BRISTOL, U.K.—There was a new member of the broadcast crew for a pair of matches for Major League Soccer’s Portland Timbers in November—Motion Impossible’s AGITO Sports modular dolly system.

The AGITO Sports dolly is a fully remote-controlled, multiterrain robotic dolly system, featuring four-wheel drive adjustable suspension that enables it to reach up to 32 miles per hour.

Deployed and operated by Las Vegas-based Jib Tek LLC during the Timbers matches, the AGITO Sports was placed in a dedicated area along the touchline and kept pace with game action for the entire 90 minutes. The dolly does not require rails or other fixed equipment to operate.

A Shotover G1 gimbal and a Sony HDC-P1r box camera package was used with the AGITO Sports unit for the match. The unit was able to serve as a replacement for a steadicam operator amid the restricted COVID-19 protocols.

Patrick Kigel, Jib Tek’s owner, praised the AGITO Sports’ ability for quick start and stops, creating unique shot angles and has the ability to maintain the same speed throughout a match.

The AGITO Sports unit had previously been used by the MLB Network for its Speed Cam.

For more information, visit www.motion-impossible.com.  

ATLANTA—Fox Sports is deploying a series of small, unobtrusive POV cameras for coverage Dec. 8 of the MLS Cup game between host Atlanta United FC and the Portland Timbers as part of its 26-camera setup at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

“This is the big, ultimate event for the MLS. We have it covered as an elite game to make sure we don’t miss anything,” said Michael Davies, senior vice president of Field and Technical Operations for Fox Sports. “The new thing is all of the POVs [point-of-video cameras] around the stadium.”

For the game, Fox Sports has added small POV cameras in the goals, the locker rooms and along the tunnels leading from the locker rooms to the stadium floor as well as four corner flag cameras –soccer’s equivalent of NFL and college football pylon cameras. “I think the corner cams fit nicely into that portfolio of small POV cams,” he said.

The corner flag cams are the handiwork of Admiral Video, the Lancaster, N.Y.,-based company that has teamed with Fox over the past few years to design and build a variety of specialty cameras for sports coverage. “I’ve asked Paul Halsey, the principal there, to make these cameras,” said Davies. “We’ve had him do all sorts of strange things.”

“Companies like Admiral Video are able to take apart cameras that exist and reconstruct them in the space that you have available for something like a corner flag, a pylon or a set of NFL chains–whatever you have to work with,” he said.

The corner flag cameras to be used during this weekend’s MLS Cup will feed a 720p HD signal via a modified USB connector and copper cable to Fox Sports’ switching matrix. The connection enables two-way communications providing for control over camera iris and other camera painting functions. Super-wide lenses are part of the corner flag camera assembly as they are with all POV cameras that are being deployed for the game.

“When you are dealing with any type of POV camera –worn or otherwise—it needs to be super wide angle because you never know where the action is going to take place,” he said. “It’s not like a camera that you can pan and tilt.”

The POV cameras in the corner flags are the same type of miniature cameras Fox Sports uses as part of its production of Thursday Night Football, Davies said, adding that for those NFL games the cameras are operated in 1080p mode to match the networks’ overall production setup.

Davies looks forward to the day when 4K and higher t frame rates become available in small POV cameras, he said. “That will be pretty cool because you could even get an element of super motion.”

For now, however, Davies is hopeful the corner flag cameras used this weekend can “catch lightning in a bottle.” He fully acknowledges there are no certainties about whether they will capture shots that are airworthy. “Cameras like this don’t get used all of the time. You can’t even guarantee that they will be used at all,” he said.

However, occasionally these POV camera setups can capture some amazing shots. “You may not put these types of cameras out for your garden-variety regular season game, but when you are dealing with something like the MSL final, you want to go out with all of your guns blazing and be ready for anything,” said Davies.

“That’s why we decided to put those corner cams in. Either they play a very minor role, or they end up being the star of the show. You never know.”

Fox Sports coverage of the MLS Cup begins on Fox and the Fox Sports app at 7:30 p.m. ET.

MONTREAL—Major League Soccer’s Portland Timbers added a number of new products from Grass Valley to its stadium production team for this season. Now installed in the team’s Providence Park are a K2 Dyno replay system, GV Korona 2M/E production switcher and three Focus 75 Live 720p/1080i switchable HD cameras to help the team capture and share footage for streaming, replay and TV broadcasts both in the stadium and at home.

The GV Korona features a menu integrated into the panel, including tight integration with the Xpression graphics engine. The system also uses the same OLED and color technologies as larger GV panels and features built-in touchscreens in the transition areas that provide status of the M/E bank at a glance.

The K2 Dyno system features multi-channel replay and remote access to highlights and clips through ShareFelx. With the Focus 75 Live cameras, each contains three Xensium-FT CMOS imagers with global shutter to eliminate rolling shutter artifacts.

The Portland Timbers’ production team had previously used Grass Valley equipment.