2024 Daytona 500: NASCAR Productions Leverages New Production Facility in Concord, NC, for Biggest Race of the Year

The remote workflow is producing the world feed, supporting onsite efforts of FOX Sports

Heading into another season of fast-paced, heart-pounding, and exhilarating racing, NASCAR Productions is rolling on full cylinders after an impressive offseason of technological progress. Driven by the opening of a brand-new remote-production facility in Concord, NC, the motorsports organization is relying on the new broadcast center to handle production of the world feed and to support the onsite operations of FOX Sports.

NASCAR Productions is back at the holy land of stock car racing this weekend in Daytona.

“A lot of what’s happening from onsite to the new building won’t see much change,” says Matt Roper, managing director, internal productions, NASCAR Productions. “As for the broadcasts with FOX Sports and the ancillary content that we create for the world feed and NASCAR TV [the in-venue production on the videoboards], that workflow will be a little bit different.”

Going Global: PSSI Global Services Gives a Hand on World-Feed Production

With a worldwide audience tuning into the premiere of the NASCAR schedule, NASCAR Productions is responsible for sending out the broadcast via a world feed to the various international rightsholders. Through the help of shared resources from FOX Sports, including a clean feed from onsite, the production team is piecing together a product for racing fans watching abroad.

The new NASCAR Production Facility in Concord, NC will play a major role in operations moving forward.

“We’ll be bringing in supplementary angles that are primarily inside the cars as well as four cameras: three RFs and a hard camera that’ll be up in the grandstands,” Roper explains. “This is a much bigger show: the world feed will be exploring the property and everything that’s going into Sunday’s festivities.”

To distribute the world feed, PSSI Global Services’ facility just outside Pittsburgh will shoot the signal to NASCAR’s international production partners. The broadcast-services company will deliver the signal to Canada and to Latin American countries and is working with Endeavor and SES to ship the feed to BT Tower in London for transmission to partners in Europe, Asia, and the rest of the world.

Starting Off Hot: Team Revs Up for the Super Bowl of Racing

Professional sports leagues generally don’t start with the biggest show of the year, but, every year, NASCAR roars off with the most popular event on the calendar. Luckily, with the commitment to installing permanent infrastructure in the venue to ensure maximum efficiency from the first race, NASCAR Productions is always confident heading to Daytona International Speedway.

“Whether it be fiber or different parts and aspects around the track,” says Ben Baker, managing director, domestic broadcasting, NASCAR Productions, “the renovation and upgrading that we did in 2016 has helped us make this [production] a little bit more turnkey. That said, it’s still a race that we show up a couple weeks in advance for. We’re making sure that we work with BSI for all the in-car cameras and that other details, like team comms, are working.”

Aside from having the assurance that the venue is up-to-date and will be ready to handle the pressures of a major broadcast, the operations team understands that the infrastructure is nimble and ready to turn on a dime. “Because of the gravity of this event and how many elements that we’re in charge of,” says Roper, “a lot of that permanent infrastructure allows us to pivot and adjust quickly when things pop up,. That was harder to do eight years ago, but now it has become an easier lift.”

With these renovations, NASCAR Productions has been able to assist operations in an expanded broadcast compound, which contains mobile units and other spaces under the NASCAR umbrella: a proprietary production truck linked to the offsite production facility, a truck housing the time and scoring team, NEP SRT housing overflow of resources shared with the new production facility, five office trailers for staff, and additional space for executives. Also in the compound are an SMT mobile unit for real-time graphics and optical tracking, generators from CES Power for a reliable source of cooling and backup, BSI for RF connectivity, Beverly Hills Aerials for drone coverage, and the fleet of Game Creek Video mobile units used by FOX Sports for the primary broadcast.

Week by Week: FOX Sports Collaboration Proves Fruitful for First Half of 2024 Season

The NASCAR season is a weekly grind, and the ongoing relationship and collaboration between NASCAR Productions and FOX Sports is essential to its success. Involving numerous members of the broadcaster’s operations team — including Director, Remote Engineering, Matt Battaglia; Technical Producer George Grill; and Production Manager Karin Fasing — the effort has become a science that starts with the Daytona 500.

“We’ve gotten into a great rhythm over the past few years,” notes Baker. “[After] the Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, we can come out to Daytona and really focus on the size of this show.”

In addition to Roper and Baker, NASCAR Productions’ onsite staff assisting the FOX Sports team includes Compound Technical Manager Wayne Nelson; Manager, Field Operations, Alyssa Martin; and Operations Manager Jamie Wolfe. Manager, Remote Broadcast Engineering, Kyle Clements is engineer-in-charge in NEP SRT mobile unit.

Back on Holy Ground: The Sport’s Original Home Is Nostalgic Start to the Season

It’s only fitting that NASCAR’s season starts where the sport began: Daytona Beach, FL. Located not far from the drag races on the city’s sandy shores, Daytona International Speedway inspires nostalgia and pride. Capturing that at this weekend’s race required an all-hands-on-deck approach and effort.

“To set up the footprint that’s needed to catch every angle, every sound, and every emotion of the race is a massive undertaking,” says Baker. “The production certainly can’t be done without the teamwork that we have at NASCAR and our partners at FOX Sports.”

Whether it was the arduous planning, integration of new technologies, or comprehending a new set of workflows, this offseason was unlike any other. Balancing the opening of a new broadcast facility with preparing for the Daytona 500 was a delicate dance, but NASCAR Productions has set itself up for long-term success.

“Proud is not a strong enough word to summarize how I feel about what our team accomplished over the last 3½ months,” says Roper. “From PAs all the way up to senior leadership, we couldn’t have done any of this if we weren’t operating as one big family and one big team.”

SVG’s U.S. Editorial Director Jason Dachman contributed to this article.