The Reality of Production in a Post-Pandemic World: SVG Yearbook Offers a Glimpse Into the Past and the Future

When the history books are written, what will 2023 mean for the sports-production community?

Over the years, the SVG Yearbook has evolved with the times, expanding beyond an overview of all the new trucks that have hit the road and becoming an annual touchstone celebrating the wide range of production accomplishments during the year. At its heart is a simple message: the sports-production industry is one of the most vibrant, durable, and efficient industries in the broadcast business. Most important, amazing industry professionals across the U.S. work hard to ensure that their productions go off as smoothly as possible.

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Along with our annual Gearbase Survey and SVG Sponsor Updates, we offer great overviews of key events that highlighted the changing nature of sports production. The pandemic laid the foundation for new ways of working, most notably with production-team members able to do their jobs remotely and, often, from home. At the time, many wondered whether those new ways of working signaled the end of the old ways (everyone onsite at a location, working in trucks) and the beginning of a new way (a small engineering team and camera and audio professionals onsite, everyone else working remotely).

Well, as is often the case, the reality of production in a post-pandemic world is a mix of both old and new. Yes, more personnel are working remotely, but — and it’s an important but — that decision is based on whether it can be done without impairing the quality of the production.

And here is one of the most fascinating developments of 2023 (and, most likely, for the year ahead): the scale of productions continues to grow, and that creates two points of pressure. The first: more people are onsite because more content is being created (for example, social media, alternative broadcasts, teams, even athletes are creating content at the venue). The second: more people are working remotely because there is only so much room in a compound. There was a time when such pressure was limited to limited to an Olympics or a World Cup, but now it is being felt at nearly every major championship-level event.

When the history books are written, 2023 will likely be seen as a pivotal year for the sports-production community, the year when major remote- production-facility providers laid a foundation for cloud-based workflows and remote control rooms to be tied into a venue (and the trucks onsite). It will be seen as a pivotal year for formats like HDR and 1080p, which increasingly are the norm around the globe. It will be seen as a pivotal year in sports rights, with more and more digital platforms snagging a piece of rights deals so that sports content is found not only on traditional broadcast and cable outlets but on OTT and streaming as well.

We hope you enjoy this year’s edition of the SVG Yearbook!