CBS Eye Vision Offers New View of Final Four

By Ken Kerschbaumer

The 2009 NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament comes to a close tonight from Ford Field in Detroit, with F&F Productions’ GTX15 handling game coverage for CBS Sports while NCP8 is home to both CBS Sports and CBS College Sports for pre-game coverage. “That’s the most important thing for us this year because both CBS Sports and CBS College benefit financially from sharing,” says Ken Aagaard, CBS Sports, SVP, Operations and Production Services.

The camera complement will remain identical to last year’s, with the addition of Eye Vision, a new Actioncam aerial video system that floats above the court and can move along x, y, and z axes at speeds up to 20 miles per hour. “It can travel under the scoreboard,” says Aagaard, “and has the ability to fly over the backboards and over the crowd.”

The system operates in a similar fashion to SkyCam and CableCam, and, during Saturday’s Final Four coverage, it was used primarily to cover free-throw shots and also to zoom over frenzied college students sitting courtside. “We’ll use it more tonight,” says Aagaard, referring to the championship game between the University of North Carolina and Michigan State University.