NBA Tip-Off: Amazon Prime Video Debuts Cutting-Edge Studio, Mobile Units, Globally Distributed Production Ecosystem

The streamer will rely on new Culver City studio and GCV Bird and Magic mobile units

Amazon Prime Video has been no stranger to live sports production over the past decade, but tonight marks the dawn of a new era for the streamer when it comes to in-house production capabilities. With the first game of a new 11-year NBA rights deal, Prime Video will christen its own state-of-the-art production studio in Los Angeles, two brand-new mobile units on the East Coast and West Coast, and an intricate globally distributed production ecosystem to serve NBA fans throughout the world.

The NBA on Prime studio features an LED regulation half court and basketball hoop surrounded by ultra-high-resolution LED walls totaling 550 sq. ft. (2,300 LED tiles total).

“The most important thing we can do is provide a high-quality show with the best resources possible to have an entertaining and insightful presentation for fans,” says Jared Stacy, VP/head of worldwide live sports production, Prime Video. “This NBA package — with the volume of games, the number of nights, and the doubleheader nature — gave us an opportunity to build a studio here in L.A. [and new mobile units]. It has been an amazing process. The work the team has done in a short amount of time is amazing.”

Tonight’s festivities kick off with the live NBA on Prime pregame show from the sparkling new facility at Amazon MGM Studios, which also hosts the halftime and postgame shows. The action officially tips off a 7:30 p.m. ET with Game Creek Video’s new Bird mobile unit at Madison Square Garden when the Boston Celtics visit the New York Knicks; GCV’s new Magic mobile unit will handle the Minnesota Timberwolves at the Los Angeles Lakers at 10 p.m. Two production-control rooms (PCRs) in London will also be lit up to help Prime bring its NBA coverage to more than 220 countries in 12 languages.

“Most important, all our remote game productions, studio productions, and international broadcasts work cohesively,” says John Ward, head of global tech ops, Prime Video. “We share content and resources between the mobile units, the studio [in L.A.], and the PCRs [in London]. This is by far the biggest build I’ve ever been a part of, and I’ve been honored to be a part of a bunch of builds in my career. I could not be prouder of this team.”

Cutting-Edge Studio: Prime Gives NBA on Prime a Hollywood Feel

Located at Stage 11 on the Amazon MGM Studios lot in Culver City, CA, the 13,000-sq.-ft., two-story NBA on Prime studio features an LED regulation half court and basketball hoop surrounded by ultra-high-resolution LED walls totaling 550 sq. ft. (2,300 LED tiles total) to create an immersive experience for viewers.

Located at Stage 11 on the Amazon MGM Studios lot in Culver City, CA, the two-story NBA on Prime studio is a whopping 13,000 sq. ft.

“Very rarely do you get a true greenfield opportunity like this and also have this much stage space to work with,” says Ward. “Typically, you have to fit everything into a little box; we’re grateful to not be working with those constraints. That allowed us to bring in this stunning LED volume with unbelievable resolution to the point where it looks like you’re in real life when you’re standing on the set.”

The 1080p HDR studio’s 64- x 42-ft. LED regulation half court/hoop is the largest high-resolution studio floor in America and serves as the centerpiece of the sprawling set. The entire LED environment can instantly transform to show different NBA arenas, city skylines, or data visualizations. In all, the facility features a whopping 72,688 x 41,708 pixels (more than 3 billion in total).

“The LED demo floor in our studio in L.A. is going to allow [our analysts] to get out there, diagram plays and show how things happen, and break down hot zones of players,” says Stacy. “Technology is going to allow us to help tell those stories.”

The main anchor desk will be used for the pregame show and shot from the second-level mezzanine of the multilevel set.

Ward notes that Stacy and the leadership team knew they wanted a studio facility of their own on the Amazon MGM Studios lot almost immediately after the rights deal was finalized. “Once we had that [directive], director David Faller set the vision for what it was going to look and feel like.”

Jack Morton Worldwide was enlisted to bring this vision to life with SVP/Executive Design Director Andre Durette leading the design. In addition, Prime Video brought in Airtime Lighting Group for lighting, Killswitch for rigging, Mystic Custom Fabrication for building, and NEP Integration as the systems integrator.

“First and foremost, David wanted it to be comfortable and inviting,” says Ward. “The whole vibe of the studio is that it’s a good hang. At the same time, we wanted to showcase the latest technology, and that was a big driver for a lot of the decisions we made for the studio.”

The lounge area on the ground floor will be used primarily for the NBA Nightcap postgame show, which aims to create a more casual, inviting atmosphere.

Each level of the studio serves a specific purpose for NBA on Prime studio programming. The main anchor desk will be used for the pregame show and shot from the second-level mezzanine of the multilevel set, ensuring depth and constant view of the court. The lounge area on the ground floor will be used primarily for the NBA Nightcap postgame show, which aims to create a more casual, inviting atmosphere.

The studio’s 22-camera complement includes 10 Sony F5500 cinema-style cameras with Canon cinema lenses, two ceiling-mounted Agito Motion Impossible track camera systems, a wireless Steadicam, and two TechnoCranes.

“It had to be functional, and it had to be comfortable,” Ward explains. “Most important, it had to be flexible because we’re not going to do NBA from here. We expect to do other shows from here at some point. The flexibility of the LED wall and some of the other latest cutting-edge technology gave us the ability to scale with other properties when the time comes. Now we have this great platform to grow and evolve.”

Jack Morton Worldwide was enlisted to bring the NBA Nightcap vision to life.

In addition to Faller and Durette, the creative vision for the studio was spearheaded by Prime Video Executive Producer Mike Muriano, Senior Coordinating Producer Spoon Daftary, and Studio Producers Brandon Lowe and Mike Kaplan.

“We did it all — with the lens of an NBA fan,” says Stacy. “What would an NBA fan want a set or a studio to look like? What kind of tools would they like to have on that set? That’s the lens we had as we built it out.”

Encore’s Encore: GCV Mobile Unit Gets Second Life as Mini Broadcast Center

Instead of building a full production-control room, Prime Video worked with Game Creek Video to transform its powerful Encore mobile unit into a mini broadcast center on wheels. Encore serves not only as the PCR for the NBA on Prime studio but is also home to all ingest, storage, and encode/decode needs.

Although Prime Video Head of Global Technology and Engineering Mike Francis and Head of Systems Design and Integration Michael Drazin explored a variety of solutions — including deploying a flypack or a building a temporary PCR — they decided to park a mobile unit at the studio when Encore became available after working its final Super Bowl for FOX Sports in February (FOX has replaced it this fall with GCV Ovation).

Game Creek Video’s Encore mobile units, seen here most recently at the 2025 MLB All-Star Game in Atlanta, serves as the PCR for the NBA Nightcap studio, as well as a mini broadcast center for Prime’s globe-spanning operation.

Encore will serve as the brains behind the studio throughout this season while Prime Video plans and designs future production facilities to power all its live sports productions (not just the NBA).

“This gives us a chance to measure twice and cut once as technology evolves,” Ward explains. “We’re going to do a full season of these shows, and we’re going to learn as much as possible. Who knows where we’ll be by the time we opt to build our permanent production facilities here. There’s no doubt we are going to learn a lot as we move through this season and will be much more informed by the end of it.”

Encore was already a high-end mobile unit that had produced major events, including multiple Super Bowls for FOX Sports. However, the Prime Video and Game Creek engineering teams revamped it to serve the unique needs of the NBA on Prime studio.

“[Encore] is definitely doing a lot of things that it had never done before this,” says Ward. “This level of signal flow — about 200 inbound and outbound feeds — is on another level. Everything that the Game Creek team is helping us execute here is what would typically be done in a traditional broadcast center. We have turned Encore into our mini broadcast center while we design for the future.”

Bird and Magic: A Powerhouse Mobile Unit for Each Coast

Besides the short timeline to launch the studio, Prime Video’s engineering team had a limited runway to roll out new mobile units for the new NBA on Prime package. Since the majority of its game nights feature East Coast/West Coast doubleheaders, Prime opted to roll largely identical mobile units on each coast. Game Creek Video, which built the streamer’s Prime One and Two mobile units for Thursday Night Football, was once again enlisted to build and design the facilities.

Game Creek Video’s Bird mobile unit will be located on the East Coast throughout this NBA season.

“NBA, unlike TNF, is pretty run-and-gun,” says Ward. “We don’t always have set days and almost never have multiple set days, so we have to be able to stand up a large show in a single day. The way Game Creek designs their trucks and their routing infrastructure allows us that flexibility to come in and get on the air that evening with a very sizable show.”

Both Bird (East) and Magic (West) comprise A and B expando units and are equipped with native 1080p HDR production capabilities. Lawo HOME ST 2110 IP routing solutions, along with the underlying Arista IP switch, provide the necessary scale and flexibility.

“The trucks are very similar to some of the other latest and greatest top-of-the-line [mobile units], but they have to fit in an NBA box,” says Ward. “We can’t bring A, B, C, D, E units into most NBA arenas, especially when we’re parking them the morning of the game, but, even in just an A and B footprint, [Bird and Magic] pack a huge punch technology-wise.”

Meanwhile Game Creek Video’s Magic mobile unit will handle West Coast games for NBA Nightcap.

Like other recent Game Creek units, Bird and Magic feature a variety of flex-space workstations that can be used for a variety of positions, including graphics and replay. Several operators — AR graphics, specialty telestration, editors — are located in Culver City.

“We had to be efficient with seating since we can’t be spread out across four and five trucks,” notes Ward. “We had to think about who’s mission-critical on each and every game. On TNF, we have 18 games, but, on NBA, we have 67 regular-season games plus playoffs and a full-blown studio operation. We had to figure out, from a staffing standpoint, who is best served being in the truck or back home in the studio.”

Like other recent Game Creek units, Bird and Magic (seen here) feature a variety of flex-space workstations that can be used for a variety of positions, including graphics and replay.

Both trucks are equipped with Sony HDCU-5500 cameras and Canon DIGISUPER 122X lenses. Eight of these systems are licensed for super-slo-mo, and AI-powered EVS Xtramotion servers create super-slow-motion and cinematic effects on the remaining standard broadcast cameras.

To start the season, Prime Video plans use one HDC-5500 at a slash position with Sony’s pre-installed variable ND filter activated to capture cinematic pictures with shallow depth of field. Prime Video will also deploy a roving RF gimbal system featuring a Canon EOS-C80 full-frame camera to capture cinema-style shallow–depth-of-field shots on the floor.

The two shows on the road are heavily integrated with the studio show in L.A., as well as with Prime Video’s international facilities. This is made possible through a fully redundant ST 2110 infrastructure featuring more than 70 Cisco switches with 400-Gb links, along with a next-gen intercom system from Riedel Communications (installed both in L.A. and in the trucks). In terms of storage, Prime is relying on a 7-PB NVME system from TrueNas to house all the feeds transmitted to Culver City.

Bird and Magic, both featuring Calrec audio consoles, are designed to be extensions of the NBA Nightcap studio facility.

“[Bird and Magic] are designed to be extensions of our studio,” says Ward. “We focus on ensuring that our remotes and our studio work together as one cohesive production. All the resources must work together no matter where they are — studio or remote.

Further complicating things, Prime Video had to build the entire ecosystem to be able to handle two games running concurrently in case the East Coast game runs late and the West Coast game has already tipped. As a result, Prime Video is running two independent master-control operations — one for each coast — and has two separate control rooms in London to handle the respective games for international distribution.

International Broadcasts: Production Ecosystem for a Global Distribution

NBA on Prime will be available in the U.S. and internationally in more than 220 countries and territories worldwide and will be broadcast in 12 languages. In addition, expanded packages are available in Mexico, Brazil, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the UK, and Ireland.

“The NBA is a great opportunity for us to continue to grow our global portfolio, and I can’t think of a better partner to do it with,” says Stacy. “It’s an exciting time.”

Serving Prime Video’s ambitious global-distribution plan, a pair of production-control rooms in London customize the various feeds.

“In some ways,” says Ward, “the international distribution of what we’re doing dwarfs what we’re doing here in the U.S., which is extremely important in itself. For every decision we made, whether it was on the studio or remote side, we had to think about all the downstream implications and how it would impact the global side of things.”

The production teams in London will create tailored content for international audiences during breaks, providing 12 additional language options and three versions of graphics (English without sponsorship, Mexican Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese). A single graphics operator is tasked with creating all three versions coming out of the downstream graphics engine.

“Our focus was always on the customer experience for our international audience,” says Ward. “We designed a workflow that didn’t overcomplicate [the production workflows] onsite and in the studio, but we still elevated the experience for the customer. As business needs evolve and more is asked of us internationally, we have designed this system so that we can continue to add to that as necessary.”

Putting the Fan First: Streaming Innovations and Features

On the fan-facing side, Prime Video and AWS technology combine to create a proprietary, end-to-end livestreaming solution that delivers ultra-low latency, eliminates drift, and ensures synchronization. Prime Video is able to manage the quality from the arena to the screen and, as a result, can provide delivery speeds that match and often surpass what fans receive from cable and broadcast networks.

Among the features for NBA Nightcap streaming experience will be a fully customizable multiview option.

Prime Video also continues to blaze the trail when it comes to livestreaming innovations and interactive features. Among the features for NBA on Prime are a fully customizable multiview option, personalized bet tracking and OddsView with FanDuel, Key Moments featuring AI-driven highlights, curated Rapid Recaps of games, a Shop the Game shopping experience, and a wealth of in-game advanced stats powered by AWS. (CLICK HERE for a deeper look at the multitude of interactive features available this year for NBA on Prime viewers.)

“For us,” says Stacy, “technology is a way to advance the storytelling of our broadcasts. We don’t try to put stuff on the screen just to show that we can do it. We [use it to] help inform and better educate and provide deeper insights to fans at home. I think you’ve seen us do that on Thursday Night Football, on NASCAR, and on our Champions League coverage. It’s the same lens that we’re going to apply on NBA. There are many different elements, especially as we focus on the teaching part of the game, and there’s an opportunity to go deeper into how these teams play.”

Looking Back and Looking Ahead: The Long Road to Opening Night

Tonight’s tip-off is the culmination of months of long hours and fastidious work behind the scenes by dozens of staffers at Prime Video and its various partners. In addition to Ward, Francis and Drazin, key team members include Ken Miller, John Hefner, Chris Ruiz, Anthony Violanto, Ryan Gordon, Eric Falkner, Scott Swim, Pat Lee, Grant Werle, Subhan Uddin, Emir Onat, Megan Kappus, AJ Wainwright, Steve Leotta, Bjorn Estlund, Phil Peggs, Richard Hart, Brad Boim, Eric Peters, Brian Bernstein, Leah Merry, Angela Koo, Le An Soto, Tenley Kokich, Patrick Karayan, Kendrick Crittendon, Sarah Meneely, Brett Fifield, Mel Ribeiro, Matt Jackson (project manager, Jack Morton Worldwide), Doss Freel (senior project manager, Jack Morton Worldwide), Ben Jacobson (senior project manager, Mystic Custom Fabrication), Brooke Edwards (Cushman and Wakefield), and Amina Hussein (head of U.S. on-air talent and development, Prime Video). The Creative Services team is composed of Mark Mata, Clay Lipsky, Jeff Porper, Jeff Wilkov, Danielle Goodman, Diana Guardado, Dillon King, Jayme Hui, Abby Ra, and Christian Thompson. On the international side, Andrew Hornett, Adeline Lee, Sam Trusty, Alistair Wood, Jamie Munro, George Waterhouse, Laurence Dalby, Laura Mullan, Jack Briggs Toner, Fabien Dedeban, Luke Spain, Jonny Rudd, Carolina Bodmer, and Mischa Knobloch all played significant roles.

Ward, Francis, and Drazin credit key technology and design partners Drive | Studio, Game Creek Video, Girraphic, HLW, Imagine Communications, Jack Morton Design Group, NEP Integrated Solutions, NEP Sweetwater, Reality Check Solutions, and Riedel Communications with getting the effort to this point. Ward also notes the support from the leadership team as an integral driver in their success.

“The support we’ve had from day one with this from [Amazon Video and Studios SVP] Mike Hopkins, [VP, Head of Worldwide Sports and Ads] Jay Marine, and Jared [Stacy] has been amazing,” says Ward. “They have all been with us in lockstep on what the vision of the studio should be, how to execute it, and how we should go about integrating all of this within the whole Amazon ecosystem. I couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve accomplished, and I think that we will make a pretty significant statement this week with our coverage.”

The NBA on Prime officially tips off tonight when Jaylen Brown and the Boston Celtics face off against Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. Then, Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves battle Luka Dončić and the Los Angeles Lakers from Crypto.com Arena. Coverage starts at 7:00 p.m. ET with NBA on Prime Live from Culver City.