Live From the US Open: Sky Sports Expands Onsite Presence for Final Week

Week 1 was handled by new mixed-reality studio in London

Sky Sports is onsite at the US Open Tennis Championships for the first year in a new five-year deal, and Week 2 has been marked by an increased presence on the grounds after a first week when Sky Sports’ new mixed-reality studio back home in London was front and center in coverage.

“We want to be in as many positions as possible,” says Jennie Blackmore, head of production, Sky Sports, of the Sky Sports presence around the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. “We based our coverage out and about on RF, but we also have fixed cameras in the studio, including one for AR graphics that uses tracking data to allow AR graphics to pop up out of the fountains in the plaza.”

Sky Sports’ Jennie Blackmore on the broadcaster’s set, which features glass walls, giving viewers back home in the UK a better sense of the fan action.

Two reporters are roaming the grounds, outfitted with a Sony FX6 and a Sony FX9 camera transmitting coverage via LiveU. During matches, reporters can also be located courtside in one of the “whisper” talent positions that the USTA has made available to rightsholders. Unlike U.S. rightsholder ESPN, which uses a handheld camera to shoot that talent from across the court, Sky Sports has opted to give its talent a Bluetooth headset and a cellphone camera mounted on a gimble to report from courtside and to capture the sights and sounds near the court. The cameras use a LiveU app to transmit the coverage over Wi-Fi.

“That’s something else we’re trying this year,” says Blackmore. “There is a button [on the gimbal] so that talent can spin the camera around. When Andy Murray was playing, our reporter could turn the camera around and show her view right behind Murray. That was a bonus because we can’t otherwise get cameras down there because it’s just an audio position.”

Although Week 2 has focused on studio operations from the Billie Jean King Tennis Center, Week 1 coverage relied on the broadcaster’s new mixed-reality presentation studio in London’s Osterley Park. The result of an 18-month project, in which two studio spaces were converted into a single flexible-use mixed-reality presentation studio, launched last month with English Premier League Monday Night Football coverage, but the US Open gave the studio a better chance to show off its capabilities. The studio, which was designed and engineered in-house, houses four distinct physical spaces, an extensive LED floor and LED walls, AR and VR capabilities, and a BatCam wire cam system.

Sky Sports was able to mix reality, using images from the Tennis Center as a background for talent back home. The USTA also built a new platform at the top of the broadcast studios located at the very top of Arthur Ashe Stadium, which affords Sky Sports and others a dynamic look for presenters. Sky Sports Executive Producer Louise Sutton, Production Manager Harriet Jackson, and producer Joe Clark Smith are onsite leading the production and content-creation charge.

“It has worked out really well,” says Blackmore. “We’ve been closing the show from there. When we were broadcasting from the [Osterley Park] studio, our pundits would stand in front of the video wall with the image from that platform because it was such a great shot. You can see the crowds coming into Ashe Stadium behind the pundits for the evening session, and the atmosphere was electric.”

Sky Sports technical supervisor team at the US Open: (from left) Jonathan Craggs, senior technical supervisor; Phil Light, sound supervisor; and Darren Du Preez, senior technical supervisor

This week, talent flew over from the UK and settled into Sky Sports’ set in a prime location overlooking the busy fan plaza, from which fans enter Arthur Ashe Stadium. The studio does not have a desk, which Blackmore says allows viewers in the UK to see more of the fans and activity on the plaza.

“It’s such a great view of the crowd,” she says. “A desk would cut off the view. We went with standup positions, and that has given us some great moments. Like when Coco Gauff joined us, a big crowd turned up, and she was waving to them. Everyone loved it. The set location has been great.”

The studio also affords different looks in a relatively small footprint. The touchscreen can be one area of activity, and, right next to it, talent can have conversations with each other or guests. All signals from the studio are passed to the Sky Sports US Open technical area in the compound before being sent in J2K to Production Control Room 1 in Osterley via Lumen and NTT encoders; the latter are self-delivering for the iTV services. Riedel Mediornet is also in use to help manage sources connected via fiber, including RF cameras that deploy the Gravity Media RF ring.

The studio features a touchscreen, a trademark of Sky Sports coverage at other events, most notably golf coverage. Teradici cloud-access software allows the team at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center to tap into the PAINT hardware in an equipment room in Osterley Park. A remote workflow, says Sky Sports Senior Technical Supervisor Jonathan Craggs, that has worked well.

“You press play, and it rolls instantly,” he adds. “We’re running it as a proof of concept, and, so far, it has been excellent.”

The Sky Sports presence in the US Open Broadcast Center came together quickly, with setup beginning about a week ahead of the start of the tournament. Sky Sports is using its own equipment, which was deployed for this year’s Super Bowl and sat in storage at NBC’s facility in Stamford, CT. Because the system at the broadcast center passes more signals to the UK than were passed during the Super Bowl, additional equipment was required.

“We added a separate Blackmagic router to handle all the extra court feeds,” says Craggs. “We’ll do the same thing again next year.”

All signals, the world feed, court feeds, and unilateral feeds are sent to Osterley Park, where a production team working in Production Control Room 1 cuts the show for viewers at home. Additional court coverage is made available via Sky Sports’ app.