Super Bowl LVIII: CBS Sports Execs Offer a Preview of the Production’s Biggest Tech Advances

‘Doink’ cameras, ‘Red Cat’ POV cameras are among the innovations planned

Key executives from CBS Sports detailed some of the upcoming production highlights for Super Bowl LVIII in a conference call from Las Vegas’s Allegiant Stadium yesterday afternoon. With 165 cameras, it will easily be the largest Super Bowl production ever: the game will be delivered to viewers of both CBS Sports and Nickelodeon via productions operating side-by-side in the TV compound.

Below are excerpts from the call, which featured Harold Bryant, Executive Producer/EVP, production, CBS Sports; Patty Power, EVP, operations and engineering, CBS Sports; Mike Francis, VP, engineering and technology, CBS Sports; and Jason Cohen, VP, remote technical operations, CBS Sports.

Getting to This Point

Bryant, working on his ninth Super Bowl, sees the effort, especially with Nickelodeon, as a true team effort, combining technology, production techniques, and announcers to create exciting storylines throughout the week.

“It’s frankly amazing what this team has done,” he said. “I lean on our team that’s on this call. They’ve done a phenomenal job pulling together some of the top technology in the industry, groundbreaking technology, more technology than we’ve ever seen. We’ll also feature enhanced graphics on our Nickelodeon broadcast; that’s going to be groundbreaking.”

CBS Sports has been preparing for Super Bowl LVIII since 2022 with numerous survey trips to Las Vegas, said Power, who’s working on her fifth Super Bowl. “We’re going to have a total of 165 cameras, which includes 24 4K cameras, which is a record number at a Super Bowl. And, for the first time ever, we’ll have six small 4K ‘doink’ cameras in our [goal posts] so we can get the right angles for all those [field goals and extra points].”

She noted that 23 cameras with augmented-reality capabilities will be deployed across Allegiant Stadium. Four sets will be located at the Bellagio and used all week for shows across the CBS family; on game day, there will also be two sets at Allegiant Stadium, one inside and one outside.

“On top of all of that,” Power added, “we’ll have nearly 1,000 CBS personnel in Vegas. It’s a big show, it’s a big stage. We’re excited.”

CBS Sports has the city of Las Vegas covered almost as well as the game, deploying live robotic cameras with full pan/tilt/zoom controls at the Stratosphere, the Mandalay Bay Foundation Room, the Bellagio fountains, the Renaissance for shots of The Sphere, and other sites along Las Vegas Boulevard. There will also be a 1,000-ft. Flycam running across the water in front of the Bellagio, three drones and a plane capturing scenics all week and live shots, and five Skycams.

Storytelling with 165 Cameras

With 165 angles of camera coverage, Francis said, the storytelling begins with the replay operators, who sell possible shots to the replay producers: “They are trying to evaluate, in real time, who has the best look. It’s a big collaboration to get a replay on the air.”

Added Bryant, “We’re going to find out what works to help tell the story of the game, the story of the moment. We’ve got layers of people, not just Producer Jim Rikhoff and Director Mike Arnold; we’ve got replay producers, and I’ll be in there. We’re all looking to say, ‘Is that an element that works in this process to help tell that story and to make that story better? Is it cool? Is it the wow factor that we’re looking for?’ It’s a collaborative group, and we have to make very quick decisions as Jim and Mike are on the front lines along with Ryan Galvin, lead replay producer.”

Bryant noted that the process begins before the game event starts. “We’re not just going in there randomly and saying, ‘Let’s go to this, let’s go to that.’ There’s a whole plan in place that, if something happens, there is a Plan A. And then there is C, D, E, F — all the way down to double ZZ.”

Said Francis, “Everyone has their assignments, so they’re focused on that. And then production picks what they feel is the best look.”

The Doink Camera: From Vision to Reality

CBS Sports is installing cameras in the goal-post uprights for Super Bowl LVIII coverage.

One of the most eagerly awaited new camera angles is the doink camera. The idea for the camera came straight out of last year’s Super Bowl, when the Chiefs’ Harrison Butker hit the upright on a field-goal attempt.

“Mike and I were at the Super Bowl last year in Arizona and were sitting by the upright where Butker hit the post,” Cohen explained. “We looked at each other at the same time and were like, ‘Oh, my God.’ I quickly reached out to the NFL and said, ‘Hey, I have an idea: we need a camera similar to what we’ve done with the pylons — [embedding cameras] inside the pylon — but we put them in the uprights.’ We had to come up with some engineering drawings and schematics to show what the plan would look like and also to make sure that the integrity of the goal posts wasn’t going to be compromised.”

The result, after testing at Metlife Stadium last August and again at Allegiant Stadium in October, is a camera system that installs three small cameras on each goal. Cohen said the team consulted with CBS announcer and former kicker Jay Feely on the best location for the cameras. In each upright, a camera faces out to the field and the kicker; the third camera shoots straight across from one post to the other.

“The cameras have 4K zoom capabilities so we can zoom in tight,” Cohen said. “They’re also going to be super-slow-motion so we can get a nice slow replay of the ball going through. We’re not reliant just on the doinks. Obviously, if we get a doink, we’ll all be very excited and probably high-five each other in the truck. But [we] can also get other shots from the field that are from a unique perspective. [We] also can get an interesting viewpoint of the pylons and the field.”

Other Cool Cameras

Cohen says the Pylon cameras have also gotten a refresh from BSI, Fletcher, and Antelope.

“They now have a 4K camera inside of them, with the front goal lines pylons having three cameras but one is the new Antelope 4K zoomable camera,” he says. “And then we have C360 cameras in the back pylons and back goal line cameras.”

Another new camera position is the “Red Cat cam,” a RED Digital Cinema camera located on the catwalks above the field. According to Francis, it will offer a real bird’s-eye view above the goal line.

“We will have the ability to shoot straight down at a higher resolution and high frame rate,” he said. “Even with all the pylon cameras and other angles, there are obstructions because of the way the players are huddled up together. If a play happens, we might not have a look from our traditional angles. Those overhead cameras will give us something we haven’t had before.”

Those cameras are 4K, and Francis explained that the higher frame rate will solve motion-blur problems, which, in those critical moments, can be an issue. “We opted to go for a higher-frame-rate camera vs. a camera with a higher resolution.”

That camera will be connected via fiber, allowing video to be imported immediately to Adobe After Effects. Clips can be repurposed by key-framing a player or ball and doing follow work within After Effects. Noted Cohen, “It will give viewers a different way of looking at the game.”

Stay tuned for more coverage of Super Bowl LVIII, including a look at Nickelodeon’s simulcast and the use of AR and XR elements on Monday.