ESPN Bolsters Camera Totals as Expanded College Football Playoff Enters the Semifinals

ESPN will add three MindFly BodyCams on referees at both the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl

The newly-expanded College Football Playoff reaches more familiar territory Thursday night as the semifinals get underway with Notre Dame facing Penn State in the Orange Bowl in Miami before Ohio State and Texas battle on Friday evening in the Cotton Bowl in Arlington.

While ESPN will offer a slew a viewing options across its family of networks, the primary main telecasts are loaded with production tools elevating these games to the biggest ones ESPN has produced this season.

ESPN College GameDay Stage Director Mike Ruhlman makes final adjustments to the set prior to coverage of the Orange Bowl on Thursday Night. (Photo by Allen Kee / ESPN Images)

The most notable addition to the overall camera plan for the semifinals is the MindFly BodyCam. The wearable camera system sits on the chest of the referees. It has been used numerous times by ESPN at events over the past year like the Home Run Derby, the College World Series, pregame at a Stanley Cup Playoff game, the UFL, and a pair of regular season college football games in the ACC this season.

According to Jarrett Baker, Senior Manager, Remote Production Operations at ESPN, the MindFly BodyCams will be worn by three officials (umpire, center judge, and head linesman) at each of the games. Due to NCAA rules, ESPN won’t be able to take audio off those systems as they have done in some of the other deployments.

On top of that, both the Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl will feature pretty similar operational plans. Both sites are anchored by more than 50 cameras, including 21 manned cameras (about eight of which are super slow-mo. There will be eight PylonCams in each endzone, as well as the line-to-gain PylonCams. The goal line pylons and the line-to-gain pylons have super slow-mo capabilities built into them. A wireless cinematic rig shooting in shallow depth-of-field will also be able to hit the field after scoring plays. That setup is a Sony FX3 on a gimbal connected to the truck via RF.

There will be plenty of aerial options from SkyCam (which has AR-graphics capabilities), a live drone from ESPN’s internal drone division, as well as a blimp or plane flying above both stadiums.

For this entire CFP, ESPN has also added goal line robotics to ensure they have the best chances at having a definitive shot on scoring plays.

Comfortable in Each Stadium

There’s comfort level from both crews as ESPN is plenty familiar working at Hard Rock Stadium and AT&T Stadium, facilities the network visits regularly during the college and NFL seasons. The network will have more than 150 crew production, operations, and executive staff at each site.

At the Orange Bowl, the crew, led by producer Phil Dean and director Scott Johnson will work out of Game Creek Video 79, as well as GCV Edit 2.

“I think we have a crew that’s comfortable in this venue,” says Jim Birch, Manager, Remote Operations for ESPN who is overseeing operations in Miami. “We know the venue staff well since we’ve worked with them a few times. This is a place that call home when it comes to the playoffs, especially when we’re used to doing a New Year’s Six game here every year. It’s always nice coming down here. We’re always welcomed with open arms with the venue and it’s always nice to get a little bit of warm weather in these [Playoff] games.”

Meanwhile, the Cotton Bowl show, headed up producer Bill Bonnell and director Jimmy Platt, will originate from Game Creek Video Varsity and GCV Edit 1.

“We come to AT&T [Stadium] a lot,” says Terry Cook, Senior Remote Operations Specialist for ESPN, who is heading up ops in Arlington, where the weather has been treacherous with snow in the forecast. “We know the technical people and they roll out the red carpet and work hand-in-hand in how we park the trucks. Thankfully, here we have parking underneath [the stadium]. Being inside is a blessing with the weather.”

While there are ten 12-channel EVS XT-VIAs on-site, ESPN is adding a layer of its REMCO (remote) workflows for replay and graphics for Semifinals and the Championship. Four EVS operators are back in Bristol, as well as a Vizrt operator and an Associate Producer

MegaCast Options Return

With the CFP semis also comes all of the pomp and circumstance of the network’s various MegaCast options, which includes the alternate broadcast Field Pass with The Pat McAfee Show from the sidelines at both games.

Other options are longtime fixtures:

• Command Center on ESPNU (a four quadrant screen with multiple camera angles and statistic displays)
• SkyCast on ESPNEWS (view plays from the SkyCam angle; it is noted that whenever the main telecast shows a replay viewers of the SkyCast will see those same replays)
• All-22 (watching the game from a high vantage point that allows the viewer to see all of the players on the field; this is accompanied by the ESPN Radio call of the game)
• Hometown Radio (which allows viewers to watch the game but with the feed of the team’s dedicated announcers included).

ESPN Takes Pride in First Two Rounds of CFP

With the championship game still to come at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on January 20, this week is far from a culmination of a long season of college football for ESPN’s crew, but the team did express pride in the work done in the first two rounds of the CFP, most notably the First Round which brought playoff football games to college football campuses for the first time in history.

Each of the four production compounds at the CFP First Round sites. (Courtesy: Jarrett Baker, LinkedIn)

To prepare for that unique scenario, ESPN’s operations team reviewed layouts of up to 50 different on-campus stadiums prior to the field being set to get a sense of their ability to expand the productions. Typically, College Football Playoff games are played in NFL stadiums, which, generally speaking, are more technologically advanced and built for television. For example, ESPN looked to add four slash camera positions on each Playoff game, which is a position not typically requested in the college football regular season and is not readily available in most on-campus stadiums.

“It’s been an incredible experience,” says Baker – who works with John LaChance, Executive Director of Field Operations to oversee the entire CFP. “The viewership speaks for itself. The unknowns going in were really more in the First Round. Where were we going to be? How many shows were we going to have there? Where were we going to park the trucks? It’s just incredible to see the amount of resources we put on each of those games. Of course ,there’s the little things that come up here and there but we worked through them together with an incredible rockstar team on each of the sites. Now here we are with three more games to go.”

The College Football Playoffs continue on Thursday with the Semifinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl between No. 7 Notre Dame and No. 6 Penn State. On Friday, the Semifinal at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic between No. 8 Ohio State and No. 5 Texas. The main telecasts of both games air on ESPN beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET.