CBS Sports engineers routing miles of cable throughout GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium
“We have to be perfect every time.”
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - CBS Sports Vice President of Remote Engineering Craig Stevens said the AFC Championship game is the highest technical broadcast of the season so far.
Millions of people across the country will have their eyes here on GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium to watch the Kansas City Chiefs Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and Chris Jones, and Buffalo Bills’ NFL MVP Candidate Josh Allen and the many other stars battle it out for a chance to compete in the Super Bowl.
The work being done to get it on the CBS airwaves started on Tuesday with the trucks being parked and powered up. More crew arrived for work on Wednesday, and now hundreds of crew workers are going in and out of trucks to test their connectivity.
There are 120 different replay channels throughout the space tracking the 80 cameras around the stadium. There are 4K cameras placed on goal lines, sidelines, inside the pylons, in the sky, and inside the goalposts. They are calling those, the “doink” cameras.
“Our four cameras in the goal post, two on each end, looking out and hoping for that ball to hit there and we can see that in super slow motion,” said Stevens.
It’s critical to have all of their bases covered to ensure a moment isn’t missed because the sport relies on it.
“We have to be perfect every time,” he said. “Even when we’ve done it before, there’s always something that’s slightly different and one wrinkle can cause a lot of changes.”
Another element to this week’s stressful workload is routing CBS Announcer Jim Nantz announcing the Farmers Insurance Open this weekend. It’s not a new thing this year, as Nantz has announced the golf tournament this weekend the last few years, but it’s just another thing they have to focus on getting 100% correct for those viewers.
According to Stevens, slow motion cameras improved greatly about a decade ago so now their ability to maneuver them to enhance the viewer experience takes it to new heights for viewers across the country.
“It’s really allowing us to zoom in on blades of grass so you can tell – was that foot in or out? Was the tip of that ball hitting the grass? That’s a huge moment obviously in this industry because it’s all about – did they catch that ball and where were they?”
Each stadium layout across the NFL is different and they’ve had to adjust their operations to make it work but the crews have been in Kansas City for six out of the last seven AFC Championship games so that has helped their process.
“Anywhere from operations to logistics to hotels and then us for equipment, we know how to get there, we know our workspace, we know what we’re dealing with so we can look at our template from the year before.”
Since they’ve been in Kansas City a few times now, they also know their favorite spots to check out in their free time.
“I think my favorite spot is LC’s, it’s a little place down the street. As long as they got the doors open and it’s not filled with smoke it’s a great place to eat.”
Once the game is over, it’s still hours and hours to get all of the wires disconnected and cameras placed safely where they need to be. Right now it’s a grind for them but it’ll be worth it.
“They’ve been together for 19-20 weeks now, since early September. So it’s a moment they can all pat themselves on the back and know that they did another great job.”
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