UFL Kickoff 2024: FOX, ESPN Coverage To Listen In on Players, Coaches, Officials

Audio is top priority in broadcasts of the new league

When the revamped UFL kicks off its inaugural season tomorrow, its players, their coaches, and the officials will be wired for sound by the two broadcasters, FOX Sports and ESPN, splitting coverage of the 10-week season.

The result of the merger of the latest iterations of the XFL and the United States Football League (USFL), the UFL opens its season with a matchup between 2023 XFL champion Arlington Renegades and 2023 USFL champ Birmingham Stallions.

FOX Sports (which owned the USFL and now owns half of the UFL) will deploy the Game Creek Gridiron mobile unit to anchor onsite production for half its shows, with Mobile TV Group 53-RP and 46 Flex handling the other half. ESPN will work from combinations of the LMG HD18 and HD15 trucks and F&F GTX-16.

Both broadcasters are supported by the league’s Technology Group, which is working with NEP/Bexel to support team and official communications, as well as some of the player/coach/ref microphones. FOX Sports is supplementing its production with CP Communications, which is providing player-mic support.

The Fox Sports Approach

The number of microphones deployed will vary by broadcaster. FOX Sports will use 24 bodypack microphones per game, 11 per team. Defensive coordinators will be captured through their intercom partylines; a separate channel will listen in on officials’ discussions of on-field rulings; and yet another channel on the PLs can be switched to for coaches interviews during the game.

In fact, this alternative-season football generates so much sound that the main challenge for its inaugural season will be managing it all. “We continue to keep working on new microphones, different mic elements, but also ways to enhance and clean up some of the audio,” says Brad Cheney, VP, field operations and engineering, FOX Sports.

That is the responsibility of the broadcaster’s UFL audio team, led by Mike Del Tufo and comprising Joe Carpenter, Joel Groblinghof, and Greg Briggs. Besides an A1 and a submixer, the team will deploy two mixers per game, versus the three mixers who handled FOX Sports’ USFL games last year. Cheney says three sets of hands were needed on the faders last season because of the number of mic inputs from wired bodies on the field: one mixer was solely responsible for managing player microphones. That can be mitigated somewhat this year, he says, with more use of the parabolic microphones, which can roam the length of the sidelines.

Parabolic Mics Closer to the Action

“One thing that we’ve found really important has been the ability to place the parabolic microphones on the field in the zone of action,” Cheney says. “With both college and the NFL, you’re [limited in range] somewhere between the 20- and 30-yard lines, so you’re pushing the limits of what [the parabolics] can pick up. When you’re able to put them right on the line of scrimmage or 10 yards up from the line of scrimmage at the first-down markers, you’re getting better audio because you’re closer to the action.

“It’s a lot of work trying to have the right body mic open at the right time and not also get a ton of noise,” he continues. “With better parabolic placement, we’re able to pull back a bit on the player mics and get a more consistent sound. You’re going to hear as much or more this year with a more streamlined approach to capturing the sound.”

A better handle on field sound, Cheney adds, will mean more and clearer listening in on real-time conversations between players and coaches and among officials. That will enhance understanding of the new league’s unique rules and speed fan engagement with the league. It will also permit faster replay audio.

“One big thing we find with all this is that, the more we can be in real time, the better off the fan is,” he points out. “But the sheer amount of great audio we’re getting is phenomenal. The beauty of it is that it all existed. Now we can capture it.”

The shows are produced as Home-Run Productions (HRPs) from a control room in FOX Sports’ Pico network center in Los Angeles.

“We’re excited about that,” says Cheney, “because, the more that we can streamline what we’re doing with these technicians working both games in a weekend — the more reps you get, so to speak — the better you all are as a team. That’s the amazing part of having a 10-week season: these guys are going to do 16 games in the first 10 weeks, with a couple other crews coming in to help out with overflow.”

ESPN Taps Deep A1 Talent Pool

At ESPN, the mic count is slightly less; that team will be focusing on the field communications among home offensive coaches and away defensive coaches, as well as all special-teams PLs. According to Jesse Kupec, remote operations specialist, remote audio, comms, and RF, ESPN, the conversations between officials will be a big part of the narrative during games, captured in real time, with a standard six-second delay: “We have referee mics even when [the officials are] not hitting their [beltpack] toggle switch, which helps add to what’s going on in the replay world.”

ESPN will capture the wireless audio through Shure Axient ULXD4Q receivers and Riedel Bolero wireless comms via NEP/Bexel in a native Dante format. ESPN and UFL A2s work together to ensure that audio from body mics gets where it’s supposed to go, says Kupec.

He also sees the sideline parabolic mics as especially useful for UFL games and getting fans deeper into the action. “The league has been great about giving our operators more freedom in that space, but we just have to make sure we use common sense. We would never want to be between the coach and the sideline. As long as we’re aware of our surroundings, we have free rein within the [20-yard lines], which are out of our range for NFL [coverage].”

ESPN has a large pool of A1s and submixers to tap for UFL games, dividing them into three core crews whose personnel are changeable depending on needs and availabilities. The A crew will be led by A1 Michael Bevers; B crew, by Thom Mangan. A1s Randy Miller and Luke Phillips will helm C crew but will be available to the other crews as needed during the season.

The ESPN UFL games will deploy a REMI production model, with both a main A1 and a submixer for the RF mics onsite and a third A1 in Bristol, CT, for the final 5.1-surround mix to air. NFL/UFL Rules Analyst Dean Blandino, working from the FOX Sports facility in Los Angeles, will be integrated into the ESPN broadcast from Bristol. The team will also be able to tap into the videoed conversations between league officials and field officials via output from the DV Sport 360 platform.

“We can see what they’re looking at and also take that full composite program back to air,” says Kupec. “We’re getting the big picture for these games.”

Sources Affect the Mix

All that sound from so many different sources has a profound effect on how to approach the audio mix for UFL games.

“I think it comes down to not only prioritizing audio as far as what’s going to add the most to the end product but also trying to stay ahead of the conversation,” Kupec says. “When you have that many sources, you have to be one or two steps ahead to know where you want to go. You don’t want to be cutting a great conversation because you were too far behind it.

“That relies on A1s to be listening to their pre-fades,” he continues. “And looking at cameras: if you see someone being animated on the sideline, you might know that you want to give a listen to that mic pre-fade and see what’s going on. The A1s are putting it all together, listening to all the pre-fade signals and also to the production crew, while keeping an eye on the monitors to see when something interested might happen.

“The biggest challenge,” he adds, “is that you have so many resources and have to make sure you stay in front of them to catch them in time. You can’t just be reactive. Our audio operators have been trained and given the freedom to not wait until someone says ‘track X or track Y’; they have the freedom to the point where sometimes the production will actually follow the audio, if audio is catching something good that they want to get on-air. The A1s have the authority to do that. It’s part of what sets UFL broadcasts apart.”

Augmented Crowd Sound

For the first few of its games, FOX Sports will be augmenting crowd sounds, a concept that took hold during the empty venues of the COVID era but has proved useful for helping new sports ventures sound fuller on the air. Having provided augmented crowd noise for FOX Sports USFL productions last season, Sonofans will do the same for the broadcaster’s UFL broadcasts. (Last year, NBC Sports broadcast several USFL games but did not use additional crowd-sound systems; it did, however, use the productions to continue testing and development of 5.1.4 immersive sound, although that audio wasn’t broadcast.)

The plan is to use the augmented crowd audio on the first three weekends of the UFL season and then evaluate its effectiveness, according to Sonofans President Fred Vogler. It will be configured as a four-channel feed without a center channel, to keep that path clear for the games’ plentiful dialog and SFX. It will use sound sources derived from Sonofans’ catalogs, including some from last year’s USFL broadcasts.

“FOX is committed to trying to make it as exciting as possible,” he says. “I’m hoping that they’ll find that we actually embellish and add to [the production] and that it gives a bed for the mixers to rely on. When we did the USFL, there were a lot of drones and other extra noises, and I think some of that can be very distracting for the audience. With us, they have something that is filling that gap. We also want to scale the sound appropriately to the size of the stadium.”

ESPN is not using any augmented crowd sound. That could result in a tonal disparity between the two networks’ broadcasts, Vogler says: “I notice it, of course, but how the viewers at home notice it, I don’t know. The idea of the augmented crowd is to make you turn your head and pay attention and be more engaged as a viewer. I think it absolutely does that, but it has to be scaled, and it can’t be over the top and can’t be inappropriate in the presentation. The mixers know how to use it and bring it in and keep it engaging without being overwhelming.”