All That Jazz: Utah’s SEG Media Blazes the OTA, Streaming Trail for New Era in Regional Sports Broadcasting

With the fraught regional sports network model in the midst of a tectonic shift, the Utah Jazz are one of several pro-sports teams opting to shift its live-game broadcasts to an over-the-air station and subscription streaming service. However, while many others were forced to turn to their respective leagues for help or build out an in-house broadcast operation from scratch, Utah Jazz SVP of Broadcasting Travis Henderson and his team had a leg up.

The Utah Jazz worked with Creative Dimensions to launch a brand new studio inside the Delta Center.

“We’ve been [producing games in-house] for several years at this point, so we already had a lot of the infrastructure and operations in place to do the games — [including] the truck and the crew,” he says. “I would say we were very fortunate in that we were already pretty self-sufficient, which made the transition a bit easier.”

With Warner Bros. Discovery’s looming closure of AT&T SportsNet, Owner Ryan Smith and team parent Smith Entertainment Group opted to launch their own production company, dubbed SEG Media, to produce games and other content for distribution on over-the-air TV station KJZZ-TV Salt Lake City and the Jazz+ subscription-based DTC streaming service starting this season.

“Our owner Ryan Smith said, ‘we are going to put the fan experience first’ and that was our philosophy all summer as we prepared,” emphasizes Henderson. “It wasn’t easy and there was certainly a lot of work involved, but we were very well positioned and prepared to take on the task. So, even with the short [timeline], it wasn’t as big as a transition it might have been for some other teams.”

Jazzing Up the Game Productions: More Eyeballs Means More Tech Toys

Travis Henderson, SVP of broadcast, in the control room for the Jazz game broadcast

The Jazz announced the move in June, giving Henderson and company just four months to build out the new SEG Media operation and prepare to produce all games for the 2023-24 season.

“It was a very compressed timeline, but we were very fortunate to be supported by the Delta Center in-house arena group’s engineering staff,” says Henderson. “They were very helpful in getting a lot of the things up and running for us that would normally have been in a separate location like master control.”

The Jazz broadcast team continues to rely on its mobile unit from Salt Lake City-based Pure Mobile Productions, as it has for several years for home games. The team utilizes the dual feed model for road games, leveraging a combination of a small crew in a B unit onsite and a small control room back at the Delta Center.

In addition to more than 3 million Utahns having unencumbered access to Utah Jazz games via KJZZ and Jazz+, the team has engineered a plethora of deals in outer market broadcast territory that add an additional 3 million potential fans across five states. With more eyeballs on the games than ever before, Henderson and his team are looking for new ways to engage fans in the Beehive State and beyond.

“That is exciting from a production standpoint because we know there’s going to be more new and casual fans tuning into our broadcast,” says Henderson. “So we thought about our production approach as far as how we can better reach those fans and put an emphasis on growing our fan base. That’s certainly been a very big awareness factor on our side in house we produce games.”

For example, the Jazz boosted its camera complement and now has four high-speed cameras — two 6x- and two 3x slo-mos — at its disposal for all home games. In new addition, select games now features an RF Sony Alpha FX3 full-frame cinema camera to capture courtside shallow-depth of field shots throughout the game.

A Whole New Look: Graphics Package and Studio Set Get a Makeover

With a fully equipped production truck from Pure Mobile, an in-arena control room, and a veteran production crew in tow, the SEG Media team kept its focus on the small details throughout the summer launch period.

Utah Jazz announcers Craig Bolerjack, Thurl Bailey, and Holly Rowe

“Being that we already had a [mobile unit] and a small control room in our arena to handle home and road game productions, the bigger pieces were mostly in place already,” he says. “So it was a lot of the smaller things — establishing transmission, building a graphics package and music, and launching a new set — that took up the most time.”

SEG Media worked with Creative Dimensions to launch a new studio set inside the Delta Center for pre-, half-time, and post-game shows for both home and away games.

“Creative Dimensions were really terrific and, even though it was one of the bigger projects this summer, they made the whole process very smooth since they were so professional in their design and construction,” says Henderson. “I think it’s pretty unique for [a set] to come together that quickly and seamlessly and we are very happy with the final product.”

As for the new graphics package, the Jazz worked closely with the NBA to develop a new look for its revamped broadcasts. Essentially, he SEG Media creative team took a new package that the league was working on and customized with Jazz branding and sponsorship integration.

“It came out of a discussion over the summer about what they were working on and then we took what they had and put our own look and branding on it,” says Henderson “And for daily game to game [graphics operations], we have a very talented graphic staff here that we’re able to tap into for specialty graphics and things like that. So it’s been great and we’re very happy with how it’s turned out.”

Streaming to Success: Jazz+ Offerings Go Beyond the Live Game Broadcast

In September, SEG Media officially launched the Jazz+ DTC subscription streaming for local fans, complete with via live games, exclusive all-access footage, and other original VOD content. Jazz+ leverages the NBA’s Next Gen integrated digital platform and Kiswe’s cloud-based video solutions to provide a seamless and immersive streaming experience for fans.

The Jazz+ subscription service is available well beyond Utah’s borders.

“On the streaming side, we’re looking to [enhance] the experience beyond just the main game [broadcast],” says Henderson. “So we’ve added those altcasts, as well as the large amount of original content like features, series, and content from our vault. We also put a real emphasis on making sure that the customer experience as high-quality as possible and that goes beyond just the live games.

During select games, including each of the five “Decade Night” celebrations (focusing on the 1970s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, and 2010s) as part of the Utah Jazz’s 50th anniversary season, Jazz+ will offer alternative broadcast streams featuring live commentary from Jazz alumni and other notable personalities.

“The five Decade Night altcasts allows us to bring back players from the 1970s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, and 2010s to do a separate broadcast and that has definitely been a lot of fun so far,” says Henderson. “Jazz+ gives us the flexibility to experiment, explore, and try new things like that to grow our fanbase. The altcasts are definitely something that we’re excited about and know that it has a lot of potential.”

In addition to live games (in both English and Spanish), full length on-demand replays of games, live alternative broadcasts like the Decade Nights, and select Salt Lake City NBA G League games, Jazz+ features a host of exclusive original content produced by SEG Media.

Thus far, these Jazz+ shows range from Shoot the Shot with Coach Hardy (an interview-style shooting competition with special guests) and Utah Sights & Bites (a look at player- and fan-favorite spots) to Meet the Coaches (an interview series introducing the Utah Jazz coaching staff), with more exclusive shows on the way as the season progresses.

Jazz+ is also building up an extensive library of behind-the-scenes content, highlights, and extras, including newly uploaded extended clips of behind-the-scenes moments with the team, condensed games with commentary, historic player mixtapes, and more.

“It’s been a real team effort between a bunch of different groups here,” says Henderson. “Whether it’s digital or marketing or broadcast, we’re all doing our share to create content for Jazz+ outside of the live games. It’s been fun to see that content library grow and give people great content to watch. And that will continue to be a major focus for us.”

A Jazz+ subscription costs $125.50/year or $15.50/month and there are single game on-demand purchases are available for $5 apiece.

Looking Ahead: Blazing a New Trail for Regional Sports Broadcasting

While the Jazz are among the first to move from an RSN to an OTA/streaming distribution model —  joining the Phoenix Suns, Phoenix Coyotes, and Vegas Golden Knights, among others — they certainly won’t be the last. As the Jazz and SEG Media chart the path, Henderson says the key to success is simple: put together a great team behind the scenes.

“I couldn’t imagine doing what we did over the summer without this amazing group,” says Henderson. “Yes, we were in a good position, but it definitely took a lot of work to get this all done in such a short time period. And our team is fantastic from the broadcast department to the engineering department to the support that we get from our vendors. Everything came together and everybody was terrific and just made the experience fun. It was challenging, but I couldn’t be prouder of the product that we’re putting out on the broadcast and on Jazz+ every night.”