FOX Sports, AP and Halftime Show producers will use over 240 Sony cameras, from compact Alphas to Cinema Line models, to capture Super Bowl action and celebrations in New Orleans.
Super Bowl LIX takes place on 9 February at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. As an official technology partner of the NFL, Sony is supplying over 240 cameras that will be operating in and around the Caesars Superdome, covering the match’s plays, replays, interviews and celebrations – with the goal of enhancing fan engagement during and after the event.
The cameras range from Sony’s broadcast models used by official broadcaster FOX Sports, to the various Alpha interchangeable lens cameras and E-mount lenses including G Master that The Associated Press and other sideline photographers will be using to create Super Bowl archival imagery. A fleet of Sony Cinema Line cameras will also be at the venue for the Halftime Show production.
Michael Davies, FOX Sports EVP Field Operations said, “Our job is to tell the story of the game, capturing the energy within the stadium and keeping millions of viewers engaged. Sony is a key tool for us.”
FOX Sports Production
Sony’s broadcast cameras have covered events at Super Bowl, ‘football’s biggest game’, for over a decade. This year, FOX Sports and production company Game Creek Video will deploy about 100 of the Sony cameras on-site for pre-game, in-game and post-game action as well as the studio shows. FOX will also have Sony BVM reference level monitors at the venue for colour grading to make sure the imagery reaching fans around the world looks authentic and lifelike.
Among the FOX cameras, several of Sony’s cinema models will be there – a VENICE 2 and three FX6 full-frame cameras, plus one of the FR7 Cinematic PTZ cameras – and 14 Sony cameras are dedicated to handling content for streaming. Cameras will be positioned in each end zone, along both sidelines and in multiple positions throughout the stadium, including the SkyCam rig over the field, suspending a stabilised, computer-controlled camera on cables.
“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 equipment,” Gary Brantley said, Chief Information Officer of the NFL. “Sony’s gear has been instrumental in enhancing the game-day experience.”
Hawk-Eye Replays and Officiating
As well as broadcast and production cameras, FOX Sports will use Sony’s HawkREPLAY, a remote production and instant replay system for broadcast, developed by Hawk-Eye. Operator-driven, HawkREPLAY has three hardware components. A video server supporting 16 HD channels, or four UHD streams, will transfer data via SDI or ST 2110. A controller, with T-bar and 360-rotation jog wheel, has customisable buttons giving full control over feeds and clips and, finally, an engineering gateway allows remote operator software access.
To accommodate the large fleet of cameras, the capture, processing and playout nodes are scalable and can be clustered to centralise ingest. The system is built with SSD storage and a dual capture mode for redundancy, and it includes a system configuration and monitoring platform.
HawkREPLAY can be controlled in an integration with HawkNEST, which gives users quick access to all HawkREPLAY clips through a single UI. Integrating HawkNEST with HawkREPLAY also offloads file archiving from operational systems to dedicated servers, balancing the load that each system has to manage.
HawkNEST handles ISO and scheduled recordings, with multiple output channels for playback. It can also be used to set up recording from all video sources within the Hawk-Eye system, with options to export locally or to a network location for direct access to HawkREPLAY-created clips by editorial or other teams. Archiving and delivery of the clips or packages may be automated as well.
Hawk-Eye tools will also be supporting in-game officiating with its computer vision system, used to visually track the trajectory of a ball and display a profile of its most likely path as a moving image. Its output is based on triangulation, using images and timing data from high-speed video cameras located at different locations and angles around the pitch. By generating a graphic image of the ball path and playing area, the information can be delivered to judges, TV viewers or coaches in near real-time. Its back-end database and archiving capabilities allow users to extract and analyse trends and statistics.
The Associated Press and Sony Alpha Cameras
On the photography side, Sony has been the exclusive imaging products and support provider for The Associated Press – which serves as official photo provider for the league – since 2020. In total, AP will have 14 photographers and nine editors on-site at the Super Bowl using over 55 Sony cameras and other equipment to capture and share imagery from the event.
In particular, NFL’s in-house photography team, called ‘NFL Focus’, will be using Sony Alpha cameras and lenses to cover the game. Sony’s Pro Support team will operate a pro photographer depot on-site to help service and support the professionals working the game, including making loans available of the new Alpha 1 II camera.
Both the Associated Press and the NFL’s in-house photographers are also planning to utilize Sony’s PDT-FP1 5G Portable Transmitter on-site for data transfer and live streaming, aiming to deliver photos and videos directly from the cameras to the editors in real-time, keeping the workflow simple and distributing content to viewers faster.
The antenna design is optimized over a wide range of bands including LTE and both 5G Sub6 and mmWave, which increases reception sensitivity to extend the coverage area by as much as 10%, and improves communication speeds by up to 30%. The transmitter’s range of compatible communication environments include local and private 5G. It also supports Dual SIM, a mechanism for transmitting data while the device switches automatically to a stronger network.
Cinematic Halftime Show
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, technical production of the Show will be handled by the Funicular Goats, a production company specialising in large-scale, multi-camera workflows and technical management. For the fourth year, their team have chosen the Sony VENICE 2 as their main camera, deploying 13 units to be used with the Sony VENICE Extension System, Rialto. They will use a Sony BURANO this time as well.
The VENICE 2 records at 6K or 8.6K and the BURANO at 8K. About Funicular Goats’ choice of cinema cameras at a football match event, their Head of Engineering and Technical Management James Coker said, “The Super Bowl Halftime Show is a challenge unlike any other project we’ve been a part of. There are less than five minutes to set up and deliver a cinematic concert to millions of people, and the Sony Cinema Line cameras meet that challenge by combining a full-frame sensor with broadcast compatibility to work within the show’s structure.”
With the VENICE Rialto Extension System, users can remove the sensor block and move it up to 18ft away from the camera body without affecting the camera’s image quality, which is useful when mounting it on a stabilizer or fitting it into tight spaces. It also preserves all of the VENICE 2’S functionality, including its built-in ND filter system and Dual Base ISO.
The Rialto System adds an SDI monitor output at the sensor end of the extension, with a 12/24 VDC output to power accessories. The monitor output can be fed to an on-camera monitor when hand-holding the sensor block case. The sensor block case also features mounting holes on all sides as well as the back for mounting onto camera supports or handheld rigs. pro.sony
