Center, while keeping MLB’s typical distributions focused on spring training,” said MLB Vice President of Broadcast Products and Services Jason Hedgcock.

Any format conversation or standard changes that were needed to connect with the international transmission were handled at distribution by NEP.

As for the biggest challenge, Dolce said that it was the need to constantly plan ahead. “Every round brought additional rights holders and equipment,” he said. “We had to be strategic on things like power and the space needed for drones, launch points and RF gear. The fiber team and I managed fiber drops around the ballpark for all the rights holders.

“We had to be diligent,” said Dolce, “in making sure the proper resources were allocated and tested before anyone plugged in.”

Given the enormity of the undertaking and its global reach, the crew at MLB Network is already thinking about how to heighten the approach for the next tournament.

“There’s something incredibly special about the World Baseball Classic. Each time, it gets bigger and bigger, with more people contributing all over the world,” said MLB Network Senior Vice President of Remote Events Tommy Guidice. “We’re proud of the content we were able to produce.”

(Editor’s note: UFL action begins tonight on Fox with the Birmingham Stallions taking on the Louisville Kings at 8 p.m. EDT. First week matchups continue Saturday, March 28, with the DC Defenders taking at the St. Louis Battlehawks at noon EDT on ESPN; the Houston Gamblers vs. Dallas Renegades at 4 p.m. EDT on Fox; and the Colombus Aviators at Orlando Storm on ESPN at 8 p.m. EDT.)

LOUISVILLE, Ky.—Drones over the field, cameras embedded in helmets and chest pads and Steadicam operators running on and off the field during games are only a few of the television production technologies and techniques pioneered last season by the United Football League—better known as the UFL—owned in part by Fox Corp. and Disney.

No wonder then that the league is willing to push the envelope a bit when it comes to exploring ways production technology can enhance the viewing experience. While many of the same elements used last season will return for the 2026 campaign, both Fox Sports and ESPN will be relying on important enhancements behind the scenes to advance this season’s coverage, which begins tonight.

Fiber and 5G
Signal acquisition from the field and around the venues as well as contribution back to the sports broadcasters’ respective remote production centers will benefit from enhanced tech.

Fox Sports is expanding its use of a private 5G wireless network this season, according to Brad Cheney, vice president of field operations and engineering at Fox Sports.

“We've been at the forefront of private wireless networks, and we're going to deploy them this year full time on every one of our shows” said Cheney. “We are working with CP Communications and Verizon to do that, and we're really excited to see that in daily operation every single game for us across the UFL season.”

The success of last season’s trial use of a private 5G wireless network for camera acquisition proved successful with respect to reliability and ultra-low latency, leading the broadcaster to expand its commitment to the technology.

This season, it will deploy the private wireless network to support 1080p HDR video acquisition from three cameras, including two RF handhelds and its Megalodon camera, as well as 15 wireless comms packs. Each 5G camera transmitter is “roughly the same size and weight” as its traditional COFDM counterpart, said Cheney.

Cheney noted that even though Fox Sports is deploying its own private 5G network at each UFL venue, the wireless network still exists within the broader 5G footprint of the carrier in general and more specifically of the public wireless networks at the various league venues. That fact at the moment limits how many wireless cameras the broadcaster will use on its private 5G network.

“Obviously, the cell networks in the U.S. have been built around download—somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% download and 20% upload. Carriers are slowly changing that. But as that is done, it affects the people and the frequencies around you,” he said.

“The closer you get to 50-50, or inverting it to 80% [upload] and 20% [download], that's when things start affecting other things around you.”

“That's a really dynamic piece of the puzzle. The No. 1 thing we have to work on in every single venue is understanding the other cell networks around us,” said Cheney. “We’ve spent a lot of time mapping out these stadiums to figure out these things and make sure we can provide extensive coverage, not just coverage on the field.”

Cheney noted that for now, other wireless cameras—especially specialty cameras like pylon and player-worn cameras—will remain COFDM because there is no pressing need to re-engineer existing off-the-shelf traditional wireless camera backs simply to accommodate a miniaturized 5G alternative.

Like Fox Sports, ESPN is entering this UFL season with an eye towards how it can best produce games. Several new venues will be used this season. Six, including those in Washington, D.C., Orlando, Fla., Houston, Frisco, Texas, Louisville, Ky., and Columbus, Ohio, are used for professional soccer.

“A lot of these MLS [Major League Soccer] stadiums don't have the same robust fiber infrastructure that, say, an NFL stadium might have,” said Eric Kimmel,  supervisor of remote operations at ESPN.

ESPN, along with Fox Sports and the UFL worked together in the offseason to ensure sufficient fiber-optic resources would be in place prior to tonight’s season kickoff, said Jim Birch, senior manager of remote operations at ESPN.

“A lot of this planning started well in advance of the season—months in advance—doing site surveys,” said Birch. “The league, Fox and ESPN got together and looked at the infrastructure of these new venues to establish a foundational infrastructure.”

Those surveys identified a pressing need to build out the fiber infrastructure in place for the broadcasters’ UFL productions. “The league did a lot of installs,” said Birch. “It seems like we put in thousands of strands of fiber [in the aggregate] across all of these new stadiums to prepare them to produce our games.”

ESPN will make best use of available fiber bandwidth to support its REMI productions with the help of new encoding technology it first used last fall. “For the past college football season, we utilized new transmission encoders from Appear,” said Kimmel. “They were a great success.”

The encoder enables ESPN’s A Crew to transport 23 paths of HEVC-encoded 1080p HDR video back to its REMI control rooms in Bristol, Conn., and its B and C Crews to use 20 paths, he said.

School of Hard Knocks
One notable addition to the production was the use of wireless cameras embedded in select players’ chest pads. The results were mixed.

“Frankly, we learned from the chest camera last year,” said Bryan Jaroch, vice president of sports production at ESPN. “They [the league] thought it would be able to take the impact of hits, and they tested it. There were times when it did crack, or it didn’t work as well as we all had hoped.”

That lesson directed ESPN to try a different approach this season. “The chest cam cannot take that impact,” he said. “We actually tested the POVORA camera on kickers a couple of weeks ago in Arlington.” The POVORA tilt control CapCam, which ESPN used last college football season and has been nominated for a George Wensel Technical Achievement Emmy Award, may be used in other applications.

“We may try to put that on coaches or players on the sidelines. But in terms of the impact, that was one of the shortfalls with MindFly [used during the 2025 UFL season], where it could not take those hits. We’re going to work with POVORA to see what we can do with their CapCam like put it on some referees,” said Jaroch.

“They also have a BodyCam version of their cameras, so we’ll try some new technology there.”

The Ramifications
The UFL’s willingness to try innovative technologies and production techniques attracted the interest of other sports leagues throughout last season, and the efforts of Fox Sports and ESPN to implement them paid off, both broadcasters agreed.

ESPN’s Jaroch pointed to the ACC’s decision to give the sports network greater access to its replay command center during some 2025 ACC football action as an outgrowth of what the broadcaster accomplished last season with the UFL replay command center.

Fox Sports, too, points to various tech deployments during the 2025 UFL season that influenced how sports were covered in other leagues. “The automated first-and-10 setup is something the NFL did this season,” said Cheney, adding that it is one of the most visible examples.

Another is drones. “Our use of the drone at UFL games has definitely driven access across all sports,” he said.

Only time will tell how this year’s new tech deployments will influence sports production beyond the UFL.

For more information on the 2026 season, visit https://www.theufl.com/

LOS ANGELES—Fox Sports, which has the U.S. English-language rights to the FIFA World Cup 2026, has announced that it will offer 340 hours of first-run programming between June 11 through July 19, a 100-hour increase over FIFA World Cup 2022, and a record 70-matches presented on Fox network television, more than double the matches in 2022.

Fox Sports' FIFA World Cup 2026 schedule is primed to take over summer airwaves with all 104 tournament matches airing live across Fox (70) and FS1 (34) with every match streaming live and on-demand within Fox One's new, innovative World Cup viewing experience and the Fox Sports App.

Every match will be available in 4K on Fox One and most major Pay TV providers. Additionally, an unprecedented 40 matches, more than one-third of the tournament, will air in primetime across Fox (21) and FS1(19).

"FIFA is putting on the biggest World Cup in history, and Fox Sports is living up to that standard," said Eric Shanks, CEO & executive producer, Fox Sports. "Our broadcast schedule affirms Fox is truly going to be America's home for the beautiful game over a span of 39 incredible days. We look forward to bringing the country together for its 250th birthday with all the world here for the greatest event on the planet."

More specifically, Fox's broadcast slate will be headlined by 40 Group Stage matches and 14 Round of 32 matches. Beginning on the Fourth of July with the Round of 16, every match through the end of the tournament airs on Fox, including eight Round of 16 matches, four Quarterfinal matches, two Semifinal matches, the third-place match and the FIFA World Cup 2026 Final. An additional 32 Group Stage matches and two Round of 32 matches will air on FS1.

Appearing in their 12th FIFA World Cup, the USMNT will face three opponents out of Group D with all three matches airing on Fox.

For the first time ever, Tubi, Fox Corporation's ad-supported streaming service which reaches over 100 million monthly active users will simulcast live in 4K for free the FIFA World Cup 2026 opening ceremonies and two matches: Mexico vs. South Africa on Thursday, June 11 and USMNT vs. Paraguay on Friday, June 12.

Additionally, one month ahead of kickoff, Tubi will launch FIFA World Cup Fox Hub on Sunday, May 10 as a destination for soccer fans featuring Fox Sports and FIFA programming around the games and athletes, in addition to original, exclusive and creator content from Tubi and the opening ceremonies and two matches listed above for the USMNT and Mexico. Tubi original content will include the docuseries "Destination World Cup 2026," which immerses fans into the lives of three standout players through the intensity of international duty, the weight of club expectations and the ongoing effort to stay grounded amid global scrutiny, with more titles to be announced.

FIFA World Cup 2026 will be the first tournament hosted by three countries – United States, Mexico and Canada – with 48 teams competing across 16 host cities. Eleven cities will be hosting the tournament in the U.S. including Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York New Jersey, Philadelphia, Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Specific details on matches and airtimes are available here.

The NFL’s wild-card playoff round scored hefty viewing numbers for all five games, with Fox leading the weekend with 41 million viewers for the Jan. 11 San Francisco 49ers-Philadelphia Eagles game and Prime Video setting an all-time streaming record for NFL viewing.

Fox also reported 28 million viewers for its coverage of the Jan. 10 Los Angeles Rams-Carolina Panthers game, which peaked at 31 million viewers and was the most-watched Saturday afternoon wild-card playoff game since 2011.

Citing Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel, Amazon’s Prime Vdeo reported that its Jan. 10 coverage of the primetime Green Bay Packers-Chicago Bears game set an all-time NFL streaming record with 31.61 million viewers, shattering the previous record by 4 million, set on Christmas Day with 27.52 million for the Netflix telecast of the Detroit Lions-Minnesota Vikings game.

Packers-Bears saw a 43% year-over-year viewership increase over Prime Video’s 2025 telecast of the Pittsburgh Steelers-Baltimore Ravens wild-card playoff, which was also presented on a Saturday night (Jan. 1, 2025).

The numbers also indicated that the streamer had achieved the concurrent viewers and the highest single-day global viewership ever for Prime Video.

For its part, CBS Sports said the early Sunday AFC Buffalo Bills-Jacksonville Jaguars wild-card game was the most-watched game ever in the early Sunday slot on any network, drawing 32.71 viewers and peaking with 41.15 million at the game's end. That was up 5% from last year.

NBC's Sunday primetime coverage of the New England Patriots beating the Los Angeles Chargers averaged 28.9 million viewers, making it the most-watched Sunday night broadcast of any kind since last February's Super Bowl.

TORONTO—Sometimes in sports, as in life, it’s the little things that matter, and that aphorism will be on full display tonight when the Toronto Blue Jays take on the Los Angeles Dodges in Game 1 of the 2025 World Series—at least when it comes to Fox Sports’ production of the game.

“We’re in a place with those smaller, portable cameras where they match exactly with everything else,” sa Brad Cheney, vice president of field operations and engineering at Fox Sports. “They just look like another part of the puzzle of what we're doing.”

(The 2025 World Series begins tonight on Fox. Games will also be streamed on Fox Sports platforms, including Fox One, the Fox Sports app and Fox Deportes. Sportsnet will air the series in Canada. Fox pregame coverage begins at 7 p.m. ET. All games start at 8 p.m. ET.)

Camera Coverage
The camera complement Fox Sports is deploying for the Series is quite familiar for large events. In addition to the 20 operated cameras—including 10 high-speed systems—the network will deploy two RF MOVI units, three point-of-view (POV) cams, a Flycam (at Dodger Stadium), two Phantom high-speed cameras, a drone cam (two in Toronto), DirtCAM and an Ump Cam.

What’s different is the smaller cameras have caught up with the broadcast cameras, not only in terms of the images they produce, which now are native HDR, but also when it comes to control. “As time goes on, we get smaller and smaller, better and better cameras,” he said.

Cheney pointed to new robotic cameras deployed in the batting tunnels in the locker room areas as an example. “We’re talking little, tiny robotic heads the size of your two fists with Proton cameras,” he said. “We’re seeing great images out of them,” he says, adding that because of their placement in the batting cages, the units occasionally get hit by a bat.

Shots from these cameras help Fox tell better stories, Cheney adds. “As we get into these [post-season] games, we’re starting to see things you don’t necessarily see a lot in the regular season, like batters coming in for one at bat,” he explains. “These cameras give us a good view into that.”

Ump Cam, Drones and AR
Augmented reality (AR) enhancements have contributed to the broadcaster’s postseason coverage.

For the World Series, Fox Sports is premiering AR graphics combined with drone shots. “We’ve done a lot of work with Major League Baseball to do AR on top of the drone inside the building,” Cheney said.

During the postseason, MLB permits drone flights inside venues when teams are not on the field. Fox Sports has built a full AR graphics package that will be used occasionally during those times to “do all kinds of different graphics to show what’s going on” as the drone flies above and beyond the scoreboard, he said.

“We spend about half an hour every day tracking the drone around in different spots to make sure that we can visually lock that in, and then we work with MLB and the Bolt6 [optical tracking] team to actually drop those graphics in,” Cheney said.

Another new AR application for postseason coverage has been the Ump Cam with pitch tracking. “We’ve seen some amazing shots from the Ump Cam the entire run—watching the tilt of the umpire’s head following a homerun ball,” he says. “Now, we’re seeing pitch tracking on it that actually gives the viewer another detailed point of view of how difficult it is to hit some of those pitches.”

Relying on the knowledge base of MLB Statcast data and optical tracking, Fox Sports lays its AR graphics with full tubes tracking the ball through the strike zone on shots from Ump Cam. The broadcaster also adds pitch sequencing to the same AR set from behind the plate, he adds.

Base Size
When it comes to audio, it’s all about that base—size, that is. MLB approved a plan to make the bases bigger beginning with the 2023 season. Increasing the size of first, second and third base from 15x15 inches to 18x18 inches has had an unexpected broadcast benefit: better sound.

“When you listen to the World Series, you really do hear players moving around the bases a lot more than we ever have before,” Cheney said. “To a large extent, that’s because the bases are larger. You’re getting more sound quality coming out of them, not because we put bigger mics in them. It’s the same system in there, but because there’s more movement of air and more size to it, we’re getting a better sound of what’s happening.”

The larger size means the bases are not as tightly compacted when players are standing on them, and that extra space makes all the difference when it comes to sound quality, he says.

For the Series, Fox Sports is deploying a total of 53 effects microphones as well as three parabolic mics.

Home and Away
With the Series involving the Blue Jays, Fox Sports travels back to Toronto, “not a place we’ve been in nearly 10 years,” Cheney said. Aside from requiring a little more logistical work to get into Canada, though, “it’s been a really great experience up there,” he said.

Fox Sports is relying on mobile production units from both Game Creek Video and NEP with their full complement of cameras. It is also working with Canadian broadcaster Sportsnet, which will provide shots from its drone outside Rogers Centre as well as shots from its Ronin rig. Both Sportsnet’s Ronin rig and Fox Sports’ two MOVI rigs are outfitted with Sony FX6 4K full-frame sensor cameras.

As it has done in the past, the broadcaster will use additional replay and graphics resources in Los Angeles to augment its on-site coverage of the Series. In total, it will have 142 replay records and 32 playouts at its disposal. For graphics, it will leverage two Vizrt systems and a FoxBox for on-screen score graphics.

As it did for the American League Championship Series, Fox Sports will also integrate its large Los Angeles studio into coverage. “That was phenomenal to see [during the LCS] and led us to collaborate a lot more with the L.A. facility, sending extra feeds and coordinating interviews with the team on-site,” Cheney said.

“So, we’re excited to see the studio join us this time back on the road, and we’ll see them for Game 1 on Friday.”

NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES—Fox has finally announced a launch data and pricing for Fox One, with the direct-to-consumer streaming service set to launch Aug. 21 for $19.99 per month or $199.99 a year.

As previously reported, Fox One will bring all of Fox's news, sports and entertainment branded content together in one streaming platform, including the Fox broadcast network, Fox-owned television stations and Fox News Channel.

Fox One for the first time will provide cord-cutters and cord-nevers with full streaming and on-demand access to the company’s full brand portfolio, including Fox News, Fox Business Network, Fox Weather, Fox Sports, FS1, FS2, Fox Deportes, Big Ten Network, its local TV stations and the over-the-air Fox network.

Subscription streaming services Fox Nation and Big Ten+ will also be available on Fox One. Subscribers can bundle Fox One and Fox Nation for $24.99 per month or the equivalent of $19.99 per month when purchasing the annual plan at launch, the company said.

“We’re eager to launch Fox One in just a few weeks and super-serve our viewers with the best in live news, sports and entertainment content all in one place,” Fox CEO, Direct to Consumer Pete Distad said. “In bringing together the full power of the Fox content portfolio in one service, we have created a great value proposition and user experience that will appeal to the cord-cutter and cord-never fans currently not served by conventional pay TV packages.”

Fox also said the streaming service will feature advanced, AI-powered personalization technologies that seamlessly integrate live and video-on-demand content in a cohesive experience.

More information is available at www.FoxOne.com.

BRISTOL, Tenn.—Imagine hearing a call something like this on Saturday: “Matt Olson steps to the plate. He’s batting .261 this season and is the Braves’ top home run producer. There’s the wind-up and the pitch. A deep shot to right field. That dinger is out of here and onto the speedway track.”

Wait, what? The speedway track? No, our hypothetical call isn’t mixing metaphors. That scenario could happen Aug. 2 when the Cincinnati Reds take on the Atlanta Braves in the MLB Speedway Classic at the Bristol Motor Speedway.

For the game, Major League Baseball has transformed the iconic speedway—host to some of the biggest NASCAR races—into a world-class baseball field with the help of BrightView, the league’s official field consultant, and its partners BaAM Production and architecture and design firm Populous. Bringing in 18,000 tons of gravel to level the field and 124,000 square feet of AstroTurf, BrightView converted the speedway’s infield into a full-scale baseball field.

With 85,000 tickets sold, the game may be not only the most well-attended regular season contest in MLB history but also the first MLB game ever played in Tennessee.

For those not traveling to the Volunteer State, however, Fox Sports will cover the game. Televised on Fox stations and affiliates nationwide, it is set for 7:15 p.m. ET.

A Fresh Perspective
Fox Sports has a long history of covering races from the speedway, but preparing to cover an MLB game there required a fresh perspective and a good bit of imagination, Fox Sports Vice President of Field Operations and Engineering Brad Cheney said.

“The first time you go to this place, there are construction cones where home plate, first base, second and third will be,” he said. “You’re standing there trying to imagine things. The stands are going to come up 30 feet. What does that look like? That’s not a tape measure you can hold up.”

Fox Sports began visiting Bristol in the spring of 2023 to plan its coverage and technical layout. Since then, it’s been back five times on planning missions, the most recent of which was two weeks ago, after the MLB All-Star Game in Atlanta, to confirm camera placements and relocate anything that needed to be moved, he said.

“It’s a super-collaborative process over multiple years to make something like this happen. The beauty of it is because we’ve done it now three times—this being our third—we’ve got a great idea of what we need, and we’re able to collaborate a lot better to make this happen in a shorter time span than in the past,” said Cheney, referring to the 2021 and 2022 Field of Dreams games.

Fox Sports, which will produce the game in 1080p HD HDR with a 5.1 surround mix and make a 4K up-res available, relied on computer models of the speedway-ballpark design created by MLB and BaAM Productions to figure out camera positions, walkways and how to move everything that must be moved for the production, he said.

Pointing to the third-base line camera and high-first-base camera positions for the game, Cheney said they were located to capture the unique spectacle of playing the game at the speedway.

“The camera looking down third base line is well up into the grandstand,” Cheney said. “It’s a much different shot angle for us and will help us shoot so many other things in that stadium setup because it’s so large.

“That’s one of those cameras—and high first as well—that are in spots that aren’t normal for a regular major league ballpark but are going to provide the shots we need for the game and also provide us a lot of other coverage throughout the racetrack to show everybody how many people are really there and feel that excitement.”

In all, Fox Sports has deployed 40 cameras for the game, including four super slo-motion cameras, Ump Cam at home plate, drone cameras on Beverly Hills Aerials platforms and a helicopter-mounted camera.

There are also a couple of camera deployments specially designed for the game. Fox Sports has worked with MLB on a remote-control car camera “that’s going to move around the field a bit,” in Cheney’s words, as well as cameras mounted on the golf carts used to shuttle a pitcher from the bullpen to the mound.

“I’m sure we all remember those golf carts from years past. We’re going to doctor them up with in-car cameras just like you’d have at a NASCAR race,” he said, noting the hat tip to the surroundings adds “a little bit of fun” to the transport.

Sound Decisions
For audio, Fox Sports is deploying 20 field mics and 14 microphones on players and coaches. As it’s a regular-season game, there will be no in-game conversations between the players and announcers Joe Davis and John Smoltz. Rather, those mics will be used simply to convey the experience of players who will be hearing the roar of 85,000 fans for the first time.

“We’ve heard that roar there for 25 years with NASCAR, but that’s also with a whole bunch of cars at 150 dBs running around the track and you’re still hearing the crowd,” Cheney said. “But baseball is pretty quiet. When that crowd rips up, I don’t know what we’re going to get here.”

Fox Sports chief baseball audio engineer Joe Carpenter and his team have developed concepts for audio production of the game, but it will likely take an inning to determine how best to handle the crowd noise. “We’ll start small and then build it up and put those pieces in,” said Cheney.

“Obviously, the on-field mics are going to be the same [as normal games], and it’s going to be a great sound from the field itself. But it's that next level of sound [that must be determined],” he said. “How do we best capture the sound of everyone from the start-finish line, all the way through turns one and two and back across the back stretch? How do you capture all that sound? How do you put it into the broadcast? How do you make sure that it doesn't overpower one side or the other?”

Cheney has thought a lot about what it will be like to be on the field Saturday and tried to imagine capturing that experience and conveying it to viewers at home. “I stood in the dugout a week and a half ago and looked up at those stands,” he said. “When that place is full, it is going to be unreal.”

ATLANTA—Move over Shohei Ohtani. Make way Aaron Judge. Tonight’s 2025 MLB All-Star Game will see a private 5G wireless network emerge as a television production all-star in its own right, contributing numerous wireless camera shots, supporting comms and camera control from in and around Truist Park.

“The amazing part about Atlanta is that it’s not just a ballpark, and it’s not just a ballpark with a big parking lot around it,” Brad Cheney, vice president of field operations and engineering at Fox Sports, said. “It’s a ballpark with an amazing entertainment district [The Battery Atlanta] tied to it. That screams connectivity needs for us.”

(Editor’s note: Fox stations and cable network Fox Deportes will air the 2025 MLB All-Star Game at 8 p.m. ET from Truist Park in Atlanta. Viewers can also stream the game with the Fox Sports app and on Hulu + Live TV, FuboTV, YouTube TV and DirecTV.)

Crowded House
The Battery Atlanta, adjacent to the home of the Atlanta Braves, is a mixed use/entertainment complex with shops, bars and restaurants. Office buildings, apartments and a hotel round out its features—any one of which increases wireless network traffic and together, for an event like the All-Star Game, compounds the wireless network challenge.

“We learned back in 2021 during the World Series that The Battery was popular, and it’s continued to grow ever since from when it was relatively small and new,” he said.

To sidestep any 5G network congestion, Fox Sports is working with Major League Baseball sponsor and technology partner T-Mobile for private 5G wireless network coverage of the entertainment district and ballpark. CP Communications is managing the private 5G network and most conventional RF and wireless comms, he added, noting that the RF connectivity of a handful of specialty cameras being deployed will be managed by their respective vendors.

Fox Sports made big use of 5G for wireless camera contribution on Monday (July 14) during FS1’s “Live at the All-Star Game” show and will again rely on 5G connectivity to contribute shots for tonight’s game to “expand the zone of coverage” to include The Battery and Truist Park, Cheney said.

For the 140 wireless communications packs to be used to produce the game, there was no other practical choice. “There’s really no system large enough out there that’s not cellular-based that can do the amount of wireless audio packs we need for communications—not just for us, but also for Major League Baseball, for ESPN and all of the other rightsholders,” said Cheney.

Production Highpoints
Fox Sports will produce the All-Star Game in 1080p Full-HD HDR. Upscaled 4K HDR streams will be available for connected TVs and living room apps, such as Apple TV, Android TV, Fire TV and Roku devices.

It will deploy 55 cameras, including six Super-Slow Mo cameras, a FlyCam traveling from The Battery Atlanta into the ballpark at home plate along the first base line, a helicopter camera and a drone camera from Beverly Hills Aerials.

A first for All-Star Game coverage, the broadcaster will outfit the entire umpire crew with body-worn cameras. Base umpires will wear MindFly chest cams, while the home plate umpire will wear a third-generation RF Wireless Mask Cam, the broadcaster said.

Managing the color and the look of the Ump Cams and drone camera isn’t simply a matter of tweaking CCU settings, especially given the need to integrate the camera shots seamlessly into the HDR production of the game.

“We’ve spent some time with colorists to make a profile for the drone that takes the SDR and makes the HDR correctly that matches the broadcast cameras as close as possible, obviously, knowing that the lensing is not the same and the sensors are not the same,” said Cheney. “We then use [AJA Video] ColorBoxes [and color controllers from Cyanview] to actually manage that color throughout the game.”

Fox Sports has a history with this color management strategy for specialty cameras, Cheney noted. During the UFL season, Fox Sports made extensive use of Mindfly cameras, and it has been regularly using the third-generation RF Wireless Mask Cam this season since it debuted during the 2024 MLB playoffs.

“It looks spectacular on its own, but when we get the maestros to tweak it up a bit, it’s going to look exactly like everything else there.”

The broadcaster must also address the effect of changing lighting conditions on color and the overall look of video as the evening game, which starts in daylight, transitions to stadium lighting as night falls. Fox Sports will rely on the ColorBoxes and Cyanview units to make necessary adjustments, according to Cheney.

Five COSM cameras are being deployed for presentation of the game at the COSM venues in Los Angeles and Dallas; however, it’s likely they will be used “once or twice throughout the broadcast to show off a special angle,” he said.

Fox Sports will deploy 40 field-effects mics and 10 player mics for real-time conversations between the announcers and players in the game. Joe Davis and John Smoltz will reunite in the booth for their fourth All-Star Game together. Reporters Ken Rosenthal and Tom Verducci will provide inside information and in-game reports from the field, the broadcaster said.

The ongoing work at Fox Sports leveraging artificial intelligence to uncover storylines from all audio sources that might otherwise get overlooked will not be integrated into game coverage. “That’s something we are working to deploy in Major League Baseball overall, but it’s not something for the All-Star Game,” said Cheney.

“Our audio focus for this show is really about the player audio and the two-ways that we’re able to do with all those players and continually making that kind of the focus of the game itself,” said Cheney.

INDIANAPOLIS—When Fox Sports Executive Vice President of Technical and Field Operations Michael Davies reviews his organization’s inaugural Indianapolis 500 production from May 25, he does so with a mix of satisfaction, anticipation about what to do differently in 2026 and a degree of humility.

“The whole experience was humbling,” he said. “You know, when you go into something and you really don’t know what you’re getting into, you have to figure out a lot of it as you go along. “You only get a finite amount of those [first-time major broadcasts] in your career, and that was one of them.”

[Also Read: Fox Sports Preps for ‘Mini Super Bowl’ of Motorsports in Indianapolis]

This year’s 109th Indianapolis 500 was the first time Fox Sports produced the race under a deal announced June 2024 awarding exclusive media rights for the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series races to the broadcaster. Fox Sports took over video production of the race from NBC Sports, which had held rights to the iconic motorsports event since 2019, following a 54-year run on ABC.

Working with Indy Motor Sports Productions on the production of the race contributed to the broadcaster’s first-time win at Indy. “We linked arms with Indy Motor Sports Productions and they were fantastic. I can say from this experience that it was that cooperation that made this Indy 500 a success,” Davies said.

Three In-Car Enhancements
To Davies, three enhancements—one each involving video, audio and augmented reality (AR) graphics—in cars stood out as production innovations that made watching the race more engaging for fans.

“The inside-out view from the driver’s eye cameras really shows just how fast these cars were going,” Davies said. “As fast as they go in NASCAR, the 240 miles per hour they go at Indy is flat-out ridiculous.”

The cameras embedded into the helmets of six drivers at this year’s race were a success overall; however, a couple of them experienced “some small technical issues,” he noted, adding, “I think we’ll get better at using them.”

Fox Sports’ use of a head-up display (HUD) to present real-time telemetry for the cars “in a way that hadn’t been seen at Indy” added a new element for Indy 500 race fans, Davies said. “We kind of borrowed that idea from Formula One, but it worked great for Indy, too.”

To enhance the audio from the cars, the broadcaster placed microphones on each side of the Indy cars to “make it sound even better,” he says.

Drones and Ghost Car
Fox Sports strategically deployed two drones to enhance its two-hour prerace show and coverage of the race. Beverly Hills Aerials, which partnered with the broadcaster, piloted a modified DJI Inspire drone outfitted with a paintable broadcast camera and an FPV racing drone, which Fox Sports uses widely in its NASCAR coverage.

“When you’re talking about drone coverage, you add this in-between layer,” he said. “You’ve got ground coverage cameras, hard cameras and on-board cameras, the RF cameras. Then there’s the aerial, which is vital, because it shows strategy. Drones deliver an intermediate type of shot that shows racing caution, laps and pit stops in a totally different way.”

The broadcaster also used the drones during its prerace show with different sets. “We were able to fly around to the different talent locations to show the Indy Motor Speedway and the kind of vast edifice it is and set the tone for the race,” Davies recalls.

Overall, drones have contributed significantly to the broadcaster’s coverage of Indy. “The use of drones in IndyCar—not only at the Indy 500 but on the Road Course—is one of the single biggest things that I think Fox is doing for the sport,” Davies said.

Like drones, which Fox Sports began using in NASCAR a decade ago, the broadcaster brought its virtual Ghost Car to the Indy 500 to add another dimension to its coverage of the qualifiers. “I think adding in the competitive aspect of showing a car as it was racing and placing something that doesn’t exist [the Ghost Car] and making it exist through the art of virtual technology was a fantastic addition,” he said.

“Zac Fields [Fox Sports senior vice president of graphic technology and integration] is the master of doing this stuff,” Davies says. “I think virtual graphics on Indy motorsports is kind of the next frontier of enhancement.”

Nip and Tuck for 2026
Shortly after the race, Davies and his team began the process of doing postmortems on coverage while the event was still fresh in their minds. “There are always ‘nips and tucks,’ but we were really happy with the coverage,” he said.

Davies has already begun to think about what those “nips and tucks” entail for next year’s coverage. Top of mind is the addition of a third drone, more driver’s eye cameras and additional data-driven features to convey more about what is going on with the cars as they circle the speedway, such as the temperature of tires.

“We’re going to get better at getting at things like tire temperatures, which are really important for oval track races,” he said.

Leveraging artificial intelligence to record, organize and catalog conversations between racers and their teams is in development and may be ready for the 2026 edition of the race. The broadcaster is also at work on an AI-driven application that makes driver audio clearer, so it sounds less like a radio transmission and more like a digital microphone, Davies said.

Another effort that may change how the broadcaster covers the race is the deployment of a private 5G network. “We’re looking at this with our two major motorsports partners to figure out how we can use a private network to enhance what we do—not just for broadcast, but for everything, including cameras, communications, telemetry and bidirectional,” he said.

“You know, you always find a million things that you’d want to do better—a million things that you could have enhanced,” Davies said. “But at the end of the day, if you walk away from the Indy 500 looking to build on what you’ve done instead of change what you’ve done, then you know you’ve had a success.”

ST. LOUIS—Many tests define the outcome of football games. There are tests of will, individual talent, team play, gameplans, motivation and more.

But for Fox Sports, the UFL has become a proving ground where innovative new technology can be tried under game conditions to determine what works, what needs improvement and what new production tech tools the broadcaster can use in the future to up its game regardless of the sport that’s being covered.

Such was the case June 8 here at The Dome at America’s Center when the UFL’s D.C. Defenders defeated the St. Louis Battlehawks 36-18 in the XFL Conference Championship. (Editor’s note: XFL is now the name of the UFL conference to which both teams belong.)

During the game, Fox Sports continued limited deployments and separate technology trials–one for video and the other for audio—that it sees one day playing important roles in UFL productions and beyond.

AI and Audio
The evolution of TV sound has seen mono give way to stereo, which in turn has given way to 5.1 surround and is now advancing slowly to immersive, object-based audio. But there’s another ongoing audio advancement that Fox Sports is testing.

The broadcaster is testing the use of artificial intelligence to give its audio engineers additional tools to enhance the soundscape viewers' experience during UFL games, NFL matchups and ultimately the range of sports it produces.

“One of the things we’re trying to determine is how do we derive more sound out of the sound we are capturing that is going to interest viewers,” said Brad Cheney, vice president of Field Operations and Engineering at Fox Sports.

About 100 feet away from the Game Creek Video Gridiron production unit where Eddie Verstraite, the broadcaster’s UFL audio sub-mixer, sat behind his console, the broadcaster positioned a six-foot-long folding table with its AI setup receiving the sub-mix from the truck—among them the field microphones.

“There are eight microphones out on the field level. The AI allows us to pan and scan around to find certain pieces of audio triangulated between those microphones,” said Cheney. “The beauty of it is that once you have that audio coming inbound, you're not tied to a single output of it. You can make multiple outputs of it and start to do other things with player tracking; for example, you are able to follow that audio or that person around.”

During the game, one goal was to determine the “next pieces of the puzzle” to make the triangulation possible, which entailed isolating sounds correctly to highlight a player or coach and thereby improve the overall production, he said.

“We want to enhance the show by only putting out an array of microphones vs. lots of people trying to aim directionally,” said Cheney.

The broadcaster has other AI-based audio enhancements in the works, as well. With players, coaches and referees mic-ed during games, it’s easy to miss exchanges that might offer key insights into what’s happening on the field. Fox Sports is looking to use speech-to-text AI algorithms to help.

“The more audio we’re taking in and the more we are able to capture, the harder it is to figure out what we’re listening to,” he said.

The broadcaster is testing AI speech-to-text identification of keywords in conversations and “is beginning to figure out the level of keywords that pop out” to alert the production team about what is being said, the next play to be run and what modifications are being made, said Cheney.

Ultimately, the broadcaster envisions this level of insight not only alerting production personnel to what’s happening, but also how announcers call games and even how coaches coach as opposing teams receive this data in real time, he said.

AI also holds out the prospect of bringing a more consistent sound to the production of UFL, NFL and college football games, Cheney added. “The benefit of having this stuff and capturing and keeping it is that we’re able to model it for a UFL scenario, and then we’re able to model it against the NFL scenario by taking certain mics and certain audio out of what we’re doing because each has different micing capabilities and different audio coming inbound.”

Private 5G Network
This season, Fox Sports has outfitted at least one of its sideline cameras with wireless connectivity to a private 5G network for contribution. During the conference championship game, it worked with Verizon and CP Communications to deploy a private 5G network and wireless sideline camera and relied on public 5G connectivity outside to contribute shots from a helicopter above the venue.

“We launched in the latter half of the UFL season a true private 5G network with a live sideline camera that went all the way back to Los Angeles directly on a private connection,” said Cheney. The camera, which was linked into Fox Sports’ production network on-site, was linked to Los Angeles where the Homerun Production (REMI) was being done.

“That camera bypassed every encode path we had here, beat all of the encoders back to L.A. with full, true video, return [video], video control, tally, comms—all of that stuff—all built into a single system,” said Cheney, adding that the delay was about 500ms. “It was fully operational, ran in the game and did everything we wanted it to do.”

Cheney anticipates the use of 5G wireless camera contribution and networks will only grow over time. Not only is there less latency, but 5G private and public networks eliminate the complexity of shoehorning signals into crowded spectrum, the need for special temporary authority (STAs) from the FCC and setting up RF receive sites for shots, such as those from the helicopter.

The setup also offers greater flexibility depending upon where it is being used. For instance, the day before the game, Fox Sports deployed four roaming wireless IP cameras for the 2025 Belmont Stakes in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Two were outfitted with 5G modems from multiple carriers that could be used in a bonded channel configuration if needed on public wireless networks, and two others ran exclusively on the private 5G network setup for the race.

“We're starting to up that ante of what's going on when it comes to being able to have private networks merging with public networks,” said Cheney. “We're really taking a giant leap forward with our partners in doing private wireless 5G that will actually start to take over our regular COFDM RF.”

INDIANAPOLIS—Drivers Robert Shwartzman, Louis Foster and Nolan Siegel won’t be the only Indianapolis 500 rookies when they get the green flag May 25 to start this year’s race from the Brickyard. Fox Sports, too, is making its inaugural run at the race—only from the production point of view.

“You know, you don't get too many opportunities in your career to be a part of something like this where the rights have been with one broadcaster for so long, and then you get to drop in and put your mark on it,” Fox Sports Executive Vice President of Technical and Field Operations Michael Davies said.

(Coverage of the 2025 Indianapolis 500 begins on Fox stations at 10 a.m. ET with the pre-race show. Race coverage begins at 12:45 p.m. Coverage is also available on Fox Deportes and can be streamed via the Fox Sports App and at FoxDeportes.com.)

This year’s 109th Indianapolis 500 is the first time Fox Sports will produce and televise the race under a deal announced last June awarding exclusive media rights for the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series races to the broadcaster.

‘Mini-Super Bowl’
While Fox Sports is new to the Indy 500, it has a long history of covering premier motorsports events like the Daytona 500 and other massive sports properties, such as the Super Bowl. Fox takes over this year for NBC Sports, which had held rights to the iconic motorsports event since 2019, following a 54-year run on ABC.

“Indy kind of seems like a mini Super Bowl to me, but it's different, though, because, we've got a production partner here,” Daviies said. “That’s Indy Motor Sports [IMS] Productions, and Kevin Sublette [president of IMS Productions] and those guys.”

Like other IndyCar races this season, Fox Sports will produce race coverage from IMS Productions’ mobile production units. For the Indy 500, it will rely on five recently-rebuilt IMS trucks—collectively known as HD5—and Game Creek Video’s Encore, a complement of three 53-foot expando production trailers, Davies said.

Broadcast Sports Inc. (BSI) has also arrived in Indianapolis with the same RF truck CBS Sports used this month at the PGA Championship in Charlotte, N.C., he said.

The broadcaster will produce the race entirely on-site, foregoing the use of off-site resources for replay and graphics as it has done for other events. “Sometimes, when you’re dealing with this kind of show, especially as a one-off, we’ll just bring everybody on-site,” said Davies.

“Maybe next year we’ll get cute with it, but for now, we are good old-fashioned, dyed in-the-wool on-site here.”

Fox Sports will draw on the experience of IMS Productions covering the race while adding a few of its own special touches.

Special Touches
There are a few noteworthy broadcast and production firsts for this year’s Indy 500. Fox Sports and IMS Productions will produce the race in 1080p HDR and distribute upconverted 4K—a first for the race—to capture “all of the race’s color and pageantry,” said Davies, adding that the HDR color space is “something that’s a vast improvement.”

Fox Sports is deploying six “driver’s eye cameras” at the Indy 500 this year—a first for the race. While these types of cameras have been used in Formula 1 and Formula E racing, their addition to the production of the Indy 500 will bring a first-time driver’s perspective to fans of the race, said Davies.

“The driver’s eye camera is turning a lot of heads,” he said. “We did it for NASCAR, but it’s a lot better in the open cockpit models because there’s not as much gak in front of the cameras. We think it is very compelling at Indy because it gives you an inside-out look at exactly what the driver is seeing.”

The cameras, believed to be the smallest currently in use in sports production, will be part of the helmets worn by drivers Josef Newgarden, Scott Dixon, Alex Palou, Will Power, Marcus Ericsson and Felix Rosenqvist.

Beyond simply capturing the track, this camera will give fans a view of the car’s wheel, controls and the hands of the six drivers as well as the “sheer vibration” of the car as it powers around the track, Davies said.

The broadcaster is bringing many of the production elements commonly used in its NASCAR and other motorsports coverage to Indianapolis. A decade ago, it pioneered its use of drones in motorsports with NASCAR.

For the Memorial Day Weekend race, it is again partnering with Beverly Hills Aerials, which will deploy two airborne platforms at the Indy 500, said Davies.

Beverly Hills Aerials has modified a DJI Inspire drone, outfitted with a broadcast camera that Fox can paint remotely to match its other cameras. The drone specialist has received a waiver to fly over people at the race in a safe manner, said Davies.

The company also will deploy an FPV racing drone, which Fox uses widely in its NASCAR coverage and can achieve speeds between 80 and 90 miles per hour to “show how fast these cars are going,” he said.

Fox Sports senior vice president of graphic technology and integration Zac Fields and his team will add augmented reality graphic elements and a head-up display (HUD) depicting a virtual dashboard in some cars. The Fox Sports Ghost Car, a familiar NASCAR visual, made its Indy debut last weekend during qualifying sessions, he said.

“What Fox brings is some of this new technology that we’ve invested in like the SMT [SportsMEDIA Technology] vectors that allow us to do things like positioning boxes like we use in NASCAR, to do the Ghost Car and pointers and HUD display.

“There's a fair amount of graphical firepower here, and Zac's been hard at work to make sure we can get all the data that is supplied by IMS Productions and manifest graphics for our audience,” Davies said.

Maiden Voyage
While Fox Sports will deploy many of the tools and technical innovations that have elevated motorsports coverage, most notably for NASCAR, Davies and his team are approaching production of the Indianapolis 500 with a deep respect for the historical context of the race.

“We try to be humble in terms of coming to a place like this that’s been racing for over 100 years,” he said. “We're all newbies here, and we're taking the experience we have from doing NASCAR and other motorsports, but combining it with just the way that Fox does big events,” he said.

“You know, we are relying on the experience of our partners at Indy Motor Sports Productions,“ Davies added. “Those guys are awesome and really are the engine of race coverage.”

HOUSTON—ESPN and Fox Sports are geared up with some new production technologies to cover the second season of the UFL, which kicks off Friday March 28, with the aim of bringing viewers closer than ever to the action and giving them deeper insights into games.

“Access is important. It’s what defines this league alongside, the technology and the play,” said Brad Cheney, vice president of field operations and engineering at Fox Sports.

Both Fox Sports and ESPN are deploying new or improved technologies to take advantage of that access. The broadcasters, which are splitting the league’s schedule, will deploy a chest-cam on a defensive player to give viewers a better sense of what it feels like to be on the field in the midst of action. One, the other or both will also use ref-cam footage from the back judge, sensor chips in balls and embedded in players’ gear, AI audio interrogation, telestrator-enabled sideline Apple iPads and drone footage from behind defenders.

All of it aims to give viewers a better understanding of what they’re watching, whether it’s the speed and strength of players, the strategy and tactics that unfold or the performance of individual players.

Chest-Cam and Ref-Cam
The new MINDFLY chest-cam mounted in the center of custom vest donned by a defensive player debuted in a different configuration on officials last season.

“We found great success with it on officials, and this year we worked with the league… and MINDFLY to develop a player vest that they feel comfortable with,” said Bryan Jaroch, ESPN vice president of sports production.

The new chest-cam, which will be used during one game apiece by Fox Sports and ESPN each weekend, is an enhanced version of the MINDFLY camera systems deployed in the past with new image stabilization technology to steady the footage captured, he said.

Before giving a nod to the chest-cam, the league put the system through impact testing in the lab to ensure it could withstand the punishment dished out on the field. “They’ve [the league] has done a lot of offline test to make sure it is safe, and they feel 100% comfortable with it,” said Jaroch.

For instance, the system is equipped with “a shatterproof piece of glass” in front of the camera that’s designed to crack like a spider web if the stress from a hit is too great, rather than shatter and fall onto the field, he said.

The breathable vest unit adds so little weight and heat from the camera battery that players will “almost forget that they’re wearing it,” said Jaroch.

From a coverage perspective, chest-cam brings a whole new sense of what it means to be in the game to viewers, said Cheney.

“We’re putting it on defenders so you can see what’s coming at you,” he said. “You can see the speed of what’s happening. We’ve been working on making viewers aware of just how fast this game is. Just how fast [having] an arm in one spot versus another in half a second is [to] the receiver catching a ball or the safety knocking it out of his hands.”

Similarly, the ref-cam, deployed each game by Fox Sports, will deliver a unique perspective and better understanding of what’s happening on the field, said Cheney.

“Being on the back judge, looking straight across the line and being able to see the play develop and move gives us that understanding of what the quarterback is facing, what the running backs are trying to run through—all of those pieces of the puzzle,” he said.

Audio and AI
The access the league has given Fox Sports and ESPN includes audio in a big way. The chest-cam, for instance, is equipped with a microphone that will pick up the checks at the line. Other player mics, coach mics, sideline parabolic mics, sideline camera mics and others contribute to an audioscape that aims to make fans feel more engaged.

Fox Sports will deploy artificial intelligence to understand better how to manage all of those audio sources. While AI will assist the broadcaster in producing better mixes, Fox Sports has even bigger plans for the technology, said Cheney.

Throughout the season it will rely on AI and machine learning to perform speech-to-text transcription of incoming audio to create data models other AI algorithms will analyze to identify and extract mini-storylines developing in real-time that can be fed to announcers to help them with game analysis and to producers to help tell the overall story of the game, he said.

Without AI and machine learning, these storylines would likely go undetected. “There’s just so much stuff that you couldn’t put enough people on it,” he said.

“Think about a head coach telling the offensive coordinator this is what we should be doing in the next set of downs,” said Cheney. “The offensive coordinator talks to his staff. You're hearing that. There are those conversations, and then it goes from the offensive coordinator to the quarterback to call the play. If we can start to track that and gain an understanding of what's going on, a quick storyline emerges.”

Those revealed storylines will also assist Fox Sports later on in the week to reveal “amazing” storylines post-game, he added.

A Better Sense From Sensors
Sensor chips are being deployed to enable the broadcasters to give viewers a deeper insight into what’s happening on the field. The broadcasters are working with Sportable to track the velocity and spin rate of the ball as it’s passed, the speed of a player running down the sidelines and other data, said Jaroch.

“This is in development, so we may not have it ready for this weekend,” he said. “But as we progress throughout the year [we plan] just using that player data… that the teams… keep to themselves. This is stuff that we're going to try to use on the air in real time.”

Cheney is confident that the technology will be deployed at some point in the season. “We’ve got some interesting examples that we’ve seen work in the scrimmages this year,” he said. “We’re really bullish on the fact that the tracking is there.”

Sportable will embed tracking sensor chips in the balls and “hopefully players” as well, said Jaroch.

“They're going to start, hopefully, on quarterbacks, and then, hopefully, expand to the point where they have almost every skilled player with a chip on their body, whether it's on their shoulder pads or on their body,” he said.

Coupled with the data from the optical positioning system in place, the sensing data from the chips will enable the broadcasters to paint a detailed picture of game action with relevant stats, he said.

Sideline iPads
ESPN is taking its use of Apple iPads on the sidelines in the hands of players and coaches to a new level this season, said Jaroch. Working with DVSport Software and the league, ESPN will air one sideline iPad with a built-in telestrator function.

“As a player comes off the field, we’ll be able to hand them an iPad that we have access to,” said Jaroch. “So, instead of shooting over their shoulder and sometimes dealing with sun glare on the iPad, we can literally get the output of what that player or coach is looking at, and with the built-in telestrator see as they’re drawing on it…and take that exact output to air.”

Unlike during the league’s inaugural season when ESPN had a reporter on one sideline and a field analyst who once played on the other, this season it will assign field analysts to both sidelines to take better advantage of the iPad.

“Whether it’s the iPad with the output to air or not, having a field analyst on each sideline is a huge benefit. They can just… really dive into the X’s and O’s with a player or a coach at any point in the game. I wish we had that in college football and the NFL, to be able to use that access and advance the story through technology,” he said.

Drones Use
Once again, Fox Sports will rely on a drone flying over the field behind defenders for a unique aerial perspective on the action. Taking advantage of the experience gained during last season, the drone operators are better equipped this season to react to what’s happening on the field.

“Quite honestly, the pilots have become so good at understanding and reading the play that they're in the right spots at the right time,” said Cheney. “They’re right in the mix. They’ve come to understand extremely well where to be in the situation. [They have an] awareness of what they’re around. ‘Oh, it’s a pass play. OK now I need to come up and get some air because they’re going to throw.”

Disney, the parent company of ESPN, is more restrictive on drone use, so the sports network will not be using the airborne platform for its coverage of the UFL—at least for now. “We have a lot of protocols in place where we can’t fly over people or even animals,” said Jaroch.

However, ESPN is working with Disney’s internal drone group and its legal team to address the restrictions and possibly open a path to using the aerial platforms in the future. “We’re not there yet in terms of flying in the stadiums like Fox, but we’re hoping to get there. I’m hoping that maybe by the championship game we can get to that point.”

Regardless of how those discussions turn out, one thing is clear: the UFL has placed a high priority on engaging fans more deeply with its product by allowing its broadcast partners to take advantage of the opportunities they have to deploy technology in unique and interesting ways.

“The great thing about this league is what Dwayne Johnson and Danny Garcia [two of the league’s owners] talk about,” said Jaroch.

“The UFL is a league of opportunity for players and for coaches. We've seen Reggie Barlow [former DC Defenders and now Tennessee State football coach] move on to college football. But it's also a league of opportunity for us as a TV partner to test new things and bring them to college football, NFL or even coverage of other sports.”

(Editor’s note: The UFL season begins tonight at 8 p.m. EDT with Fox Sports coverage of the St. Louis Battlehawks vs. Houston Roughnecks from TDECU Stadium in Houston. This weekend’s lineup continues Saturday, March 29 at 4 p.m. EDT with the San Antoinio Brahmas vs. Arlington Renegades from Choctaw Stadium in Arlington, Texas. ESPN will produce two games: the Michigan Panthers vs. Memphis Showboats, Sunday, March 30 at noon EDT from Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium in Memphis and the Birmingham Stallions vs. DC Defenders at 3 p.m. EDT from Audi Field in Washington, D.C.)

DAYTONA, Fla.—The Fox Sports production of this year’s Daytona 500 will see the addition of a few new tech elements and the continued unfolding of the broadcaster’s quest to realize additional workflow efficiencies while enhancing quality.

(The Daytona 500 begins Sunday, Feb. 16, at 2:30 p.m. EST. It will be broadcast live on Fox and the Fox Sports app. Live streamers can watch via YouTube TV, Sling TV, Hulu + Live TV and Fubo.)

As it did during the Super Bowl on Feb. 9, Fox Sports will introduce Cosm super-wide-angle cameras into its race coverage, working with the entertainment dome experience specialist on where best to place them around the 2.5-mile track. The broadcaster, which also plans to add a heavy-lift drone with a full-size camera and lens, will rely on new optically generated tracking data from NASCAR to drive its SportsMEDIA Technology (SMT) graphics, Michael Davies, executive vice president of technical and field operations at Fox Sports, said.

This Sunday’s race, the first time Fox Sports will cover the Daytona 500 under a new seven-year contract with NASCAR, “doesn’t change that much in what we put on air,” Davies said. It does mark the beginning of a new chapter that will see Fox Sports, NBC Sports, Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports carry all 38 NASCAR Cup Series races through 2031. (The Feb. 2 Busch Light Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is regarded as a preseason race.)

The deal divides distribution among the entities. “On any given weekend, you’re going to have Fox on [NASCAR] Cup; Amazon on practice and qualifying; The CW Network on the Xfinity race; and [TNT Sports] doing the in-cars,” Davies said. (Fox Sports and NBC Sports will each carry 14 NASCAR Cup Series races. Prime Video and TNT will split the 10 remaining midseason races.)

Fox Sports, which will produce its coverage in 1080p high dynamic range (HDR), in some instances will produce the shows for other networks and in others will hand off various feeds. “In a raw technological sense, it really doesn’t make a lot of difference when you are sitting in the truck and actually producing the show,” Davies said. “It’s really just the downstream proliferation of everything that’s going to be different.”

The Spectacle
The Daytona 500 is considered a spectacle because it’s the biggest race in NASCAR with fans and dignitaries, such as former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, often in attendance. “If you look online, President [Donald] Trump may or may not be at this one as well,” Davies said.

Regardless, Fox Sports will treat the production like a spectacle, erecting a stage just as it does for the Indianapolis 500 and Super Bowl. “Daytona commands a real pregame presence that we don’t do for other races,” he said. “You’ve got the grand marshal, the national anthem and the flyover. It’s a big buildup, not unlike the Super Bowl. We won’t do six and a half hours of pregame programming like the Super Bowl, but we’re doing quite a bit with our own stage and crew focused on pregame.”

Newly added Cosm cameras will help the broadcaster capture that spectacle for viewers. Unlike at the Super Bowl, the super-wide angle of the cameras’ shots may not simply be used after being de-warped and selecting a 16-by-9 area of interest for TV viewers, Davies said.

“Maybe some of these cameras look good as they are. I think this is just one of those wait-and-see items. We might be able to use them in a couple of ways,” Davies said during an interview conducted midweek before the race.

One of the ways he is considering taking advantage of the cameras’ wide viewpoint is to capture as many as six or seven pits in the same shot. While the broadcaster normally uses a traditional broadcast camera with a wide-angle lens to capture pit stops, the extra-wide angle of the Cosm camera’s viewpoint will enable the broadcaster to capture more, he said.

“One of the things I like about working with those guys is it’s never a totally separate production [one for Fox and one for presentation at a Cosm Dome in Dallas and Los Angeles],” Davies said. “There’s always the middle of a Venn diagram—the crossover—where both of us can enjoy what we’re putting out.”

The heavy-lift drone, another new addition, will complement the FPV and other drones deployed to cover the race. “We’ve done it before on some races, but we’re going to employ the heavy-lift drone with a big-boy camera and real lens at Daytona to get additional coverage that adds into the fact that this is a bigger race,” he said.

One significant technical change viewers will not notice on-air is NASCAR’s use of a new system based largely on optical technology rather than GPS to gather accurate tracking data for Fox Broadcast graphics. “We’re still going to use the SMT to render those graphics, but under the hood is something completely different,” he said.

Production Efficiencies
For this year’s “Great American Race,” Fox Sports has rolled eight trucks to the Daytona International Speedway, fewer than in the past and a continuation of a downward trend, Davies said.

“Ten years ago, there were 10 additional trucks in the compound to do, roughly speaking, what is happening now,” Davies said, adding that ESPN was also involved at the time.

“It was a massive compound,” he said.” You had the shared resources and RF trucks right in the middle. Then on one side you had ESPN land and on the other side Fox land,” pointing out that those shows were produced in 720p, not 1080p as will be done this year.

The point, however, isn’t simply to reduce the expense of on-site production trailers, but also to streamline workflows and save on the expense of certain personnel, who can work remotely on race coverage.

“I’ll give you several instances [of remote personnel working on the production],” he said. “We have replay people working both in Pittsburgh and in California. We have some graphics people in Pittsburgh. We also have racing radio editors and producers who work from their homes. And we have our race editor working from home as well.”

An edit room equals about one-quarter of a production trailer. The space needed to edit racing radio takes up another quarter. These and other reductions begin to add up and enable the broadcaster to remove entire trailers or downsize to a smaller vehicle, as Fox Sports is doing this year by replacing a trailer dedicated to graphics with its remote personnel and those working in the van devoted to SportsMEDIA Technology graphics, Davies said.

Among the biggest reasons Fox Sports has been able to reduce how many OB vehicles it sends to produce races is the availability of fiber-optic connectivity at NASCAR tracks, eliminating latency concerns, he said.

“[For a time], not all [the tracks] were fiber,” he said. “But we spent some money and got them all fiber. Obviously, we’re now reaping the gains from that.”

(Editor’s note: The numbers quoted by Fox Sports in this story have been updated based on a press release issued at 1:35 p.m. CST.)

NEW ORLEANS—The number of viewers of Sunday’s Super Bowl across Fox, Fox Deportes, Tubi, Telemundo and NFL Digital Properties averaged 127.7 million and peaked in the second quarter at 137.7 million—a record for the game, according to Fox Sports.

Streaming of the game via Tubi and NFL digital properties also set a record, reaching 14.5 million viewers. The average audience watching Tubi was 13.6 million—94% higher than in 2023, the last time Fox televised the Big Game.

AdImpact, drawing on its Advanced TV panel monitoring of 23 million smart TVs, reported peak viewership reached 152.4 million at 8:16 p.m. EST, just before halftime. Average viewership for the game was 137.7 million, breaking previous records, it said.

Linear viewing, including those watching via a set-top box, direct cable connection or TV antenna, accounted for 51% of the total. Ten percent of the linear audience watched Fox Deportes. Streaming viewers accounted for 49%—up from 41.5% in 2024. Tubi accounted for 18.7% of the streaming audience, YouTube and YouTube TV, 12.8% and other streaming services 17.4%, Fox said.

Samba TV also reported its findings, showing a slight dropoff in U.S. TV households watching compared to 2024.

Fox reported:

• 37.1 million U.S. households watched the Super Bowl—5% lower than last year’s game but higher than 2022 and 2023 by 1% to 2%.
• 28.8 million households watched Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show performance, 4% fewer than watched Usher’s 2024 halftime performance.
• 311,000 households tuned in to just watch the halftime show, down 8% from last year’s halftime performance.
• This year’s halftime show marked the viewership high point. Total viewership fell to 70% by the end of the game. In 2024, the game ended with 89% of peak viewership.
• The Super Bowl audience skewed towards white households (up 5% compared to the U.S. overall). However, among households that only watched the halftime show, Black households were 25% more likely to watch. For the game itself, Black households under-indexed by 6%.
• Across the top 25 DMAs—with Kansas City included—viewership over-indexed by the highest margin, along with Pittsburgh (+25%), Boston (+14%) and Minneapolis (+13%). Kansas City and Philadelphia over-indexed by +11% and +9%, respectively.

USA Today’s Ad Meter ranked the top 57 Super Bowl commercials. Budweiser’s “First Delivery,” topped the list, followed by Lay’s “The Little Farmer” and “Michelob ULTRA’s “The ULTRA Hustle.”

NEW ORLEANS—Each broadcast network responsible for the production personnel, technologies and distribution deployed to present the Super Bowl takes the opportunity to tell the game’s story in its own unique way.

Job one for this year’s steward, Fox Sports, is to bring its personalities, such as former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady, to the table with the best tools available to tell that story, Fox Sports Executive Vice President of Technical and Field Operations Michael Davies said.

(Kickoff coverage of the Feb. 9 Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles begins at 6:30 p.m. EST. Fox Sports’ pregame starts at 1 p.m. EST. The game will air on Fox Television Stations and affiliates, as well as Fox Deportes and Telemundo. Streamers can watch the game via Tubi or FuboTV, with a free trial.)

Brady, who will be calling his first Super Bowl as an analyst, will have at his disposal an elaborate high SkyCam setup based on the new Sony HDC-P50A, a 4K box camera running at 240 frames per second. Equipped with both optical and digital zooms, the camera becomes what Davies describes as “a variety of cameras all in one.”

“One is an aerial All 22 [referring to a camera that captures all offensive and defensive players in the same shot],” Davies said. “You’ll see Tom [Brady] Telestrate on this thing all of the time because it’s what analysts want to see. They want to see everything in terms of how the plays are unfolding so they can explain what’s happening from an X’s and O’s point of view.”

“High SkyCams have been done for years,” Davies said. “Frankly, I don’t really know if we even knew why we were using them. But the one thing that the high SkyCam did was it sometimes really got in the way of how we use the low SkyCam.”

To avoid that, Fox Sports will position its high SkyCam between 55 feet and 90 feet above the field and its low SkyCam, a Sony HDC-P50, 12 feet to 35 feet off the surface. Equipped with both optical and high-resolution digital zoom, the high SkyCam can be zoomed into areas of interest and prevent “everything from looking like ants,” he said.

“Putting that [zoom capability] on the high SkyCam has been immeasurably valuable, and we tested this all the way back in the pre-season in Santa Clara with a prototype from Sony,” said Davies, adding the broadcaster brought it back for the end of the season.

Fox Sports will complement the SkyCam setup with the Sony Hawk-Eye system to do zoom-cropping. Hawk-Eye will give the Fox Sports analysts the visuals needed to discuss and explain what’s happened on the field, he added.

Camera Totals and More
Fox Sports will cover the pregame and game with 149 cameras, including 27 super slow-motion cameras, 24 robotic cameras, 23 high-resolution cameras, 12 wireless cameras and others. But that number can be a bit misleading, Davies said.

“When you get to these crazy camera totals, there are some cameras that just won’t get a tally. It just won’t happen,” he said. “They’re there just in case. Just in case that specific play—that specific little occurrence like whether the ball hit the ground or a toe crossed the line—happens.”

Fox Sports will produce the game in 1080p high dynamic range (HDR) and broadcast it in 4K HDR. Several Fox Sports distributors such as Charter Communications’ Spectrum, Comcast’s Xfinity TV, Sling TV, Verizon FiOS, YouTube TV and others, will carry the entire broadcast, including pregame, halftime and postgame, in 4K.

As with other live events, Fox Sports will produce in HDR using Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG). “That’s basically what’s available now,” Davies said. “Somewhere downstream there is a conversion to PQ [Perceptual Quantizer].”

Dolby and Comcast issued a joint press release earlier this week saying that Xfinity TV customers and Xfinity Stream App users will be able to watch in both Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio as part of Comcast’s new Enhanced 4K offering on X1.

Regardless of what happens downstream, Davies said the important thing HDR production must account for is that most viewers continue to watch in standard dynamic range. “It’s a matter of being able to shade in HDR but also make sure the SDR is preserved,” he said.

Fox Sports is also working with panamorphic cameras from COSM, a company specializing in immersive fan viewing experiences at its Dallas and Los Angeles venues. (COSM Los Angeles will present the Super Bowl.)

“What we do with these cameras is region of interest,” he said. Two COSM cameras will be placed on carts for shots of the sidelines and benches—a great application for the specialty cameras.

“Increasingly there are things you might want to see on the benches, but you don’t have dedicated cameras, because the cameras are all interested in what’s happening on the field,” he said.

Fox Sports will de-warp the fish-eye lens effect from the COSM cameras and pan around the video to find 16x9 areas of interest for air.

COSM cameras will also be used in all of the pylons that mark off the corners of both end zones. While the resolution of those cameras is not quite high enough for use at the COSM dome venues, the 60 fps cameras have the ability to interpolate frames to make replays smooth enough to be used, he said

“It’s really bleeding-edge stuff that we’re doing with these COSM cameras,” he said. “But the result is there’s not one square inch of the field that isn’t covered with a camera—not only that but covered well.”

Augmented Reality Graphics and Drones
For the Super Bowl, Fox Sports will use a newly developed solution for Augmented Reality graphics.

Combining a LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) system from Kudan, SkyTrax graphics tracking and some Fox Sports-developed software, the solution solves a problem that has plagued AR graphics that are smaller than full screen, Davies said.

“The LIDAR informs a system that is engaged with the [low] SkyCam telemetry system,” said Davies, adding that doing so increases the accuracy of positioning data—a crucial element to rock-solid augmented graphics.

“The problems in the past with reduced tracking accuracy gave rise to the possibility of shaking or mistracking,“ he said. ”The illusion of having a three-dimensional graphic on the field was completely broken when it starts not tracking accurately with the camera.”

As a result, the only safe use of augmented reality graphics was to go full-screen. “What this translates into is more confidence in being able to pop these graphics on and getting away from the full-screen graphics that take viewers out of the game,“ Davies said. “This allows us to put three-dimensional graphics in the game so viewers never actually leave the stadium and, in that way, stay more engaged.”

The broadcaster will also deploy drones as part of its coverage of the event. Given the close proximity of landmarks like Bourbon Street and the French Quarter to the stadium, drone footage will be used to give viewers the feeling of being in New Orleans.

Fox Sports is tapping the airborne expertise of Beverly Hills Aerials as it has in the past for the Daytona 500, the World Series and its last Super Bowl, to fly the drones and ensure their operation complies with league rules and local law enforcement, he said.

Shots from the drones will be used “for everything from features to added color in support of interviews and events,” Davies said.

While broadcasters have often deployed the television production equivalent of a secret weapon to cover the Super Bowl, Davies said that approach doesn’t fit in with his orientation to covering the game.

“If you bring some esoteric thing out there and that is only used once for the Super Bowl and the production team has never had a chance to use it, it’s difficult to wedge it in,” he said. “Frankly, it’s unfair to give that to a production team and just say, ‘OK, now you’ve got this thing, and you’ve got to use it and make it part of the story.’ ”

Davies is confident that whether it’s the addition of the new LIDAR technology, the COSM cameras, the high SkyCam or any of the other tech that will go into game coverage, the production team is familiar with it and ready to make it a part of the Fox Sports telling of the Super Bowl story.

SAN DIEGO—Sony said a record number of its cameras will be trained on the Super Bowl Feb. 9, when the Kansas City Chiefs meet the Philadelphia Eagles in New Orleans.

Sony, an official technology partner of the NFL, said that more than 240 Sony cameras will be in and around the Caesars Superdome covering plays, replays, interviews and celebrations.

These cameras range from Sony’s professional broadcast models used by Fox Sports, the official broadcaster, to the various Alpha interchangeable lens cameras and E-mount lenses including G Master that the Associated Press and other sideline photographers will use to create Super Bowl imagery.

“The Super Bowl is not just the biggest game of the year, it is also the biggest production,” Michael Davies, Fox Sports executive vice president of field operations, said. “Our job is to tell the story of the game, capturing the energy within the stadium and keeping billions of viewers engaged, and Sony is a key tool in reaching that goal.”

This year Fox Sports and production company Game Creek Video will deploy more than 100 cameras on-site for pregame, in-game and postgame action, as well as additional studio shows. Fox will also have Sony BVM reference level monitors on-site for color grading to bring the most accurate imagery to fans around the world.

More specifically, Sony’s cameras will be positioned in each end zone, along both sidelines and in multiple positions throughout the stadium, including the “SkyCam” over the field. There will be 14 Sony cameras dedicated to handling content for streaming.

In addition to all the broadcast and production cameras, Fox Sports will use Sony’s HawkREPLAY systems, a remote production and instant replay broadcast solution, to support the overall broadcast experience. Additional Hawk-Eye technology will also support in-game officiating and replay services, as well as the overall production.

“The Super Bowl is the most watched event of the year, and delivering an authentic and immersive experience for coaches, players, and fans requires a wide array of advanced technologies,” NFL Chief Information Officer Gary Brantley said. “Sony has been instrumental in enhancing the game day experience with its innovative solutions, and we are proud to have Sony play a key role in making Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans unforgettable.”

Added Neal Manowitz, president and chief operating officer of Sony Electronics North America: “We are proud to play a critical role in Super Bowl LIX, drawing on our decades-long record of imaging innovation and production expertise to ensure that every fan watching on-site or at home has the best seat in the house.”

On the photography side, Sony is the exclusive imaging products and support provider for the Associated Press. In total, AP will have 14 photographers and 9 editors on-site at the Super Bowl using Sony equipment to capture and share imagery. The NFL’s in-house photography team, NFL Focus, will use a variety of Sony Alpha cameras and lenses to cover the game as well. Sony’s Pro Support team will offer a pro photographer depot on-site to help service and support the professionals working the game, including offering loans of the brand-new flagship Alpha 1 II camera.

Both the Associated Press and the NFL’s in-house photography are also planning to utilize Sony’s PDT-FP1 transmitter device on-site to deliver photos and videos directly from camera to editors in real time, streamlining their workflow and resulting in the fastest possible distribution to the public.

Each year, the size and scope of the Super Bowl Halftime Show gets larger, including its production elements. For the fifth year in a row, the Funicular Goats will handle technical production of the Halftime Show and for the fourth straight year, the Goats are choosing the Sony Venice 2 as their main camera alongside the Sony Venice Extension System and the Sony Burano for a total of 14 cameras.

“The Super Bowl Halftime Show is a challenge unlike any other project we’ve been a part of,” explains James Coker, head of engineering and technical management at Funicular Goats. “There are less than five minutes to set up and deliver a cinematic concert to millions of people, and the Sony Cinema Line cameras provide the perfect combination of full-frame sensor with broadcast compatibility to work seamlessly within the show’s structure and achieve this challenge.”

Sony provided this breakdown of equipment by user:

• Fox Sports: 97 Sony HDC Series Broadcast System Cameras; 1 Sony FR7 Cinematic PTZ Camera; 3 Sony FX6 Full-Frame Cinema Cameras; 1 Sony Alpha 7 III Mirrorless Camera; 1 Sony VENICE 2 Digital Cinema Camera.
• AP: More than 55 Sony cameras and a variety of lenses.
• NFL Focus Photography Team: Eight Sony cameras and a variety of lenses.
• Funicular Goats—Super Bowl Halftime Show: 13 Sony Venice 2 Digital Cinema Cameras; 1 Sony Venice Extension System; 1 Sony Burano Digital Cinema Camera (for ASL camera).
• Sony Pro Support: 65 Sony Full Frame Mirrorless Cameras; 140 Professional Lenses including 14x 600mm, 10x 400mm, 6x 300mm super telephoto lenses.

NEW YORK—Fox Sports said will be streaming the Feb. 9 Super Bowl for the first time via free streaming service Tubi, as well as providing coverage of the big game in New Orleans on Fox, Fox Deportes, NBCUniversal’s Telemundo and across NFL digital properties

Tubi will offer a 4K feed of the coverage.

The news that Tubi will be streaming the NFL’s title game comes as Fox Corp’s free ad-supported streaming streaming service has been reporting significant audience growth. Recently, Tubi released new data showing it surpassed 97 million monthly active users and streamed more than 10 billion hours of content in 2024.

Fox Sports also reported a variety of details surrounding what it is calling its special coverage “takeover” of the Super Bowl.

On Friday, Feb. 7, in addition to Fox Sports’ regularly scheduled daily studio programming on FS1, the network will showcase a special live presentation on the Fox broadcast network spotlighting FS1’s roster of shows and personalities. The lineup begins at noon ET with “First Things First”, followed by “The Facility” at 1 p.m. and “Speak” at 2 p.m.. At 3 p.m., “Breakfast Ball” takes center stage before handing off to “The Herd With Colin Cowherd” at 4 p.m..

On Tubi featured content is set to include Fox’s “Super Bowl LIX Pregame Show,” the game itself and a first-of-its-kind live preshow titled the “Tubi Red Carpet at Super Bowl LIX.”

Fox also reported that fans can get ready for the game by tuning into the NFL Channel on Tubi to catch “Countdown to the Super Bowl” starting Jan. 28, with historical Super Bowls, iconic halftime shows, best of NFL Honors, league analysis and more.

Complete details surrounding Fox Sports’ programming for the big game will be announced at a later date, Fox Sports said.

From more than 200 feet off the ground outside of L.A.’s iconic Dodger Stadium, a camera gives viewers of Game 5 of the World Series a charming mood shot of the stadium’s exterior to accompany a break in the action. Sports fans have seen similar shots a million times over the years, right? Not like this.

On this night, the shot begins to track into the venue as the camera, attached to a remotely piloted drone, soars between the flagpoles atop the stadium’s main entrance and then rises into the sky, revealing a breathtaking view of the Los Angeles skyline amid the stunning glow of a lavender sunset. Visuals like this, that bring a cinematic atmosphere into the production of major live sporting events, help broadcasters bring viewers at home closer to the action. And, increasingly, they’re doing it with shots that only drones can capture.

Dynamic Shots
“The coverage that we get with a blimp and the helicopters is great, but typically speaking, they’re quite high in the air … 3,000 feet or higher,” said Michael Davies, senior vice president, technical and field operations for Fox Sports, which has covered some of the world’s most-watched sporting events, including the World Series, NFL football and NASCAR. “What that means is you get that very typical shot we’ve seen for 40 years, just circling around. What the drone does is add some dynamics to those kinds of shots. They can be especially useful flying in areas and in conditions that blimps, planes or helicopters can’t fly.”

Fox isn’t alone in its use of drones and other new toys, of course. The past decade has seen a meteoric rise in the use of small, lightweight cameras attached to just about anything, delivering incredible access to sports viewers. Cameras are now routinely worn by on-field officials and players, implanted in playing surfaces (think golf’s “bunker cams”), attached to speeding cars, baseballs and the list goes on and on. But drones, with their unique ability to access tight spaces in a hurry—and get out of the way just as quickly—provide opportunities that dramatically change the nature of the coverage.

“We’ve been working with drones since 2015 and, at the time, we weren’t entirely sure what drones would bring to the equation,” Davies continued. “Over time, we began to say, quite honestly, ‘The more we can make our live sports coverage look like a video game, the better, right?’”

This unorthodox take on injecting creativity into the coverage of sports not only speaks to the storytelling power of new technologies but also the changing appetites of an audience that is inundated with information and seemingly always wants more.

Learning the Craft
Using drones to cover live sports beyond exteriors and wide cover shots, though, is very much tied to physics and reality, unlike video games. High-end cameras and lenses typically used in big-time sports are extremely heavy. Getting such equipment up in the air on a drone isn’t easy and isn’t something you necessarily can buy off the shelf.

As a result, even the most experienced sports production teams rely on outside expertise when perfecting their use of these new technologies. In the case of Fox Sports, it has been working with Beverly Hills Aerials, an Emmy Award-winning drone production company out of California, for more than 10 years.

“We spend quite a bit of time customizing our drones—it’s very much a ‘right tool for the right job’ situation for us,” explained Michael Izquierdo, founder and chief pilot at Beverly Hills Aerials (BHA). “Once we understand what is available to us in terms of access, flight restrictions and other safety and security concerns, we can go to the production crew and say, ‘Here’s what we can do.’”

From there, the BHA team gets to work outfitting the appropriate machine with the appropriate equipment, including, in some cases, using the exact same camera and coloring equipment used throughout the rest of the production. There are many considerations and calculations including overall weight of the rig, speed, number and type of cameras, where it will be flying and how long it needs to be in the air. Izquierdo estimates his company has accumulated north of 1,000 drones over the years because of the customizations required.

“We work with an outside firm like Beverly Hills Aerials for two main reasons,” Davies explained. “First, they’re incredibly creative and they’re the experts in the use of these tools and what can be accomplished. Sometimes, our crew will just ask them to ‘give us something’ and it’s up to the pilot and camera operator to serve up some things. Second, they’re just extremely good with the paperwork and they’ve got tremendous relationships with some of the governing bodies for the airspace. These types of companies have become synonymous with following the rules and avoiding surprises and those are the two big things that are table stakes for drones.”

“We probably spend more time working out logistics, approvals and clearances prior to a production than we do at the actual event,” Izquierdo confirmed.

Caution Overhead
The use of drones to cover live game action, though, can be very tricky. For starters, government regulations around the use of drones can be very restrictive, especially in crowded venues. And for good reason. Just weeks ago, hundreds of Boston Celtics fans were gathered in Boston’s City Hall Plaza celebrating the opening of the 2024-25 NBA season at a watch party when a drone shooting aerial visuals of the event crashed into the crowd. Fortunately, none of the injuries sustained were life-threatening, but the incident highlights the need to proceed with caution.

When asked if this incident had an impact on the professional drone community, Izquierdo replied: “I hope it did. Too many people think drones equipped with cameras are just toys that anyone can put up in the air and start using.”

“I don’t know the details of what happened in Boston but I know preventing things like that is why we spend so much time in the planning and preparation stage,” he added. “Flying drones is all we do. Our pilots are highly skilled and some are champion flyers from the Drone Racing League.” Izquierdo also offered that his company has never had an incident like what occurred in Boston.

The future for drones in sports coverage is seemingly very bright. In addition to Fox, ESPN, CBS and others have all incorporated the technology into their coverage to lend a more cinematic look to their coverage. Dazzling shots of the coastline at Pebble Beach and a visual tour of one of the world’s most beautiful cities during the Paris Summer Olympics add to the splendor of the games being played and give the sports storytellers the chance to further engage their audience.

“When we first started, drone coverage was really considered a low-quality, low-cost thing,” Izquierdo said. “With our partners, we’ve been able to continue improving and add a level of creativity that was never possible before.”

So, what’s next for drones in sports? Fox has pushed the envelope with its coverage of the UFL, a football league partially owned by the network. During UFL games last summer, for example, drones hovered within the field of play, very close to the field, and were able to move alongside players to capture angles that simply aren’t available using any other technology. Having nearly unfettered access to the game certainly helps Fox in flexing their creative muscles in the UFL. What about for other leagues like the NFL?

“I think that, as you go up the line, usually the popularity of the sport and the speed at which new technology is implemented are inversely proportional, There’s a lot at stake,” Davies concluded. “Obviously, we don’t want to do crazy stuff that is going to impede the action or somehow get in the way. But now I think that all the partners we have are coming to the table and asking us what’s next and are happy to be pushed.”

Using Drones for Tower Inspections

Using drones in broadcasting is not just limited to content; AEVs have also proven to be invaluable in tower inspections, reducing costs and increasing the safety of tower crews.

TV Tech recently spoke with Jason Schreiber, managing director for Sixarms, an Australian-based RF consultancy that uses cutting-edge drone technology to provide efficient and cost-effective RF measurement solutions for broadcast, telecommunication, and defense industries.

Their unique approach combines industrial drones equipped with RF measurement instruments, specialized automation, and advanced analytics. This allows Sixarms to rapidly and accurately characterize RF transmission infrastructure, such as antennas, surpassing the limitations of traditional ground-based methods.

Sixarms works with major U.S. television networks to analyze broadcast antenna performance and identify installation or manufacturing defects that impact signal quality.

TV Tech: What are the biggest challenges in using drones for tower inspection?Jason Schreiber: Sixarms' unique position as a provider of cutting-edge drone-based RF measurement services presents a distinct set of challenges. Key areas requiring attention include:

Navigating Regulatory Complexity: Drone regulations are constantly evolving and vary significantly across jurisdictions. Maintaining compliance with these regulations, including securing necessary permits and adhering to airspace restrictions, is crucial for operational efficiency.

Ensuring Data Integrity: Maintaining the accuracy and reliability of drone-collected data is paramount. Factors such as weather conditions, electromagnetic interference, and equipment calibration can all impact data quality and require rigorous quality control measures.

Developing and Retaining Talent: Operating specialized drone equipment, analyzing complex RF data, and maintaining safety standards demands a highly skilled workforce. Attracting and retaining qualified personnel with expertise in both drone technology and RF engineering is an ongoing challenge. This includes skilled and experienced drone operators capable of safely navigating challenging environments around TV towers, guy wires, and high RF energy fields.

Addressing Public Perception: The use of drones in public spaces can raise privacy concerns. Sixarms proactively addresses these concerns through transparent communication and professional conduct, ensuring that public engagement is handled with sensitivity and respect.

TVT: Are there unique challenges when using drones that pertain to certain industries (i.e. cellular vs. traditional broadcast tower)?
JS: Higher RF powers (1MW vs. 50W) and taller structures (2,000 ft. vs. 120 ft.) are the main differences and challenges between cellular and broadcast infrastructure.

TVT: How many pilots do you have and what is the extent of their training?
JS: Sixarms operates on a global scale, empowering a network of Certified Operators in Australia, Europe, the US, Central America, and Africa. These highly trained professionals utilize Sixarms' cutting-edge equipment and drone technology to deliver high-quality RF measurement services worldwide.

(Also: Using Drones to Verify FM Antenna Performance)

Ideal partners include established companies already serving the telecommunications, broadcast, and defense industries who are looking to enhance their capabilities with advanced drone-based solutions. However, Sixarms also collaborates with experienced drone operators who possess a strong interest in RF technology and are eager to expand their skillset.

TVT: How have regulations in the U.S. changed over the years in terms of making drone tower inspections easier to do (and possibly more affordable?)
JS: While regulations remain consistent, advancements in drone technology have significantly reduced the cost of both industrial drones and RF measurement solutions. This translates to more affordable service offerings compared to just a few years ago. Furthermore, the increased sophistication of RF data gathering software and automated programming has streamlined operations, leading to greater efficiency and ultimately lower prices for clients.

NEW YORK—Fox Sports is reporting large audience numbers for the 2024 World Series and its coverage of the postseason, as 18.6 million viewers across Fox, Fox Deportes and Fox Sports streaming platforms watched Game 5 of the World Series, making it the most-watched Game 5 of the fall classic since 2017.

It was also the most-streamed World Series in the network’s history, Fox reported.

On Fox, the conclusion to the Los Angeles Dodgers-New York Yankees matchup delivered an average audience of 18,152,000 viewers and peaked at 21,268,000 from 11:15-11:30 p.m. (ET), delivering the most-watched Game 5 of the World Series since 2017 (Dodgers vs. Houston Astros, with 18,959,000 viewers).

The Dodgers’ second World Series clinch in four years was up 58% over last year’s World Series Game 5 (Texas Rangers-Arizona Diamondbacks, which tallied 11,483,000 viewers).

Across all networks, the 120th World Series dominated the television landscape with an average of 15,808,000 viewers, the best combined figure for the Fall Classic since 2017, Fox said.

Through five games on Fox alone, the World Series averaged 15,204,000 viewers, up 67% over last year’s five-game average (9,108,000), delivering the best five-game average of the World Series since 2017 (16,416,000).

In addition, the complete 2024 MLB postseason on Fox and FS1 averaged 7,485,000 viewers, up 42% from last year’s average (5,265,000) and Fox Sports’ best baseball postseason through Game 5 of the World Series since 2017.

Game 5 was also the most-streamed World Series game in Fox Sports history, with a total average minute audience (AMA) of 487,386.

Overall, the five-game series was the most-streamed fall classic in network history with a total AMA of 368,808. That figure is up 123% over last year and up 59% from the previous all-time high in 2022.

On Fox, Game 5 drew a 21.1/55 rating in Los Angeles and a 14.8/39 in New York.

Top available markets for the entire World Series include:

• Los Angeles (18.9/53)
• San Diego (12.4/41)
• New York (12.2/33)
• Hartford, Conn. (11.1/30)
• Las Vegas (9.3/28)
• Kansas City (8.7/25)
• Phoenix (8.2/25)
• St. Louis (8.2/24)
• West Palm Beach, Fla. (8.2/21)
• Portland, Ore. (8.0/30)

Fox Deportes’ coverage of Game 5 averaged 447,000 viewers, making it the network’s most-watched MLB game this season as well as the most-watched World Series Game 5 since 2018 (Boston Red Sox-Los Angeles Dodgers, with 577,000 viewers). Game 5 was up 174% over last year (166,000) and peaked at 540,000 from 11:45 p.m. to midnight (ET), the company reported.

The 2024 World Series averaged 504,000 viewers on Fox Deportes, doubling last year’s average (181,000) and making it the most-watched in Spanish-language television history.

The complete 2024 MLB Postseason on Fox Deportes averaged 281,000 viewers, the highest-performing postseason ever for the network.

LOS ANGELES—Major League Baseball rules like the 18-second pitch clock aren’t the only thing that’s changed about the national pastime.

How games are produced for television is undergoing a series of incremental changes that, when taken together, will bring a fresh point of view to those watching the action. That will be especially true during the Fox Sports production of this year’s World Series between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers.

[Game 1 of the 2024 World Series is Friday, Oct. 25, starting at 8:08 p.m. (ET). The series will air exclusively on the Fox broadcast network and Fox Deportes. Streaming coverage will be available on the Fox Sports App and FoxSports.com.]

“There are some years that are revolutionary, and some years that are evolutionary,” said Michael Davies, senior vice president of technical and field operations at Fox Sports, referring to at least a half-dozen production and technology enhancements added over the years.

“You put all of these changes together, and you’re starting to say, ‘My God, there's been a ton of evolution in baseball [coverage],’ ” he said. “Year-on-year, we’ve gone from covering the game from the outside in to looking for ways to cover it from the inside out.” Much of the credit for this evolution goes to Fox Sports producer Pete Macheska, director Matt Gangl and Brad Cheney, vice president of field operations and engineering, Davies said.

Inside-Out
Fox Sports is augmenting familiar production staples like Dirt Cams, on-field mics and in-game player interviews, which have helped to bring an “inside-out” perspective to viewers, with enhanced versions of other production technology.

Perhaps the most notable enhancement will be a new Ump View camera that brings a far clearer point of view from behind the plate to the production.

“Ump View is a fantastic camera,” Davies said. [Production coordinator] Rob Bunn and the RF Wireless guys have done a phenomenal job improving that camera. We’re using their very new camera now, and that actually makes a big difference in terms of clarity, eliminating motion blur. And the battery life is insane.”

Davies credited MLB for its willingness to work with RF Wireless to perfect an RF camera mounted at the top of the plate umpire’s mask that can be shaded to match other game cameras and support its use during games. Fox Sports, which debuted its use of the camera during the 2022 MLB All-Star Game, is looking forward to seeing its clearer shots integrated into World Series coverage, he says.

“You know, baseball, being good partners, allows us to do these things,” he said. “Their evangelism of the umpire camera was the reason that now it’s becoming an indispensable type of camera, and you know, we’re really looking forward to seeing what the next umpire cam can do.”

How drones are used also contributes to the inside-out perspective the broadcaster is seeking. Between innings, Hummingbird drones add a first-person perspective, Davies said.

“We started several years ago using drones,” he said. “Using them in the game is table stakes—not only for beauty shots but to capture a unique perspective during some interesting between-inning flights.”

Evolution To Revolution
As with its other MLB postseason coverage, Fox Sports will shoot the World Series in 1080p HDR, which Davies considers to be “table stakes” for an industry continuing to evolve from 720p and 1080i HD and standard dynamic range.

The broadcaster also will incorporate its “iterative home-run tracker” to represent home runs graphically and “make the look and sound more exciting,” as well as a new treatment for behind-the-plate ad signage that doesn’t require a green board, he said.

“We use a method to place the ads between the players and the wall,” Davies said. “It’s not revolutionary, but if you don’t think about the ads and you don't see a green board, that's a good thing.”

Fox Sports will continue to use its strike-zone treatment—a far subtler approach than others, says Davies.

“That’s something that’s uniquely Fox,” he said. “Everybody does the strike zone. We do a very subtle strike zone that you can kind of see if you’re looking for it, and you kind of miss if you’re not, which is exactly what we are trying to achieve.”

If all of these advancements are steps up the evolutionary ladder, what will characterize the next revolution in remote production? While Davies didn’t specifically identify what might be the next big thing, he did point to artificial intelligence as a potential catalyst certain to play a bigger role in the future.

“If you squint, you’ll see AI everywhere,” he said. “AI is all around us, and we’re just beginning to understand how to use it.”

Early use cases have involved video interpolation—mathematically creating new video frames squeezed between real frames, like lunch meat between two slices of bread—that have powered production tech like XtraMotion synthetic slow motion, he said.

AI algorithms also create rich metadata that makes it easier to find desired shots on the Fox Sports media asset-management system and can cut the time needed to create highlight reels and find specific shots for replays.

“What we’re looking at in the future for AI is tracking, having tracking inform different high-resolution cameras,” he said.

Even generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) will play a role in the future, but not one that threatens the jobs of those who produce the games, Davies said.

“Everybody wants to talk about Gen AI. It's funny that there just aren’t too many hard-and-fast use cases,” Davies said. “I keep hearing the same things over and over again. Like we can do real-time translation. We can do real-time descriptive audio. But in terms of the machines coming for our jobs, we're not quite seeing that yet.”

CAMPBELL, Calif.—Fox Sports and YBVR have announced that they will be creating an immersive virtual reality experience for the Copa América Final on Meta Quest, revolutionizing how fans engage with sports broadcasting.

More specifically, Fox Sports will bring the Copa América Final to virtual reality (VR) on YBVR's Xtadium platform, which is exclusively available on Meta Quest.

Produced in an immersive 180-degree format, the VR experience will enable fans to experience the excitement and intensity of the match from multiple perspectives within the stadium.

Fox Sports and YBVR said that this groundbreaking collaboration combines cutting-edge VR technology with extensive coverage, providing viewers with unprecedented access to live matches and comprehensive content.

In addition to the Final to be played on Sunday, July 14th (8 PM ET), YBVR's direct-to-consumer platform, Xtadium, available exclusively on Meta Quest, will also showcase the 3rd Place match live in VR. 

Also available within the app, and free to all users, are full replays of the Copa América Semifinals - Argentina vs. Canada and Colombia vs Uruguay.

"We are thrilled to team up with Fox Sports and to provide them a platform within Meta Quest to broadcast Copa América to fans in VR," said Hector Prieto, CEO of VBYR. "This opportunity underscores our commitment to innovation in live sports streaming, enhancing viewer engagement and delivering a truly immersive experience."

Within Xtadium, Fox Sports will publish shorter 5-minute highlight packages of the Semifinals, 3rd Place match and the Final providing fans with quick recaps of the tournament's most thrilling moments.

"We're excited to bring our presentation of the Copa América 3rd Place & Finals matches to YBVR and Meta Quest, so fans can enjoy this new, immersive experience from the comfort of their own homes," said Michael Bucklin, senior vice president of digital at Fox Sports. "Through this state-of-the-art VR technology and our determination to be at the forefront of broadcast innovation, this is yet another example of our determination to deliver enhanced, differentiated, world-class viewing experiences to sports fans."

The live VR broadcasts and content offerings will be available for free viewing via Meta Quest and YBVR's direct-to-consumer service Xtadium from July 11th, 2024. Viewers can download Xtadium for free from the Meta Horizon store to access the live VR streams, replays, and highlights.

Fox announced today that it has signed a new multi-year agreement that will make Fox Sports the new exclusive home of the NTT IndyCar SERIES and the iconic Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge beginning in 2025.

Fox says the new media rights deal “provides a massive and unprecedented increase in exposure for North America’s premier open-wheel racing series.” Every IndyCar race starting in 2025 will air on Fox as well as on the Fox Sports app. Fox Deportes will carry exclusive Spanish-language television coverage with a schedule to be announced at a later date.

Fox will also provide coverage of Indy 500 qualifications on both Saturday and Sunday, bringing the total number of broadcast network windows to 19, a new record for the NTT IndyCar SERIES, Fox said. IndyCar will become the only premier motorsport in the United States with exclusive major broadcast network coverage for all of its races.

“This represents unrivaled exposure and provides an unparalleled growth opportunity for the most competitive and entertaining motorsport on the planet,” said IndyCar CEO Mark Miles. “Fox Sports is a fully committed partner, ready to bring engaging and technically innovative coverage to millions of fans across the country while also promoting INDYCAR thoroughly across all its platforms.”

The 2025 NTT IndyCar SERIES season kicks off with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on Sunday, March 2 and concludes with the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix on Sunday, August 31. The 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge takes place on Sunday, May 25. The full schedule was released today and can be viewed here.

Indy 500 Race Day coverage will be extensive for fans across the country, with a five-hour window on Fox set aside for “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” The Indy 500 is annually the world’s largest single-day spectator sporting event, attracting a crowd of more than 300,000 people to the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway, according to IndyCar.

Additional announcements, including on-air talent, will be announced at a later date.

LOS ANGELES—Technology and sports have gone hand-in-hand at least since KDKA in Pittsburgh broadcast the first live sporting event—a boxing match—more than 100 years ago.

Since then, the two have become so enmeshed that it’s hard to think about one without the other. But the new United Football League (UFL) plans to take things to a whole new level, building its foundation with technology as the cornerstone.

“The UFL is a league defined by technology,” says Brad Cheney, vice president for field operations and engineering at Fox Sports. “That’s what the board wants. That’s what the league wants, and that’s what the broadcasters want.”

While Fox Sports plans to use some new production technology and apply a bit of “one-upmanship” on technology used for the past few years, he says, much of the tech will be what the broadcaster has developed over the past 30 years covering the NFL and nearly 20 years of college football.

“The real benefit is we are going to give the viewer the access they desire. Quite honestly, we know what that is now,” says Cheney.

UFL, tech and the viewer
The UFL, which begins inaugural play March 30 with four games, is the new league formed by the merger of the XFL and USFL. Fox Sports and ESPN share the UFL broadcast duties. 

(Editor’s note: TVTech asked ESPN about its plans but as of publication has received no reply.)

The league’s emphasis on technology is a strategy to differentiate itself and produce dividends for the fans, the teams and the league. “By leveraging technology, you get to be part of an R&D-oriented environment with the goal being to make the players better, which makes the play better, which makes the games more exciting,” he says.

One tech improvement viewers will notice immediately is the use of an automated first down system that keeps the game moving and running at the pace the players want.

“Imagine a long drive with a little bit of time left on the clock,” says Cheney. “You're running down the field. The last thing you want to do is let the defense reset itself while you're pulling the chains out.”

Instead, Fox Sports will use an optical ball-tracking technology that relies on data from multiple static cameras in the stadium and cloud processing to determine exact ball positioning within three seconds, he says.

“As the official places that ball on the field, it is laser-marked exactly by the optical system. The system tells us exactly how many yards that ball moved from the last time it started and from where the first down was,” he explains.

Audio Enhancements
The broadcasters will mic coaches and key players as well as rely on an array of parabolic mics to enhance audio.

Not only will fans be able to hear what coaches and quarterbacks are saying when the Fox Sports production team thinks the audio will improve viewing, but the telecast’s on-air crew will be able to listen and step up their game calls and color commentary.

“That’s a piece of the learning experience we’re developing,” says Cheney. “Our talent will explain what a play could be before the snap [based on these communications]. Viewers will be able to start to really understand these exchanges as they hear them in our broadcasts.”

The wireless mics, transmitters and receivers needed to pick up these verbal clues are only part of the UFL audio story, however.

“We’re micing a lot of players as we have in the past. But you can only have so many wireless microphones out there before you run into RF problems,” says Cheney.

“The goal is to have the right players with microphones on and having a pool of parabolic microphones to really dig into that sound,” he says.

Fox Sports crews will have full access to coaches and players—not simply on and off the field—but also up and down the sidelines. 

“Not only does that access help us with capturing video, but it really helps in capturing audio. All of a sudden, the parabolic microphones we used to aim down the straight line when the teams match up are right there,” he says. “They’re much closer than they are in college and NFL coverage.”

Two parabolic mic operators on each sideline will have access to the edge of the playing field and won’t be forced to attempt to pick up audio from behind players on the sidelines, he says, adding that they will not be standing in front of coaches.

Video production
Fox Sports will produce the UFL in 1080p HDR. Some games will be upconverted to 4K HDR, says Cheney.

Unlike the USFL, which chose a handful of venues for game play with opposing teams visiting, thereby drastically reducing the number of production truck rolls needed, the UFL will employ the more traditional traveling-team, home-away model.

As a result, Fox Sports will roll OB trucks to each home venue and also will employ its Home Run Model production workflow. Graphics and specialized production elements will run from the broadcaster’s Vault facility in Los Angeles. Augmented reality will play a part in UFL presentations, as well, he says. 

The camera complement is extensive, totaling more than 50 cameras, including specialty cameras like a drone camera, a home and visiting team Helmet Cam from Action Streamer, umpire and side judge Hat Cams, Megalodon and Pylon cameras.

“A lot of these pieces will be used on a consistent basis to make sure we have all this material available to our production team to show off what’s going on,” says Cheney.

One familiar technology that will see less use for UFL coverage is Skycam. “Especially as you start to talk about Helmet Cams and the drone, you say, ‘Wait a second. If I've got a running back with a Helmet Cam, and I know he is going to run the ball, I'm going to rip the Skycam out of the way and watch him coming at me instead of trying to follow that ball through the zone,” says Cheney.

Beverly Hills Aerials will handle drone duties, deploying its fourth-generation Bumblebee drone system, a more agile unit that offers “a bit more movement in the gimbal system” and greater camera stabilization, says Cheney.

“We're going to continue to launch that throughout the season and give you that angle of being in the run, being behind these players as they move, tracking a ball as it's kicked, tracking a ball as it’s thrown and finding that new look,” he says. 

Beyond the immediate benefits these technologies bring to the UFL and viewers, their use gives other sports leagues and organizations an opportunity to see how they perform and could possibly enhance the television production of their games.

“We have been a very open book with the NFL and the power five conferences and the NCAA about us doing things that other people aren’t doing,” says Cheney. “We’re happy to show them and have them come down and see that what we’re doing is going to be beneficial for the sport.”

(Fox Sports coverage begins with a game between both leagues’ champions, the Birmingham Stallions and the Arlington Renegades at 1 p.m. EDT. Next up for Fox Sports is the St. Louis Battlehawks vs. the Michigan Panthers at 4 p.m. ESPN’s season kickoff coverage begins at noon EDT with the D.C. Defenders vs. the San Antonio Brahmas and concludes with the Memphis Showboats vs. the Houston Roughnecks at 3.pm EDT. Games will be aired on Fox, FS1, ABC and ESPN.)

CHARLOTTE, N.C.—The mash up of cinema and auto racing has left its mark on audiences over the years with films like “Le Mans,” “Snake & Mongoose” and “Days of Thunder.”

Fox Sports is working to leave a cinematic impression on viewers watching “NASCAR Race Hub,” now in its 15th season, which began Jan. 29 with episode 2,500, from its studio here.

For this season’s debut, the broadcaster has deployed a new SUPERTECHNO Technodolly25, a programmable camera crane that delivers the precise, repeatable flying camera shots the broadcaster is relying on to add a new sizzle to productions. Fox Sports will use the device daily to capture shots for the show’s virtual set—the product of Zero Density real-time visual effects software and Unreal Engine—that otherwise would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to pull off.

Typically used in cinematic production, the 2,500-pound, robotic, track-based dolly can extend its telescopic reach 25 feet into the virtual set, opening new production vistas that will blend 3D objects and augmented reality features into the show’s presentations in ways that are not typical of live TV.

“It [Technodolly25] creates all kinds of interesting possibilities for perspective that we never could have had with a jib and a Steadicam,” says Tom Creter, vice president of operations and engineering at Fox Sports.

Virtual Drone
Before installing the Technodolly25 in early January, the show relied on an 11-foot jib and Steadicam for some of the more interesting shots on the virtual set—a rather common occurrence in television production, he says.

While satisfactory for more shots, one in particular never worked as seamlessly as the production staff desired, says Creter.

“One of our engineers developed a virtual drone inside the virtual environment,” he recalls. “As part of the Zero Density software there’s a way to pull out with a real camera, hand it off to the virtual camera and that [virtual] camera will continue on and fly off. It allows you to do a lot of things that you just wouldn’t be able to do with a real camera,” he explains.

That function “never really worked great,” however so the show looked for a way to have a more precise handoff, he says.

The answer revealed itself at the NAB Show a couple years ago, when Creter and his colleagues got a demo of Technodolly15, a smaller version of the model it has installed, from the SUPERTECHNO’s founder Horst Burbulla. 

“Technodolly is used on film sets mostly and TV commercials but mostly cinematic,” says Creter. “They use the repeat functionality of the robotics to do multi-layered green screen stuff in film. We were like, ‘Well, we kind of do that, too.’”

The robotic dolly offered the reproduceable shots needed for a show that starts with the same look every day—shots that at the time were taken from the camera on the moving jib. Plus, the robotics had many other functions that “we though could be really handy,” he says.

Not only would the dolly reach all the way around the set’s desk, which is used for race day, it also could replace the jib and the Steadicam, providing continuous movement from one position to another simply by being programmed to execute desired moves, he says.

Fox Sports saw this as the opportunity to bring its virtual drone to life as well as create a number of other new, seamless moves. For example, with the dolly it’s possible to capture a moving shot that starts behind the talent, comes up over their shoulders and flies over a large virtual screen that comes out of the floor, says Creter.

Another moving shot the broadcaster saw during the demo and one may make it into the show originates from Technodolly flying around a virtual racetrack. “It’s almost like you were driving a car around the track, and because of the gimbal, it follows the track just like a car,” he says.

Setup and Safety
Technodolly25 is a permanent fixture in the studio—at least for this season of “NASCAR Race Hub,” and it’s easy to understand why. Setup required many steps culminating in the track on which the dolly rides being bolted to the floor.

Before that could be done, however, it was necessary to layout the track and figure out what location would work best in the studio, which took a couple of times, he says. Once in place, a SUPERTECHNO technician from Pilsen, Czech Republic, flew to Charlotte to make adjustments ensuring the track and dolly were perfectly level—a must for a moving, virtual camera that needs to report its precise real-world position to pull off realistic-looking shots for a virtual environment, he says.

Fox Sports has mounted a Grass Valley 4K-capable camera to the dolly and is evaluating whether to use a Fujinon or Canon lens for this application, says Creter.

Beyond the physical setup, maintaining the safety of talent and crew around Technodolly25 was a major concern, something Creter regards as “the preeminent driving force,” especially in its first week of use when talent and guests are being introduced to its presence.

“The backend of the crane where all the counterweight is is pretty big,” he explains. “It’s like 8 feet. When that thing is swinging around, you have to clear all of the carbon-based units out of the way so the crane doesn’t whack anybody. So, we have a no-walk zone.”

Talent, guests and crew simply cannot walk onto the set when they feel like it. “They have to be ushered out by the floor director, and when the crane operators are saying, ‘Crane is moving,’ everybody stops. Nobody is walking.”

Since its setup, the broadcaster’s production team has been learning how to use Technodolly25, building shots and becoming more comfortable with how to use it on-air.

“We are taking baby steps. We are going to crawl and then walk. I know our director wants to start sprinting right away,” says Creter, chuckling. “But we are just being a little more cautious, because if you take the wrong step, you can break the illusion of a virtual reality set. We are being cautious so we can make sure it does everything we need it to do.”

NEW YORK—Fox Sports is reporting record viewing levels for the Ohio State-Michigan college football matchup that peaked at 22.9 million viewers and averaged 19,065,000 viewers. 

That made it the most-watched regular season college football game on any network since 2011 and the most-watched regular season college football game in Fox Sports history. 

The game was also up 11% from the 2022 Ohio State-Michigan game, which attracted 17,138,000 viewers. 

With both teams ranked in the top four, viewing for the game was also the third highest rated game in their long standing rivalry, behind the 21.06 million who viewed Ohio State-Michigan “Game of the Century” in 2006 when the two teams were ranked #1 and #2, and the 1978 game that attracted 19.24 million according to ratings from Sports Media Watch.  

ARLINGTON, Texas—Game 1 of the World Series tonight not only represents a milestone in the evolution of how Fox Sports uses drones as a production element for game coverage, but it may also prove to be the catalyst that pushes them into the mainstream of MLB game production.

This year’s coverage, which begins at 6 p.m. CDT on Fox, Fox Deportes and Fox streaming services, with the game scheduled to start at 7:03 p.m. CDT on October 27, marks the first time the sports broadcaster will use video from drones flying over the field during an MLB game that is not an exhibition contest. 

The sports broadcaster is deploying three drones custom-built and operated by Beverly Hills Aerials (BHA), including the Gimbal Bee, Hummer Lite and Hummingbird. Drone use will be confined to dead ball action, such as flying over the outfield to capture shots of a relief pitcher running to the mound from the bullpen or behind the pitcher as he walks off the mound after the last out of an inning, says Brad Cheney, Fox Sports vice president for field operations and engineering.

A Moving Perspective
The drone milestone follows the broadcaster’s use of a drone on the field for production of the 2023 MLB All-Star Game at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. However, MLB regards the All-Star Game as an "exhibition"—an important distinction when it comes to what the league allows.

“You get to do a lot more things in an exhibition,” says Cheney. “All the players wear microphones and all the IFBs and other things. You’re just allowed more leeway. “

Expanded use of drones to include shots from over the field is consistent with other production innovations like two-point wireline cameras going up and down the baselines that capture the fluidity of games, he says.

“It’s another perspective, a moving perspective,” he explains. “That’s the really great thing about baseball. It’s a moving experience. Everything that happens is a reaction to something else, and everyone is moving in concert,” says Cheney.

Successful drone use during this year’s World Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Texas Rangers, Cheney is hoping, will be the last step in the process to garnering the go-ahead for regular season use.

“By executing the All-Star Game drone use correctly, everybody feels good about it, allowing us to come to the postseason and roll this out,” he says. 

“What we’ve seen with a lot of technology at Fox in partnership with Major League Baseball is that you do some testing—whether during spring training, the All-Star Game or other exhibition—and then slowly get it into postseason. You get a good run at it, and everybody agrees it went well at the most important games of the year.

“Then, we’ll start bringing that new technology into regular season game coverage as will our other partners at Turner, ESPN and MLB Network.”

That’s not to say, however, that broadcasters will deploy drones for every regular season game—at least initially. However, as with other technologies, such as the two-point wireline cameras, drones will become a regular part of coverage over time, he says.

Drone Use
Fox Sports began integrating drone footage into its live productions in 2015 when it used a DJI Octocopter during the Indianapolis Supercross pre-event. Since then, drones have played a role in its coverage of a variety of NASCAR races, including the Daytona 500 and Talladega, and MLB’s Field of Dreams games.

The three drones to be used during coverage of the series won’t be airborne at the same time. Rather, different drones will be used in different circumstances, says Cheney.

Each will be operated under the control of a team from Beverly Hills Aerials. The small drones will be piloted by operators wearing First Person View (FPV) goggles. Spotters working with the pilots will watch the flight space, providing critical flight information to the pilots to ensure safety. 

The three drones to be used in Arlington and at Chase Field in downtown Phoenix are equipped with a 4K camera, although the games are being produced in 1080p, says Cheney.

In general, the drones will fly about 25 feet off the field; however, at times they may descend to capture certain shots. As of this writing, it remained undecided whether video transport from the drones would rely on 5G, conventional RF or a combination of the two. However, 5G will be used to link the pilots with the drones for control, says Cheney.

Video signals from the drones will be transported back to the goggle system, which in turn will output it for transport over the broadcaster’s fiber network to its OB vehicles for integration into game coverage, he adds.

Drones and More
As with its coverage of other high-profile events, Fox Sports will rely on a cornucopia of other technology to put its production mark on the games.

That technology includes UmpCam, which made its postseason debut during the American League Division Series, 52 cameras, FlyCam, three DirtCams, 13 Super Motion cameras, three RF cameras and more than 100 microphones.

Still, the 2023 World Series from a video production point of view will likely be remembered for on-field drone use—not just for the series itself but as the mover behind getting drones into coverage of regular season play.

“We're super excited to go ahead with this and figure out what's going to be the next steps and how this becomes a regular part of our production process,” says Cheney. “That's always been our goal here—to apply technology when it actually benefits the fan. And we know this benefits the fan.”

“We really believe this is going to be something that five years from now is not going to be a conversation because everyone's going to have it. It's just going to be another tool and everybody's tool belt.”

More information about the drones is available online.

SUNNYVALE, Calif.—In a notable example of how broadcasters are adopting generative AI to provide new content and experiences to viewers, Fox Sports has announced that it is working with Google to unlock the full potential of Fox’s vast sports content archives using Google Cloud's generative AI (gen AI) technology. 

The announcement expands on Fox Sports and Google Cloud's work in building Fox Sports' Intelligent Asset Service (IAS) that was first announced in 2020.

As part of the expanded collaboration with Google, Fox Sports is now planning to use use Google Cloud's gen AI technology through Vertex AI Vision to quickly search footage from more than 1.9 million videos and then produce new content in near real-time to delight and engage its global audiences. 

The collaboration has particularly important implications for the production of live events. Vertex AI Vision will allow Fox Sports to more quickly ingest live video and images, analyze millions of hours of games footage and commentary, while helping Fox employees create new television content, social media clippings, marketing assets, and more with ease. 

"With Google Cloud, we're able to utilize video search, advanced machine learning, and artificial intelligence to automate one of the most manual processes in sports media: tagging and searching video content," said Brad Zager, president of production/operations & executive producer, Fox Sports. "Compared to previous media management workflows, our team is able to swiftly find relevant content, which is critical in the business of live sports." 

Fox Sports' Intelligent Asset Service (IAS), which was first announced in 2020, utilizes Google Cloud's video search and advanced machine learning capabilities to help the sports network automate managing media assets. IAS allows Fox Sports to gain more value from its content library by reducing its reliance on paper logs, conflicting systems, and producers manually sifting through tapes by hand. As of 2022, IAS has been implemented across all major Fox Sports broadcasts, the companies reported. 

An early adopter of Google Workspace, Fox Sports is able to better connect and collaborate with teammates across Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, and more—no matter the device, the companies explained. With Duet AI in Google Workspace, the Fox can also create a production schedule for a sports season in minutes versus the hours it would take to do so manually. 

"Fox Sports is committed to providing its viewers the best possible experiences across platforms, and that starts with the technology that powers them," said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. "By choosing Google Cloud's AI technologies, Fox Sports is not only maximizing its content production capabilities, but also delivering transformative viewing experiences that keep its audiences engaged and entertained."

Fox and AWS have laid out many new details about their development work on what the two companies are calling a groundbreaking AI-based replay system. The system was first developed for FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and has since been expanded for use during broadcasts of Major League Baseball (MLB), the United States Football League (USFL) and the FIFA Women’s World Cup. 

The Recap Feature and Catch Up With Highlights was built with Amazon Media Replay Engine (MRE), the companies said. 

In a blog post, Fox and AWS noted that with the digitization and continued advancement of broadcast delivery technology, sports fans have come to expect a dynamic viewing experience. Whether streaming a game live or recording to view on-demand, audiences are increasingly looking for standout elements in the coverage of their favorite teams, from compelling graphics and data insights to timely replays and highlights. When the games in question are some of the most anticipated in sports, the stakes are even higher, the companies explained. 

To meet those audience expectations, Fox built and deployed its new AI-powered Catch Up With Highlights feature ahead of its US broadcast coverage of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.

Leveraging Amazon’s open source Media Replay Engine (MRE) framework for automating video clipping and replay generation, alongside Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure and solutions, Catch Up With Highlights is an end-to-end solution that can ingest broadcast streams, identify valuable match moments through AI-trained computer vision, and then encode delivery streams with metadata across user devices. With AWS already the foundation of Fox Corporation media workflows, the development team was able to stand up the complex new feature in about eight weeks, the companies said in a blog post. 

“Over the last five years our team has had tremendous success with unlocking the power of data through the building of advanced and intelligent platforms and products,” explained Fox’s vice president of data products and machine learning (ML) strategy, Phil Martin, who led the Catch Up With Highlights development and first deployment. “In addition, we’ve really rallied around the idea of revolutionizing fandom. We believe that sports should be enjoyable and accessible for everyone, which is why we've designed our platform to make it easy to engage with and enjoy. Our Catch Up With Highlights feature is a great example of this philosophy. We understand that the level of play at events like the World Cup is exceptional, and we wanted our feature to reflect that standard. To achieve this, we developed a cutting-edge AI technology to create a highlights engine that can dynamically retell the game's story in real-time, highlighting key moments and events as they unfold. This ensures that our users can stay up-to-date with the action and experience the excitement of the game, no matter where they are. Prior to and through this journey, AWS has been a trusted partner of ours and together we were able to take another step forward in revolutionizing fandom with data all while on the world’s biggest sporting stage.” 

Upon launch, the feature ran seamlessly with very little human input, the companies said. Martin and his team built Catch Up With Highlights to continually optimize the highlight recap video as the game progressed, retelling the game story upwards of 20 times per match with event-driven updates. This approach ensured that the viewers would be able to access a comprehensive recap of the game to date, available via the FOX Sports app on connected TVs and mobile devices. Incremental improvements were rolled out based on performance, such as adding a thumbs-up or down; and event enhancements, including shots saved and penalty kicks. Ultimately, 731 recap videos were published autonomously across 61 matches.

The Catch Up With Highlights workflow includes AWS Lambda event-driven serverless compute, and computer vision with Amazon Rekognition. Sports data is housed in an Amazon DynamoDB NoSQL database, then piped into MRE. Live video is quickly delivered to viewers via AWS Elemental MediaConnect, with videos stored in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and Amazon ElastiCache for caching live clips, the companies said.

“Soccer is often referred to as ‘the beautiful game’ because of the flowing and artistic style of play and objectively it’s a simple sport: score more goals than the opposition,” Martin explained. “However, training models and developing logic around a game that lacks set patterns is anything but simple. To further compound the complexities, it was our first time publicly releasing a platform feature that ingests multiple concurrent streams, truncates clips for inference, contextualizes and optimizes each segment, and transcodes and delivers directly into our CMS in a matter of moments of an event occurring.”

Additionally, the team had limited reference information from the event organizers. Instead, they relied on audio cues and camera angles to help train the computer vision model. Clips were auto-assembled with polished elements, like transitions and a fade to black, to ensure a high-caliber viewing experience for fans. Now, with a proven, scalable approach, Martin looks forward to replicating the Catch Up With Highlights playbook for other sports broadcasts.

Martin concluded, “We are extremely bullish on this space and already expanding to other sports properties. Fans can experience the feature today during broadcasts of Major League Baseball (MLB), the United States Football League (USFL) and the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Catch Up With Highlights is coming to football broadcasts this fall and more personalized content is on the horizon. The possibilities are endless and we’re just getting warmed up.”

NEW YORK—Nielsen has released new data for Super Bowl LVII that showed it was watched by 115.1 million people, making it the most watched Super Bowl Contest ever. 

Nielsen initially reported that about 113 million people watched the game on Fox, Fox Deportes and streaming services on Feb. 12, 2023 as the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles (38 – 35) at State Farm Stadium in Arizona. Subsequently, Nielsen uncovered coding errors that increased the total by about 2 million.

That beat the previous record 114.4 million for 2015’s Super Bowl XLIX on NBC.

In an interview with Variety, Mike Mulvihill, executive vice president and head of strategy and analytics for Fox Sports, explained that the NFL noticed discrepancies in the numbers and asked Nielsen to review the data, which led to the discovery of coding errors.  

In a tweet, the Fox Sports noted that "Nielsen restated the viewership for FOX Sports’ presentation of Super Bowl LVII as 115.1 million viewers – the most-watched Super Bowl in history. This revision is the product of a thorough review by Nielsen that revealed irregularities in the encoding that enables Nielsen’s measurement of TV viewing as well as issues with the out-of-home measurement of Super Bowl LVII.”

The first question being asked in various circles about the 2023 Major League Baseball season is obvious: How will the new rules—the pitch clock, a limited number of pickoff throws and the end of defensive shifts—affect the approach of broadcasters, who will have an average of 30 less minutes of air to present per game? With the pitch clock, for instance, how will talent adjust to less time for analysis between pitches? And how does the quicker pace affect the approach with replays?

 Fortunately, MLB broadcasters and the other concerned parties like the MLB office (which tweaked the new rules in late March) had spring training to adapt to this new world, make mistakes and adjust in time for Opening Day.

Early in the 2023 pre-season, one MLB superstar weighed in on the new rules. “Really, the power the pitcher has now—I can totally dictate pace,” New York Mets right-hander Max Scherzer told Fox Sports. “The rule change of the hitter having only one timeout changes the complete dynamic of the hitter-and-pitcher dynamic. Yeah, I love it.”

Native 1080p
Although the new rules justifiably got the bulk of the pre-season press coverage, there are other new developments on the tech side, particularly for the MLB Network. 

“We plan to build out new technology that we’ve been working on for the past few seasons, such as transitioning our game coverage to native 1080p,” said Jason Hedgcock, senior director, remote technical operations for MLB Network.

But that’s not all. MLB Network, via its new Graphics Central group, can fully access its trucks from Secaucus, N.J. in real time. 

“That new graphics room can support four remote productions at once,” said Hedgcock, noting its four game benches with 6-8 seats per bench, as well as three graphics chairs, plus one each for Statcast, a researcher and a graphics producer, plus in-game, off-site umpire clarifications [à la the NFL], also with real-time connections to the mobile units.” 

However, the network’s biggest innovation for the 2023 season will hopefully debut during the stretch run and in time for the postseason. 

“The big deal this year is a [SMPTE] 2110 digital backbone,” said Jacob Soto, vice president, engineering and information technology for MLB Network. To enable this transition to the advanced video networking standard, the network is building a new Ross-based control room—with elements from EVS and Calrec—from the ground up. “We hope to have it online in August and ready for the post-season,” Soto added.

Super Motion
Fox is incorporating more super motion cameras in addition to the usual (up to) two, for each broadcast. “We’re boosting that number due to more games on the network,” said Brad Cheney vice president of field operations and engineering for Fox Sports, though he doesn’t yet know just how many or how often.

Fox also plans more in-game player interviews. “With this year’s rule changes, there will be more to talk about, such as pitching sequences or what went into completing a double-play,” etc., he said. 

As for those gamechanging new rules, “they’ll make MLB better to watch and will lead to us broadcasting more games in 1080p, with more super motion,” Cheney said, noting that Fox is working with MLB to find innovative angles, etc. “There’s much to be done, just not right off the bat.”

Entering the season, Fox “will stick to a minimum of nine cameras per game,” he said. “For FS1 broadcasts, we enhance the regional sports networks show.”

Another goal at Fox is to continue to leverage the trucks with its vendors, which include Game Creek Video, NEP and Mobile TV Group, which have all been upgrading their fleets to 1080p. “About half of their trucks have that capability now,” Cheney said. “As the NBC Sports RSNs move toward 1080p, that improves our offerings as they grow. And we’ll grow with them and aim to be the leaders in that technology.”

As for new techniques,  Fox has spent considerable time with cameras in the dirt and around the bases-especially since this season’s “pizza box” bases might offer more opportunity for enhancement, Cheney added.

“We’re looking for new angles, but that may take the whole season,” he said. “We have ideas in the pipeline with MLB, as do TBS, ESPN and Peacock, that we’ve used during the All-Star Game and postseason that we want to bring to the viewer.”

Cheney said Fox also wants to heighten its emphasis on sound. “We are continuing to develop new ways to bring the sounds of the game to our viewers, especially after how unbelievably loud it was in Philadelphia during last year’s World Series.”

‘The Dynamic Has Changed’
Back behind the lens, Phil Orlins, vice president of production for ESPN said “any camera decisions have to do with documenting the game,” which has to do with its magnitude and the financial implications.

Typically, the network will use the basic complement of 12 cameras, which “are mostly a combination of Sony HDC-4300s for super slo-mo and with HDC-2500s, with the remainder hard cameras with tripods and long lenses in the typical areas,” said Orlins, noting high and low third and first; the baselines; centerfield; a robotic at the home plate screen and a wireless roving handheld, with another for outside the ballpark and beauty shots.

“We can even use FaceTime in the feed, as we did during spring training when we featured [MLB pitching legend] Roger Clemens,” he said. “But we’re basically using the same equipment complement from last year, with new data wrinkles.”

As for the new rules, Orlins says the dynamic has changed. “For instance, we’ll now only have time for two replay angles; last season, it was four or five,” he said. “It’s going to be like football with hurry-up offenses, when were accustomed to a huddle before every play.”

However like some other observers who may seem leery of the changes, Orlins has “no doubt that the on-field product will be dramatically improved and that the broadcasters will adjust. Our ultimate plan is to incorporate the pitch clock into our scoreboard in the upper left hand corner of the screen.”

Hinting at more innovation to come, particularly in this seasons’ broadcasts from London and Williamsport, Pa., he said “There will still be ‘great stories to tell.’ They’ll just be presented “in a more condensed style for a fan base that had grown weary of waiting.” 

LOS ANGELES—Fox Sports is launching its coverage of the World Baseball Classic (WBC), with the first game of the premier international baseball tournament on March 7. 

The opening game will feature Cuba vs. Netherlands in Pool A play on Tuesday, March 7, from Taiwan’s Taichung Intercontinental Stadium at 11:00 PM ET on FS1, Fox Deportes and Fox Sports streaming services.

Team USA, featuring MLB All-Stars Mookie Betts, Mike Trout, Tim Anderson, Trea Turner, Will Smith, Adam Wainwright and many others, makes its WBC debut Saturday, March 11, from Phoenix’s Chase Field against Pool C opponent Great Britain at 9:00 PM ET on Fox, the company reported. 

Joe Davis, the voice of Fox MLB, joins first-ballot Hall-of-Famer and Sports Emmy winner John Smoltz will be in the booth for the Team USA opener. Emmy Award-winning reporter Ken Rosenthal reports from the field.

“What a fantastic way to build excitement around the 2023 baseball season, with the best players in the world facing off for pride of country,” said Mark Silverman, Fox Sports President and COO. “Wearing their country’s flag on their jerseys means a lot, raises the stakes and creates memorable moments on and off the field for the television audience.”

Fox will be covering the WBC across platforms with exclusive coverage of all 47 tournament games across Fox (3 games), FS1 (23), FS2 (18), Fox Deportes (29), Tubi (3), and the Fox Sports app in the U.S.

WBC rosters include more than 60 MLB All-Stars, 180-plus players on 40-man rosters and more than 300 players under contract with big league teams according to MLB. 

Operated by MLB and the MLBPA and sanctioned by the World Baseball Softball Confederation, the World Baseball Classic will be contested on fields in Japan, Taiwan and the U.S., and wraps up with semifinal games at loanDepot park March 19-20 and the championship game in Miami on Tuesday, March 21.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.—Fox Sports will deploy XtraMotion, its super slow-motion interpolation technology co-developed with EVS, on prem for the first time during a NASCAR race Sunday, Feb. 19 for its coverage of the Daytona 500.

(Coverage of the Daytona 500, aka "The Great American Race," begins on Fox and Fox Deportes at 2:30 p.m. EST. Coverage is also available on the Fox Sports app, Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV and fuboTV.)

First deployed for the race in 2021, XtraMotion processing at that time was done offsite in the AWS Cloud where a theoretically limitless number of CPUs and GPUs created new video between frames shot at normal speed to synthesize slow motion. XtraMotion, in essence, turned every camera into a super slow-motion camera.

The downside, however, was depending on the cloud to interpolate the frames remotely. The distance introduced latency that required the broadcaster to be judicious about how it integrated XtraMotion footage into its coverage. 

Stoppages in the race due to crashes, for example, gave Fox Sports the time needed—as much as five minutes—to generate the synthesized super slow-motion footage and have it ready to insert into the production. Having XtraMotion processing available in a rack-mounted device on-site changes that.

“What's cool about having XtraMotion processing on site is that, when something happens, you send video to the XtraMotion processor, and then it turns back up in your EVS playlist as a 3x super motion clip, and it does that in five seconds,” says Michael Davies, senior vice president of field and technical operations, at Fox Sports.

Generating XtraMotion on prem also enables the system to treat incoming source video as a “growing clip,” which means there’s effectively no limit to the length of the super slow-motion interpolated segment.  

“It’s going to be amazing for in-car [cameras] because obviously we can’t do in-cars as super motion,” he says. “I’m really looking forward to seeing how often it gets used because of how quick the turnaround is.”

Helmet Cams
The Great American Race will also see the first use of video cameras integrated directly into the helmets of drivers to give viewers a driver’s eye view of the race rather than relying on vizor helmet cameras that were temporarily attached to the head protection, he says.

“Racing Force is the company behind Bell Helmets, and they have the knowledge to execute the integration of the cameras,” says Davies.

Fox Sports, which will shoot the Daytona 500 in 1080p HDR, will rely on an extensive complement of cameras (see Camera Map), including several drone cameras from Beverly Hills Aerials. 

“Beverly Hills Aerials, which we have worked with in the past, brings several different types of airships, each used for a different purpose,” says Davies.

Those include the small, lightweight Hummingbird drone that can fly around people with their permission, the FPV high-speed drone used in NASCAR straightaways due to its speed and a heavy-lift drone.

“The heavy-lift drone is a big, multiple rotor aircraft with a stabilized camera—a real 60- to 70-pound camera,” says Davies. 

Davies draws a distinction between how drones are used in race coverage when compared to other sports. “The interesting thing about racing is that unlike stick-and-ball sports where drones are basically used to generate glorified feature beauty shots, auto racing can actually use drones to as actual coverage cameras,” he says. 

The difference is the size and setup of the raceway, which makes it possible to fly the drones along large, unpopulated corridors to capture race footage without flying over people, says Davies, who adds that every year the industry is achieving more trust among regulators at the FAA by demonstrating drones can be used safely even when thousands of people are nearby in the stands.

Can You Hear Me Now?
Radios in NASCAR that let fans hear the drivers are nothing new, but efforts continue every year to improve the quality of this audio to enhance the experience of viewers, says Davies.

Doing so is a mix of technology and how personnel are allocated. On the technology side, audio compression helps make the conversations on the two-way radios clearer. When it comes to personnel, Fox Sports dedicates one person to a radio submixer whose only job is to “pepper in actual talk,” he says.

“Then we actually have a racing radios editor, who is actually in his home in Georgia. He listens to the radio and actually plays it back, depending on what the content is,” says Davies.

The Fox Sports senior vice president adds that work is underway on a project that sometime this race season aims to add captions to those conversations. “We’re working with Veritone on that project. It’s a difficult challenge. By the nature of radios not being that great of a source when it comes to quality, generating those captions is going to be a feat.”

Distributed Workflow
While there are 30 to 40 Fox Sports production personnel on site, NASCAR production has transitioned over the past few years to a distributed model workflow. The broadcaster will leverage production personnel in the Fox Sports Vault in Los Angeles, others in Pittsburgh and still others at its Charlotte, N.C., NASCAR studio. There is also a video editor as well as the racing radios editor and racing radios mixer who will be working from their homes, says Davies.

“This is the thing about NASCAR, every year for the last four years, I’ve lost an entire truck from our compound,” he says. “What you see today compared to 2018 is four fewer trucks, and we are doing exactly the same show, if not more.”

The main production vehicles on site are Game Creek’s Cleatus A and B units, which will be used by Fox Sports and NBC Sports throughout the NASCAR racing season. While an SDI-based truck, SMPTE ST 2110 is playing a big role on site for distribution although “the core is still good-old SDI,” he says.

What really drew attention to the decline in the number of trucks on site in Davies’ mind was a conversation he had with a younger crew member. “I was talking to one of the kids who hadn’t been here before, and I recounted the days when we had ESPN and DirecTV here—literally 20 trucks in the compound. But it’s not like that anymore.”

“At this point, I’ve kind of hit rock bottom,” Davies adds with a chuckle. “I wasn’t able to lose another truck this year.”

More information on XtraMotion is available on the EVS website.

More information on Bell Helmets is available online.

More information on video production drones is available on the Beverly Hills Aerials website.

More information on Veritone is available online.

WATERLOO, Canada—The Kansas City Chiefs weren’t the only big winner Sunday with their Super Bowl Victory; the Fox Sports app was crowned a winner as well for the video quality it delivered when compared to other OTT streamers and broadcasters.

SSIMWAVE, which IMAX acquired in September 2022, used its SSIMPLUS technology that measures quality that replicates the human visual system to evaluate every second of video delivered via the app and more than a half dozen other streams and broadcasts, the company said.

On a scale ranging from 0 to 100, the Fox Sports app scored 83 in terms of video quality—the highest among streamers and broadcasters evaluated, and it delivered the lowest latency of any streaming service the company evaluated.

The evaluation was part of a larger SSIMWAVE effort to help sports leagues, broadcasters and streamers provide the best video experience for viewers. For the Super Bowl, the company measured cable broadcasts of Fox in the U.S. and CTV in Canada as well as five streaming services, including Fox Sports app, YouTube TV, Hulu+Live, DirecTV and DAZN.

Among the results of the evaluation:

• Two streaming providers scored above 80.
• No broadcast or streaming quality matched the 4K scores for the last World Cup semifinals or finals, which hit 88.
• Four streamers suffered latencies of between 20 and 40 seconds, compared to the fastest streamer.
• The U.S. cable operator evaluated the feed of the game with the lowest score (73) among all streamers and broadcasters.
• The quality of segments of Rihanna’s half-time show when complex flashing lights, camera pans and quick scene changes occurred dropped the perceived quality into the mid-60s in 4K streams.

The company’s SSIMPLUS has a correlation of greater than 90% with how viewers rate the quality of the video they see on screen, SSIMWAVE said.

“Capturing live sports and maintaining end-to-end quality is even harder than shutting down the Chiefs’ offense when the game is on the line,” said Abdul Rehman, CEO and co-founder of SSIMWAVE. “We have great respect for those who bring live sports from the playing field to the home and hope that our efforts can drive sports rights holders and the industry toward delivery of truly great video experiences for fans.” 

The data presented corresponds to viewer experience on a 65-inch 4K TV. Streaming services feeds were lagging behind broadcast in the 20-to-60+ second range with Fox Sports App being the fastest, the company said.

Details are available on request from on the company’s website. 

ARIZONA—Fox Sports is reporting that a preliminary average audience of 113 million watched Super Bowl LVII as the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles (38 – 35) at State Farm Stadium in Arizona.

That made the game the best Super Bowl audience in six years, ranking as the most-watched Super Bowl since 2017 on Fox, per Nielsen Media Research Fast National data and Adobe Analytics. 

The game was also the third most watched TV show of all time, the most streamed Super Bowl of all time, the second most-watched non-overtime Super Bowl on record and the second most-watched program in Fox Sports history. 

Overall, some 182.6 million viewers watched all or part of Super Bowl LVII on Fox and Fox Deportes, Fox reported. 

Super Bowl LVII on Fox ran away in primetime viewership across all networks with a 40.0/77 household rating/share.

The Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show, starring Rihanna, drew an average of 118.7 million viewers across TV (Fox and Fox Deportes) and digital platforms (Fox and NFL properties), making it the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show since Katy Perry’s performance in 2015 and second most-watched Super Bowl halftime performance on record.

Local markets were led by Kansas City with a 52.0/87 rating/share and Philadelphia with a 46.3/77 rating/share. Host market Phoenix posted a +23% increase over last year’s Super Bowl with a 39.5/76 ratings/share

Top metered markets available for Super Bowl LVII:

• Kansas City 52.0/87
• Philadelphia 46.3/77
• Cincinnati 45.9/77
• Detroit 43.4/74
• Pittsburgh 43.0/73
• Milwaukee 42.4/74
• Norfolk 42.1/70
• Charlotte 42.0/74
• Minneapolis 41.9/77
• St. Louis 41.6/74

Super Bowl LVII was the most-streamed Super Bowl in history, delivering an average of 7 million streams, up +18% over last year (vs. 6 million) and up +103% over Fox’s last Super Bowl stream in 2020 (vs. 3.4 million), according to Adobe Analytics and traditional counting of streaming (which does not take into account co-viewing from connected devices).

The Super Bowl LVII live streaming audience includes consumption across: com; the Fox Sports app; Fox.com; the Fox NOW app; NFL digital properties including the NFL mobile app, the NFL Fantasy mobile app, NFL.com, the NFL connected TV app and NFL+ for subscribers

An average audience of 951,000 watched the game in Spanish on Fox Deportes setting the record for the most-watched Super Bowl game in Spanish-language cable television history. Fox Deportes total audience includes connected TV devices and Fox and NFL digital properties. 

That made Super Bowl LVII on Fox Deportes was the most watched non-soccer event in Spanish-language cable history

Fox Deportes shattered its own viewership record of 762,000 set in 2020 by +25%.

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J.—In the run-up to Fox Sports’ production of Super Bowl LVII, Fox Sports and LG Electronics have launched the Fox Sports app on LG Smart TVs1 including its LG OLED TVs and LG QNED TVs. The app can be accessed via LG's webOS Smart TV platform2.

The Fox Sports app offers live and on-demand streaming sports from Fox, FS1, FS2, and Fox Deportes all in one app. 

Every live Fox Sports game and studio show is available to pay TV subscribers, making NFL, MLB, NASCAR, College Football, College Basketball, FIFA World Cup, UEFA European Championships, CONCACAF Soccer, MLS, WWE, USFL, and Liga MX, as well as on-demand highlights available. 

The app is available on LG Smart TVs with webOS version 5.0 or higher for TV model years 2020-2022. Subscription fees for certain features in the MML app may be required.

To learn more about LG TVs, visit lg.com.

GLENDALE, Ariz.—Slow-motion replay of key plays is a fixture of NFL television production, but Fox Sports is taking slow-motion to a new level Sunday for coverage of Super Bowl LVII here from State Farm Stadium.

Every camera on the field—more than 20—will be high frame rate, and others involved in the coverage that aren’t may at times leverage the EVS-Fox Sports-developed XtraMotion cloud technology to synthesize slow-motion, says Kevin Callahan, vice president of engineering and operations at Fox Sports.

“We’re really about delivering the best quality image to the viewer at home,” he says. “So more than ever, we will be relying on high frame rate cameras.”

(Fox Sports pregame coverage of Super Bowl LVII between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles begins at 11 a.m. ET. Game coverage starts at 6:30 p.m. ET. Wall-to-wall exclusive coverage will be presented on Fox, FS1 and Fox Deportes.)

High Frame Rate
The broadcaster, which will shoot the Super Bowl in 1080p60 HDR (High Dynamic Range), using Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG), is deploying 94 cameras, including 44 devoted to game coverage, 18 for pregame coverage and 16 robotic cameras. Two SkyCams and 13 pylon cameras are part of the complement.

“That 1080p [60 frames per second] is going to be a much better image [than 720p or 1080i], and adding the high frame-rate on top of that should make a big difference for the viewer,” he says.

Fox Sports will upscale the 1080p60 content to 4K, as it announced previously. 

Fox Sports is also using several 4K cameras on the goal line and the end line to deliver the clarity of replay to show exactly what’s going on as well as an 8K 120-frame-per-second camera at the reverse 50 yard line to “get anything that we might have somehow missed with one of our other cameras,” says Callahan.

The high SkyCams is 4K as well, giving the broadcaster the ability to zoom in and to do a pan to get the clarity of image that’s desired.

Fox Sports will produce the Super Bowl in 5.1 Surround Sound, relying on 29 field-level microphones to capture game and player sound. “We’re trying to get as many microphones as close to the source as possible there on the field,” says Callahan. “We’ve been deploying a plethora of stereo mics around to get that stereo imaging and additional microphones to be able to get the surround so you really get the feel—as if you were in the stadium.”

Graphics and replay primarily will be done on-site in Glendale, but up to seven operators in the Fox Sports “Vault” remote production center in Los Angeles will contribute to the production as well, he says.

Prep and Signals
Work on the Fox Sports Super Bowl set began Jan. 13. Two days later, the broadcaster began setting up the production compound, preparing for the arrival of eight OB trucks, which at the time were deployed to cover the end of the NFL playoffs and the NFC Championship game, says Callahan.

That initial phase of the setup entailed putting the power and signal distribution infrastructure in place. It was necessary for Fox to run some 20 miles of fiber and cable throughout the Super Bowl grounds—a number that Callahan notes is a little misleading because each jacketed fiber cable consists of between 12 and 72 strands of fiber. “The interesting number for me is we have over 5,500 fiber connections that were put in place as temporary,” he says.

Fox needed to run so much fiber because the 17-year-old State Farm Stadium was not outfitted with many optical pathways when it opened. “It doesn’t’ have a lot of fiber,” Callahan says of the stadium. “It is very well cabled when it comes to triax, but a little lacking when it comes to fiber.”  

Signal distribution and production are a mix of baseband and IP. “The game mobile unit [Game Creek’s Encore] is IP, but it’s running Evertz TS,” says Callahan. “The pregame mobile unit is running in Evertz EXE. It is a SMPTE ST 2110 mobile unit. Our compound distribution system is all 2110.

“We are able to distribute to our international partners and everybody using that 2110 distribution system. However, to play it safe, we are using SDI as a firewall. We are running 2110 out to a location and then installing a gateway to convert to SDI. When it comes to doing something like a Super Bowl, right now, that’s still considered best practice.”

While acknowledging that it would be great to eliminate all of the coax cable needed to transport SDI signals, “security has to be No. 1,” and SDI as a firewall is “really important,” he says.

Complementing the OB trucks is a pair of ST 2110-based flypacks Fox Sports built and debuted for coverage of the World Cup in Doha, Qatar. In addition to distributing ST 2110 signals around the compound, they are being used to support Fox News and Fox Deportes on site, says Callahan. 

CES Power is responsible for powering the compound. “All important services are UPS so we have multiple power sources feeding into them and then battery backup,” he says.

For Callahan, Super Bowl LVII is a coming home of sorts. “”This is the place where I was given my first Super Bowl as engineer in charge with Fox Sports 15 years ago,” he says. “Since then, the production has just exploded in terms of requirements and number of mobile units and all of the support that’s required. But this has been a great experience here in Arizona.” 

After months of listening to games of American football, I once again wonder why audio sounds differently across the networks—CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN/ABC—for basically the same event. There seem to be several noteworthy variables that significantly shape the sound of a telecast including the venue, the broadcaster/network and finally a sound mixer’s tone, processing and mixing style.

Stadium Sound
When football first went on the air there were no indoor stadiums and they played in the rain, snow and occasionally in sunny conditions on grass. Audio coverage was mono and basic with various parabolic receptor designs, but the sound was adequate for the moment. My sound impression memory is that there is a sound to a snow-covered icy stadium with hard surfaces, a crispness that carries the sound. But broadcast sound changed with the addition of roofs, artificial surfaces and PA craziness. 

A little physics tells us that an “open stadium” lets the sound/noise escape from a confined space. Sound energy builds and the cumulative effect is destructive to a clean capture for television purposes. 

Jonathan Freed, mixer for ESPN/ABC, stated the obvious: “Open air stadiums sound different because the PA and crowd don’t echo off the roof and walls when there aren’t any.” 

Additionally, Freed has presented his theories about “air inversions” for years. “In a really cold outdoor stadium the warm crowd and heaters by the team benches cause a layer of warmer air to rise and when it gets to a certain height it collides with the colder air forming an atmospheric inversion layer over the stadium. Sound from the field of play will actually reflect off of this layer back towards the sidelines and in some cases create a noticeably fuller sound for the parabs to pick up.”

The venue acoustics clearly are a factor, but Fred Aldous of Fox Sports told me that “the PA systems have gotten bigger and louder, and, significantly, the PA usage has crept into play action," Aldous said, “Music is being played over kickoffs and at the end of play, which interferes with useable field of play sound.” To make things worse, several years ago Atlanta was fined for pumping crowd sound back through the PA.

Acoustics impact the tone of the sound that the microphones capture, but the mixers control the balance of the sound elements—announcer, effects, crowd and music. With most major sporting events there is a significant effort to capture the sound from the field of play. Microphones and their placement are not a secret and there is fair consistency across the different mixers and networks particularly today, but clearly this did not happen by accident. 

My sound observation is that Fox Sports mixes in more field presence. David Hill was chairman of Fox Sports for almost two decades and was instrumental in advancing the sound of football with his persuasion of the NFL to allow wireless microphones, first, on officials, and later, on players

Sound Variables
Even though football has had a powerful advocate with Hill, the NFL still controls where and when microphones can be placed and opened. 

For example the NFL does not permit microphones near the benches and regulates the use of the microphone on the sky cam and even controls opening the player microphones before the networks receive a feed. The sound obstacles and variables
are well entrenched in the Sunday sound and there are guidelines, but there are differences in NFL crews. I have been told that some NFL sound personnel are better than others.

Of the number of games telecast on a Sunday afternoon, it seems that there would be a desire for a network to have consistency between the multiple games that are broadcast. Phil Adler,  who did audio mixing for CBS Sports for more than two decades, told me that the network only has a mandate that the announcers’ volume level be between 4 and 6 dB louder than the field sound, but everything else is subjective to the mixer.

Aldous believes that Fox’s consistency endures because of weekly phone meetings, adding that while the meetings are not mandated, they do offer a forum to share ideas, philosophies and give “ownership” to the mixers.

Given that the sound variables, which include microphones, venue characteristics and technical facilities are somewhat equal, then the real difference is that the sound is the artistic and subjective interpretation of a sound mixer. You can not underestimate the range of subjective interpretation of a single sport from a group of audio practitioners that bring the consumer 16 consecutive Sundays of NFL football. 

Experience Counts
As with everything in life, experience is the difference. It is hard to understand how unpredictable live sports can be, and how much of a challenge it is for the mixer to control, manage and tame the sound. 

An inexperienced mixer tends to use too much compression to control the wide swings in the sound. Under compression/limiting can lead to the sound distorting through the signal chain while over-compression can be equally unpleasant with the audio pumping up and down.

An inexperienced mixer may not understand why the transmission signal flow was problematic when the networks went from mono to stereo and then to surround. What about immersive? Even though there is little talk of football in immersive sound, it is going to happen, and the learning curve will impact the sound of the show. 

Finally, sound reproduction to the consumer is a moving target as well. Stereo, surround, immersive, soundbars, headphones, TV speakers—my head hurts. Sound has been equal parts evolution and innovation and maybe a little sound voodoo. What draws viewers’ attention to a game, even if they are half asleep? The sound! What can carry an entire show without pictures? The sound! 

The audience can finally hear a difference and sound is a differentiating factor with broadcast brands. Some of my interviewees commented that some of the broadcast sound today is difficult to listen to. 

MANCHESTER, U.K.—Debrouillard Television, a U.K. video services company, relied on LiveU technology to assist Fox Sports capture the experience of 2022 FIFA World Cup fans at a venue here during key matches, including the England-USA match Nov. 25.

“Fox Sports is one of the host broadcasters for this tournament,” said Debrouillard Television owner Jonathan Young. ”There are fan parks around the world for fans to gather and watch the matches on big screens since they can’t physically be at the game."

“This has become very popular with fans, as well as with broadcasters who can capture the live supporter reaction footage gathered at these events," he continued. "The example that really fired imaginations was the fan park event during the European Championship football tournament with England fans in Hyde Park, London. It had been done in the past and continues to be a benchmark for excitement.”

Young’s company selected Road to Victory, a fan park on the edge of Manchester, U.K., for the fan reaction. The venue guaranteed high ticket sales, dynamic lighting, multiple big screens and special animations, the company said. 

The first fan experience covered was for the England vs. USA Group Stage, Group B game, which fell on Black Friday and Thanksgiving weekend in the United States. Fox Sports anticipated this being a highly watched game. Fan reactions during later matches as the tournament progressed were also covered in the same way, it said.

“We spent a lot of time checking out the venue, not least the connectivity. We also tested during a previous match there, and LiveU absolutely worked. Because it’s almost subterranean – it’s built into disused railway arches – we had to ensure connectivity as this was a high-profile event for Fox Sports,” said Young.

Owning multiple LiveU units and a LiveU server, Debrouillard used a 5G-enabled LiveU LU800 to guarantee maximum bandwidth. Making the application all the more challenging was the presence of 6,000 fans, many of whom used their mobile phones to stream footage, and the concrete, steel and brick used to construct the venue, it said.

The LU800 was configured with a mix of 5G and 4G SIMs (subscriber identity modules) in addition to an Ethernet connection. A second LiveU LU800 offered redundancy. The feed was sent to Fox Sports for integration into its coverage, the company said.

“5G was a real advantage for us, not only for the inherent bandwidth and the LU800’s capabilities, but because so few consumers use it at the moment and in such a tricky environment, this gave us even more bandwidth and resilience,” said Young. “Fox Sports is very happy with the results we achieved, both in terms of the technical excellence and the vibrancy and sense of occasion the footage added.”

More information is available on the company’s website.

NEW YORK—Fox Sports continues to report strong viewing of FIFA World Cup action, with an average of 12,966,000 viewers watching the U.S. lose to the Netherlands on Saturday Dec. 3. Those numbers were up 163% from the 2018 Fox Round of 16 average during the World Cup in Russia.

The Dutch 3 to 1 victory over the U.S. team also notched up an average of 596,850 viewers across Fox Sports Streaming services, making the early morning match the second most streamed game in the tournament to date.

Viewing peaked at 16,368,000 viewers at 11:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. ET.

Despite the various controversies surrounding the 2022 World Cup, interest in the event is high, even in the U.S. where the men’s team is a decided underdog. 

But that underdog status didn’t keep U.S. viewers away from their TV sets on Black Friday host broadcaster Fox Sports announced that the England v. USA World Cup game drew more than 15.3 million viewers to the match, which ended in a draw, and setting a new record for the most-watched men’s soccer match on U.S. television.

The number beat the previous match, which held the record for almost three decades when 14.51 million watched Brazil win the 1994 World Cup over Italy in a final that was played in the U.S. According to Fox Sports, viewership peaked around the 3:30 p.m. ET mark with 19.64 million viewers. 

The top markets were Kansas City, Hartford, Boston, Dallas and Washington D.C.

The record viewership number is notable considering that for the first time in recent history, the World Cup is being held during the NFL and college football seasons, creating what would be considered outsized competition for viewers. However, Fox Sports’ average NFL viewership so far this season is only slightly higher at 15.5 million.

In the U.K., the match attracted an average 15.1 million viewers with 18 million viewing at the peak time, making it the host broadcaster iTV's most viewed program of 2022 so far. 

BOSTON, Mass.—Nearly half of U.S. sports fans (45%) are planning to watch the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar this month, according to data from consultancy firm, Altman Solon. 

The high-profile event is expected to achieve record-breaking global viewership, and the strong interest among U.S. sports fans comes amid the busy sports and holiday season. The excitement for watching the games is also reflected in solid interest for tuning in for every tournament match and paying to watch the games, the researchers reported. 

''In terms of global audience viewership and buzz, there is no comparable event to the FIFA World Cup,” said Altman Solon partner Mary Ann Halford. “However, with the starting date change, the FIFA World Cup will now compete in the U.S. against the NFL, NBA, and college football for audience engagement. It also arrives in the middle of the holiday advertising season, which could provide benefits for broadcasters and their advertising partners. The survey shows solid U.S. fan interest, but I will be watching to see how the domestic audience performs compared to the 2018 games.''

Altman Solon's FIFA World Cup 2022 Survey surveyed more than 17,000 respondents across 17 countries. Key survey findings include:

• The overall U.S. interest level in the games (45%) is lower than established soccer hotbeds, but the percentage of U.S. fans who said they were “very interested” in the FIFA World Cup, is 28%, ahead of Italy (26%).
• More than a quarter (26%) of U.S. sports fans are willing to pay to watch the FIFA World Cup, which is higher than the U.K. (24%) but lower than Brazil (58%) and UAE (70%).
• 13 percent of U.S. fans plan to watch every game of the FIFA World Cup. While lower than rates in Latin America and UAE, the U.S. interest level is comparable to those in the soccer strongholds of the U.K., France, and Italy.
• 25 percent of U.S. fans plan to watch the FIFA World Cup in public (bar, restaurant, watch party).

More survey data and insights on key trends and developments reshaping the FIFA World Cup for properties, media partners, and investors, is available here. 

DOHA, Qatar—TAG Video Systems is providing monitoring and visualization for Fox Sports as it covers the World Cup, Nov. 20-Dec. 18, the company said.

Fox Sports will present 64 World Cup matches live in the U.S. across Fox and FS1 with every match live streaming on the Fox Sports app and available for free on-demand as replays on Tubi.

The broadcaster selected TAG’s 100% IP software platform for all of its control rooms and operations multiviewers, monitoring the integrity of more than 1,200 sources driving more than 150 displays, TAG said.

The TAG monitoring and visualization platform is an integral part of a Fox Sports’ live-production system built in a different form factor. Built as two separate and redundant systems, Fox Sports’ joint event system is one of the largest transportable SMPTE ST 2110 live production flypacks in use. It can be quickly flown and setup between major events and allows Fox Sports to bypass intermodal transport by container ships.

“The key is the monitoring, being able to see everything coming in and going out and being able to QC it – that’s really the goal of the IBC as the central hub. It connects to the studio location; it connects to all the venues; it connects to our Los Angeles broadcast facility as well as our Tempe [Ariz.] broadcast facility,” said Kevin Callahan, vice president of field operations and engineering at Fox Sports.

The flypack system leverages IP and SMPTE ST 2110 technology, and relies on an all-fiber design that significantly reduces the size and weight of the kit. With a full control room, 40 tech core racks, and 10 venue racks, it travels fully pre-wired and was ready to go upon arrival in Doha. 

The 8-foot-tall tech core racks were built on top of shock-mounted airplane pallets. To fit in an airplane cargo hold, Callahan and Douglas McGee, consulting engineer for system design, came up with the idea of having custom racks that fold in half while fully wired to fit under the cargo hold height restrictions. 

The TAG multiviewer and monitoring platform enables Fox Sports operators to see everything in the ST-2110 IP workflow as well as JPEG-XS and UHD, which the broadcaster is using for transmission between the IBC and studio, venues and Fox Sports operations centers in Tempe and Los Angeles. In addition, a remote IT team will manage the entire network. As technology advances and new formats emerge, the system provides built-in room for growth to allow the broadcaster to keep pace with rapid changes in the industry, TAG said.

Using flypacks to transport live production systems may open doors to a whole new range of capabilities and reinvent how live production is done. The same systems can be transported from venue to venue, leading to an increase in familiarity and decrease in training time. Another advantage is the ability to add capabilities as workflows change, enhancing and improving the system, it said.

“Fox Sports tapped TAG for many reasons, not the least being our constantly evolving upgrades and improvements,” said TAG chief strategy officer Peter Wharton. “Since this system was built, we’ve launched numerous new features including our Bridge Technology that removes the complexity of routing the same stream to multiple locations with an ultra-efficient architecture. With a pure software solution on commodity hardware, TAG enables Fox to change and add to the system as their business needs evolve while saving capacity, resources and costs in the future, all without changing hardware.

“We worked seamlessly with Diversified, EVS and a number of other vendors to ensure that every one of Fox Sports’ financial and operational goals were met.”

More information is available on the company’s website.