Four Highlights To Look for at CBS Sports’ SEC Championship Game Production

Rematch between Georgia and Alabama is getting the royal treatment

For the second time this calendar year, the University of Alabama and the University of Georgia will battle for a football title under the majestic halo videoboard of Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. There are storylines aplenty as the Crimson Tide and the Bulldogs meet for SEC supremacy on Saturday (4 p.m. ET, CBS), so it’s little surprise that CBS Sports is pulling out all the stops to put on an epic television production.

In a rematch of last season’s CFP National Championship, the University of Alabama faces the University of Georgia in Saturday’s SEC Championship Game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. The game will air on CBS.

CBS is nearly doubling the (already impressive) camera complement of its standard output seen on regular-season games. More than 40 cameras will cover the action on Saturday, including pylon cameras, additional handhelds, slash cams, and robotics. There’s even a couple of Sony HDC-4800’s shooting as robos at ultra high speed.

“We’re throwing all of our bells and whistles at this game,” says Harold Bryant, executive producer/SVP, production, CBS Sports. “We want to make sure this is an absolutely top-of-the-line production.”

1. Dual SkyCam To Make Its SEC Championship Debut
The camera arsenal includes a dual SkyCam system, marking the first time that the system — currently reserved for the biggest football productions — is deployed on the SEC Championship.

The primary SkyCam will also be outfitted to display the yellow 1st and Ten line from SMT. In fact, a whopping seven cameras have the technology necessary to shot the line (typically, only Camera 1 features it).

2. CBS’s Top College-Football Producer Returns
The CBS Sports family is also thrilled to have veteran producer Craig Silver back at the front bench for this weekend’s game. One of the industry’s top producers missed approximately the last month of the college football season following a biking accident. He’s back in his rightful seat alongside his longtime directing partner, Steve Milton.

The duo, along with the rest of CBS’s all-star crew, will be working out of F&F Productions’ GTX 18 (A and B units) as it does throughout the SEC football season.

CBS has also deployed a full Avid edit system onsite to streamline the turnaround of important highlight packages and content used throughout the broadcast.

3. CBS Getting Important Reps at Mercedes-Benz Stadium
The SEC Championship Game is not the only show being broadcast out of Mercedes-Benz Stadium this weekend. The network will also carry Sunday’s NFL matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and the hometown Falcons. That mean’s NEP’s high-end SSCBS mobile facility will also be onsite all weekend and will actually lend a bit of a helping hand on Saturday night before taking over as lead vehicle on Sunday.

“New buildings are always excellent to work out of,” Bryant explains. “There are tremendous camera sightlines, and it makes it easy to set up and cable.”

The stars have aligned nicely for CBS. Besides being an opportunity to pull off back-to-back broadcasts in Atlanta, the weekend offers an important few days for the network to make final preparations for Super Bowl LIII, which CBS will broadcast from the venue next February.

4. At-Home Workflow for CBS’s Onsite Studio Show
The game’s pre/postgame shows will be hosted — as is the norm — onsite with this year’s edition featuring an at-home twist.

With a desk positioned on one of the stadium concourses, the studio show has eight cameras dedicated to it and will even showcase an RF roving MōVI camera to add special depth to the viewing experience.

Aside from the talent, a producer, and a technician, however, the entire show will be produced in a control room at CBS Sports’ facilities in New York City. All camera and audio feeds will be sent via fiber to New York, where Vin DeVito will produce the show alongside director Linda Coppola.