LIVE PRODUCTION
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S uper Bowl LIX broke records at the start of February when it reached more than 127 million viewers, making it the game’s biggest TV audience of all time. Viewership during the much-anticipated halftime show, this year performed by Kendrick Lamar, was even higher in reaching an astonishing 133.5 million – making that yet another all-time high. Evidently, the sheer scale of this annual production is intensifying year on year, making the live broadcast – in terms of both software and hardware set-ups – an enormous challenge requiring rigorous planning and expertise. With the rights cycles rotated annually among different major US networks, this year it was once again the turn of Fox to step up to the plate. Speaking to Kevin Callahan, the vice president of operations and engineering at Fox Sports, he shares an insider’s perspective on the effort. THE ROAD TO CAESARS SUPERDOME Callahan is no stranger to high-profile sporting events. Bringing over a decade at Fox alone, including key experience working on past Super Bowls and other major tournaments, he recognises the importance of taking stock after each event in order to improve the next. “This was Super Bowl number eight for me,” he begins. “We take our learnings from one event to the next. It’s how we get better and continue to deliver an elevated product.” This year’s production saw more than 150 cameras cover every possible angle of the game – delivering feeds into five different production galleries and 16 mobile production units on-site. “The Super Bowl is so large, with all those cameras and replay sources, that we need another control room just for all additional elements. We had a dedicated control room for our augmented reality execution, one for studio productions and another for our red-carpet show, which streamed as a stand-alone programme for the first time.” The logistics behind setting up a production of this scale are monumental. Fox Sports began its on-site build back on 6 January – that’s more than a month before the game – adding approximately 18,000 sq ft of temporary office and production space. “The first part was creating the infrastructure,” Callahan highlights. “Once we had added the technical and With more than 150 cameras and a mass gathering of cutting- edge technology, the live production of the 2025 Super Bowl saw a seamless delivery Words Verity Butler
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