CBS Sports is planning its biggest audio game ever for Super Bowl LIII with an estimated 180 microphones set to be deployed. The 3 February game at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium will have microphones across three studio sets on the concourse, the field, and the Game Day Fan Plaza. Included will be additional parabolic and other […] More
The trade event that began in 1902 and was held at the YMCA in Baltimore as an expo for pianos has rebranded itself as the world’s largest trade-only event for the music-products, pro-audio, and event-tech industry. In doing so, the Winter NAMM Show (24-27 January, Anaheim, CA, Convention Center) has elbowed its way into product […] More
Sennheiser has developed a prototype device for capturing sports sound effects cleanly and discretely enough to meet the needs of object-based broadcast formats. Referred to generically as the Sports Microphone Array, the system, which is currently nearing a beta stage, consists of a circular array of 31 MKH8070 shotgun microphones. The purpose of the array […] More
The Canadian Football League’s season came to an end late November when the Calgary Stampeders defeated the Ottawa Redblacks 27-16 in the 106th Grey Cup in Edmonton, AB’s Commonwealth Stadium, broadcast nationally in Canada on TSN. However, what Canadian football fans had enjoyed during one game a week all season was missing: miking on each team’s […] More
Turner Sports wired up Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson and their caddies at Las Vegas’s Shadow Creek Golf Course last Friday for the winner-take-all, $9 million PPV event Capital One’s The Match: Tiger vs Phil. “I think that this [show], more than ever, is about access, and bringing the viewer closer to the two contestants, […] More
Video-Assistant Referee (VAR) technology is in place for this season’s Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) Copa do Brasil series. FIFA officially approved the use of VAR for the 2018 World Cup during the FIFA Council meeting in March 2018 in Bogotá, Colombia, and that tournament became the first competition to use VAR in full, at all matches and in […] More
The sound of National Football League broadcasts has become the sonic gold standard for broadcast sports. The league, which operates one of the world’s leading media outfits, NFL Films, was one of the first to sanction on-player microphone placement, and NFL gridirons are surrounded by more listening devices than the American embassy in Moscow. Not […] More
Baseball has used novel effects-microphone placements in the past two years for special games. That use — with mics installed at the perimeter of the infield, on bases, and on players and managers — has turned a corner this season. ESPN is now deploying that type of effects audio as part of the broadcast sound […] More
A typical NASCAR racer brings about 400 horsepower to the track. A typical NHRA top-fuel dragster comes in at about 11,000 horsepower. The differential in their sonic impact is just about as vast. “When you stand next to one of them at the start line at a track, the sound just goes through you,” says […] More
Last week’s NAB 2018 marked a milestone in the broadcast business’s technology narrative. IP signal transport has emerged as the major new pathway for audio and audio control. It was everywhere you looked: from intercoms, such as Clear-Com’s high-density audio- and intercom-over-IP connection card for the Eclipse HX digital and Telos Infinity IP Intercom, which […] More
