Professional Fighters League Expands Agreement With BitFire

BitFire Networks announces a continuation of their partnership with the Professional Fighters League (PFL) to provide critical production support for the expanded 2022 season. On the heels of BitFire’s support last season, the PFL will again use BitFire Networks proprietary technology to execute its complex productions for viewers around the world.

The PFL just launched their 2022 season with the all-new Challenger series. The 8-week series began on February 18 from Orlando. BitFire will handle transmission of multiple video feeds and comms channels between the primary production truck in Florida and multiple operators working remotely. The core of the remote crew will be working in North Carolina to execute the shows live graphics and scoring systems.

Five separate multiview and program feeds from the onsite production truck will transmit to BitFire servers installed at the offsite production facility in North Carolina. Crew will be able to monitor camera, graphic and show feeds in real time. The remote crew will also use BitFire’s virtual communication system for seamless communication with the production truck onsite in Orlando. With BitFire’s ability to interface directly with the comms system in the production truck, the entire crew is effortlessly linked together to execute this complex production.

BitFire will also integrate talent into the live broadcast. Ian Parker will provide gambling analysis for each show using a BitFire remote talent kit installed in his home. The easy to deploy kits include BitFire servers to transmit the talent camera feeds back to the production truck. They also include broadcast quality PTZ cameras which can be remotely operated by the technical crew onsite. For the Challenger series, a celebrity guest judge will join the production live each week via BitFire’s FireBridge platform, allowing for guest contributions on their own devices.

BitFire will expand on this support system as the PFL moves into its main series production later this spring.

“BitFire is thrilled to continue our ongoing partnership with the PFL into 2022,” says Bob Sullivan, CEO and President of BitFire. “With hosts and crew members spread out across the United States, BitFire demonstrated our skill in seamlessly linking together audio and video from disparate locations, integrating multiple remote locations to the main show’s onsite production. Because of our skill set and broadcast production solutions, we believe our partnership with the PFL will just continue to grow.”

With live production for each PFL event taking place in one location and a large production team and talent located in other separate locations, a seamless and dynamic solution was required to broadcast these events. To keep these locations connected as if they were a single production set, the PFL tapped BitFire’s video transport technology and remote distribution platform. With so many operators working remotely, the crew required a high-quality broadcast audio and video feed to monitor everything happening onsite in real time. BitFire’s solutions use the company’s proprietary broadcast transport network, allowing the PFL to execute these shows easy and reliably over the internet.

“BitFire has been the genius behind our communications and connectivity for PFL,” says Professional Fighters League Executive Producer George Greenberg. “We have a pretty complex setup that requires a lot of communication even though we’re not all in one place. The system is just brilliant and has made communication seamless between those of us (onsite) and those (working remotely).”

The PFL features elite MMA athletes across six weight classes, including a women’s division. Backed by an investor group of sports, media, entertainment and business titans, PFL events are broadcast live in primetime on ESPN2, ESPN+ and ESPN Deportes and shown in 160 additional countries around the world on premium sports networks. The inaugural PFL Challenger Series will air exclusively on the Fubo Sports Network.