NFL Kickoff 2025: Fox Sports Upgrades ‘A’ Game Production with Ovation, Game Creek Video’s Latest Mobile Unit

Ovation offers ST-2110 Infrastructure, Full HDR Monitoring, and Riedel Comms

Fox Sports is set to kick off a new season of NFL coverage this weekend and it also has a new production home for its A games as Game Creek Video’s Ovation will make its debut this weekend in Washington, DC when the Washington Commanders take on the New York Giants.

“Ovation is the big news for us this year,” says Kevin Callahan, Fox Sports, VP Field Operations and Engineering. “It’s our new flagship truck for the A show and will also be used for NASCAR. It has all ST-2110 workflows. it’s a testament to Game Creek to how well they built our previous unit, Encore, that when you walk through Ovation B it feels very similar.”

Game Creek Video’s Ovation truck will handle Fox Sports A NFL games and features HDR monitoring throughout.

Feeling the same is different than being the same and Ovation definitely has some new bells and whistles, most notably a Riedel intercom system that Callahan says allows for tighter integration with the Fox Sports facility in Pico which also uses Riedel.

The Fox Sports ‘A’ game crew in Ovation’s B unit getting ready for Sunday’s clash between the Washington Commanders and New York Giants.

“We also have full HDR monitoring everywhere via a Lawo router and their HOME [IP management system],” says Callahan. “The HDR monitoring makes a big difference because we are producing all of our A and B games in HDR again this year although mostly for archival purposes as only the Thanksgiving and playoff games will be delivered to viewers in HDR. But we believe that starting off in HDR does provide better SDR content to everyone at home.”

In terms of game coverage, the big addition this year is the expanded use of shall depth of field lenses and cameras, most notably the addition of two Canon UHD-DIGIGSUPER 122×8 box lenses paired with Sony HDC-5500V cameras.

“All of our shows have two of those and it will give our directors a cinematic look primarily from the low-endzone positions where you can take advantage of the depth of field,” says Callahan.

Game Creek Video’s Ovation truck audio area will benefit from a move to Dante by Fox Sports.

Also expect an enhanced audio package across the board as Fox Sports standardizes on an effects microphone package that Callahan says will give all games the same tools so that they can all have a similar energy when it comes the audio mix.

“We’ve gone to a Dante environment which allows for access to more sources which means better crowd effects,” adds Callahan.

While Ovation will handle A games for Fox Sports expect other Game Creek trucks to handle the B game as well as game 6 each week. Mobile TV Group will handle the C show (“They’ve done some nice upgrades for us in their audio area with upgrades to the audio console and audio routing,” says Callahan). Fox’s game 4 and 5 will both be handled by NEP units.

“One thing you have to remember is that for some viewers of games 4, 5, and 6 those are the only representation of the NFL on Fox that they will have that weekend,” adds Callahan. “We want to make sure that all the games feel as big as the A game as much as possible.”

FOX NFL SUNDAY will be on the road in Kansas City next weekend for a Super Bowl rematch between the Chiefs and Eagles.

And speaking of big games the week two slate of games has a matchup in Kansas City between the Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles that promises to be an intense rematch of last year’s Super Bowl when the Eagles soundly defeated the Chiefs in New Orleans. Look for Fox Sports to kick off its pre-game coverage at 11 am ET as well as halftime from Arrowhead Stadium and “The OT” following the end of the game.

“We’re bringing our studio show out there and we’ll have three sets in Kansas City starting out in the Power and Light District with around 3,000 fans and then to the tailgate area and then lastly into the stadium,” says Callahan. “It’s going to be a huge game for us and we’re also adding in some more specialty cameras like a high Skycam capturing 4K images at 360 frames per second as well as rear pylon cameras. It’s going to be like an NFC Championship game type of level.”

Game Creek Video’s Ovation inside Northwest Stadium, home of the Washington Commanders.

Callahan also says Fox is working more closely with power suppliers Greco and Sunbelt to ensure that the engineering teams always have a solid understanding of how the power supplies are holding up when supplying power to production trucks and compounds that, increasingly, are requiring more and more power.

“As the units move to IP, they’ve needed more power and then they also require more time to reboot in the unlikely event of a power issue,” he adds. “So the risk of a [longer] outage is greater. Ovation, for example, actually has two different power resources to have an additional layer of redundancy.”