NBC Sports has enhanced its audio production over recent years with Dante. The network has consistently embraced cutting-edge technology to enhance its productions, and one of the most transformative technologies in its workflow has been Dante, an AV-over-IP platform designed for cross-brand compatibility, reliability, and efficiency.
Introduced to NBC Sports in 2016, Dante has become the backbone of the broadcaster’s audio and communication systems, changing how the network handles large scale, complex productions. Dante empowers the network to push the boundaries of live broadcasting, from intercom systems to audio mixing, playing a crucial role in delivering seamless audio experiences for NBC Sports.
In 2016, the NBC Sports communications team made a decision to deploy a completely new technology for their intercom backbone. The Omneo technology, developed by RTS Intercom Systems, combined Dante for audio networking and AES70 for control data. At the time, Omnea was bleeding edge and using it at high profile events was a considerable risk, but it paid huge dividends.
Afterwards, the communications team at NBC Sports, led by John Pastore, senior director of broadcast communications, began integrating more Dante into its workflows, not just in their intercom systems but the audio systems as well.
“In terms of bringing on new technology at NBC Sports, there is a very slow and cautious approach, which is typically how we like to do things,” said Pastore.
Fast forward to today and NBC Sports has rolled out 10 Dante-enabled audio systems engineered for reliability, flexibility, and ease of deployment. The setup for these types of events have included over 350 Dante-enabled devices, such as announcer consoles, analogue-to-Dante converters, and high density audio console I/O units. Together, Dante’s networked audio and built-in redundancy deliver robust and reliable performance, empowering NBC Sports’ teams to operate with confidence.
The system has also at times featured 11 RTS Intercom systems that incorporated 140 Omneo keypanels, all tightly integrated with Dante to enable audio sharing between consoles, intercom systems, and engineering endpoints.
In Stamford, Connecticut, the NBC Sports broadcast operations centre produces coverage of events all year round. The Stamford facility has – at certain times – featured 100 Dante-enabled announcer consoles, and 18 high density audio console I/O units, all integrated into the audio network. Altogether, 14 production control room intercom systems have used Dante as primary RTS trunking, enabling a dynamic and responsive production environment.
In total, the global system has supported over 14,000 trunked intercom and audio resources enabled by Dante’s channel density and the management capabilities of Dante Domain Manager. Final programme mixes have been produced using Calrec Apollo, Artemis, and Brio consoles, each outfitted with Dante connectivity to ensure smooth integration with the overall network.
NBC Sports’ broadcast operations centre now operates a vast Dante network of roughly 500 devices, but that figure only scratches the surface; the network includes numerous high-channel-count consoles and converters, totaling 10,000 Dante sources and 12,000 Dante destinations. The footprint continues to grow rapidly as new control rooms come online, and legacy point-to-point audio interfaces are replaced with Dante.
“That number will go up substantially,” said Pastore.
This expansion is largely driven by the organisation’s move to a field acquisition unit (FAU) production model, with Dante playing a critical role in enabling this shift. The Stamford facility now includes 12 production control rooms, 15 audio control rooms, and two submix rooms—with additional buildouts happening on a regular basis.
Under the FAU approach, mobile units deployed to events handle only signal acquisition, while core production tasks – like video switching, audio mixing, graphics and replay – are centralised at the operations centre.
“The success of our FAU model is reliant on the ease and repeatability we get from using the Dante infrastructure,” said Mike DiCrescenzo, NBC Sports’ senior A1 and audio design engineer.
The transition from analogue to Dante is especially evident in the communications machine room, where legacy analogue intercom systems now operate side by side with their Dante-based counterparts. The contrast is striking with traditional racks filled with analogue patchbays and multipin analogue patch panels being steadily replaced by modern setups featuring RTS Intercom ODIN frames and Cisco network switches.
Managing a Dante network of this scale requires advanced management and monitoring tools. To handle network segmentation, clocking, and the management of multiple subnets, NBC Sports deployed Dante Domain Manager.
Given the complexity of the network and the number of operators involved in daily operations, the team needed to simplify some of the more intricate tasks. To achieve this, they deployed EVS’s Cerebrum broadcast control system, which makes API calls to Dante Domain Manager via Dante’s Managed API. This allows for real time route changes without operators needing to interact with Dante Controller.
To further optimise operations, control rooms across the facility are equipped with Densitron touch panels. These panels provide operators with intuitive XY routing capabilities, but with restricted access to only the sources and destinations they need. This approach limits the scope of control, reducing the risk of accidental changes.
Dante has empowered the NBC Sports team to continually evolve, tackle new challenges, and deliver exceptional sports productions.
