Tech Focus: Sports & Entertainment Production - In Convergence, Two Massive Worlds Share Venues and Infrastructure Music is the connective tissue between the two domains By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Tuesday, July 9, 2024 - 10:07 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The Super Bowl was once the singular benchmark for the intersection of sports and entertainment, both live and on television. But lately, it has had a lot more to compare itself to.
For instance, this year's NFL Draft included performances by rappers Big Sean and Bazzi, countering last year's event featuring rockers Fall Out Boy and M tley Cr e. The 2023 NHL Draft in Nashville offered a quintet of country performers, including Brothers Osborne and Jo Dee Messina; this year, five-time Grammy Award-winner Shania Twain performed during the Stanley Cup Final series. In September, at Nashville's Big Machine Music City Grand Prix, rock band Daughtry and country artist Riley Green will compete with the roar of the F1 engines.
The phenomenon is global. At the 2023 UEFA Champions League Final Kickoff Show, for instance, Nigerian Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter/producer Burna Boy was co-headliner at the Atat rk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul; the previous year's show at the Stade de France was topped by Camila Cabello. Meanwhile, the Olympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies have come to rival events like the Eurovision Song Contest and the Grammy Awards themselves.
PepsiCo VP, Global Brand Marketing, Eric Melis, who oversees the brand relationship between UEFA and Pepsi (the Super Bowl's halftime sponsor for a decade until Apple took over in 2023), told the UK-based Sport Industry Group last year, It's no secret that the lines between sport and popular culture are rapidly blurring. At an ever-increasing rate, we're seeing the often-segmented worlds of music, fashion, art, and sport collide, [which] presents us with an opportunity to truly double down on our work in the sport and music crossover.
Melding Sports and Music Audio specialist Michael Abbott: Stadiums and arenas are now built as television studios to produce both sports and music.
On a more visceral level, live and broadcast sports increasingly share infrastructure and workflows with touring and live-streamed music. Michael Abbott, whose career includes supervising the audio for Grammy Awards telecasts on CBS for 39 years and for The Voice for 12 seasons (plus managing the sound for the Commission on Presidential Debates in 2004, 2008, and 2012), opines that both sports and entertainment have entered an era in which spectacle drives production, making their convergence both natural and necessary.
Nothing can feel like just a game or a concert anymore, he says. Everything has to be an event. Stadiums and arenas are now built as television studios to produce both sports and music. The content goes up on huge video walls and through massive sound systems well before the game starts and well after it ends.
The same production technology, such as replay systems, is often used for both sports and entertainment events. Abbott has even applied some of sports' audio tricks to awards shows: he has deployed the three-microphone speed-shot array used in motorsports to capture a sort of Doppler effect of the crowd noise as the cameras surround-pan award-show nominees just before the winners are announced.
He encounters challenges as athletes find themselves on the stage almost as often as on the field. Rehearsing the sound he would supervise for the NHL Draft event at The Sphere in Las Vegas in late June, he realized that athletes don't expect the disorienting effect of the massive venue's 1,200-ms delay.
They don't want to wear ears' because they're not used to them in the arena, Abbott says, referring to the wireless in-ear monitors that have replaced monitor speakers in many applications. They don't understand the effect of the latency on the media plane in the room. It's a battle sometimes.
The athletes are adjusting rapidly, however. In the ballpark, MLB outfielders are learning to wear in-ear IFBs and lavaliere microphones during play, chatting in real time with announcers in the booth.
Venue Sound Stadiums and arenas are being designed as both entertainment and sports venues. Considered the first stadium show of the rock era, the Beatles' 1965 U.S. tour included stops at the NY Mets' Shea Stadium and the Chicago White Sox's Comiskey Park. In the 1970s, stadiums and arenas began to regularly share their turf with music concerts as the crowds got bigger, the sound got louder, and the pyro became more explosive.
The stakes have changed considerably since then. Los Angeles-based Oak View Group, an entertainment- and sports-facilities company backed by private-equity giant Silver Lake - which was cofounded by Irving Azoff, uber-manager for such artists as the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and Van Halen - owns and operates numerous sports/entertainment venues, including Baltimore's CFG Bank Arena and Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena, home to the NHL's Kraken and the WNBA's Seattle Storm. (It also owns two of the venue and touring industry's leading trade publications, Venues Now and Pollstar.)
These days, new and renovated sports venues have to be multipurpose facilities, particularly as funding models have shifted from state and local financing and rely more on revenues derived from concerts and other non-sports events. Their PA systems have to follow suit: they need to offer high metrics on STI (Speech Transmission Index) or STIPA (Speech Transmission Index of Public Address Systems) scales for speech intelligibility, offer full-range-frequency reproduction for music, and interface installed sound systems with touring systems - another way sports and entertain
Most recent headlines
17/02/2025
TVBEurope talks to the team who brought a piece of broadcasting history back to life on BBC Wales last night
By Jenny Priestley
Published: February 14, 2025 ...
17/02/2025
Eligible studios will receive the relief directly from their local authorities, with no need to submit a claim
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: February 17, 20...
17/02/2025
As DEI initiatives come under pressure in the USA, supporters of Rise, which promotes diversity in the media and entertainment sector, discuss the continuing im...
17/02/2025
EIB Global loan will partially fund SES's continued O3b mPOWER medium earth orbit (MEO) fleet expansion enabling additional capacity worldwide. O3b mPOWER s...
15/02/2025
At Nielsen, Business Resource Groups (BRGs) play a critical role in nurturing a ...
15/02/2025
Innovation to empower creativity: Explore the latest in Lightroom
Rob Christensen February 15, 2025
0 Comments
Whether you want to remove distracting ...
15/02/2025
Wisycom, a worldwide leader in RF technology and provider of wireless solutions, announces a new distribution agreement with EQUAPHON. An Argentinian profession...
15/02/2025
DPA Microphones, the leading manufacturer of high-quality microphone solutions, is pleased to welcome Nicholas Nick Mariano and Vincent Vince Divine to the ...
15/02/2025
Tuxera, a leading provider of quality-assured file systems and networking solutions, will showcase how Tuxera Fusion SMB enables unprecedented performance for m...
15/02/2025
Bitmovin's latest Video Developer Report indicates an increasing role of AI, the slow adoption of next-generation codecs, and continuing challenges when it ...
15/02/2025
When Michelin Enterprises set out to promote its prestigious Hotel Guide in the new Sleepless in the Kitchen , campaign, veteran German/Slovenian gaffer Robert...
15/02/2025
Formula E, the world's first all-electric racing series, revolutionizing motorsport with cutting-edge technology and a commitment to sustainability has sele...
15/02/2025
Agile Content, a global leader in TV and video technology solutions, announces its rebranding to AgileTV.
The transition to AgileTV stems from a commitment to ...
15/02/2025
Hiltron Communications will promote the latest additions to its range of satellite communication products, systems and supporting services at GovSatCom 2025. Th...
15/02/2025
Following the success of the original Airglow Booklight, DoPchoice debuts a new addition to their inflatable line the Float. This lightweight, inflatable, round...
15/02/2025
LAS VEGAS Marshall Electronics has announced that it will debut its newest camera controller, the RCP Plus, at the 2025 NAB Show at Booth N2649 between April 5 ...
15/02/2025
ATLANTA Gray Media has named Blake Sebo as the next general manager of KTUU and KYES, Gray's NBC and CBS affiliates in Anchorage, Alaska....
15/02/2025
KOKKEDAL, Denmark DPA Microphones will feature its new CORE+ technology for distortion-free microphone sound at the 2025 NAB Show, April 5-9, in Las Vegas....
15/02/2025
SWANSEA, U.K. QuickLink will launch StudioPro-NDI and StudioPro-3, two new models of its QuickLine StudioPro video production platform, at the 2025 NAB Show, Ap...
15/02/2025
Live From 2025 NBA All-Star Game Weekend: After 25 Years, Turner Sports All-In F...
15/02/2025
NASCAR Driver Cam on Max Embraces Cloud-Based Workflow for 2025 Season Chris Brown of WBD Sports says Mobii will play key part in delivering signals from the tr...
14/02/2025
Last month, we officially launched the Spotify Partner Program, a powerful new m...
14/02/2025
From an island off the coast of Lutruwita to the global stage in France SBS & ...
14/02/2025
The future of electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) land systems is evolving so that ...
14/02/2025
Here are 5 reasons why you should attend ISE 2025
Discover more about Calrec: Learn more about Calrec's legacy of innovation in broadcast audio solutions ...
14/02/2025
World Radio Day: On the same wavelength
By Graham Murray, International Sales Manager at Calrec
To mark World Radio Day, Calrec's International Sales Ma...
14/02/2025
DALLAS and TYSONS, Va. Tegna has concluded a broadcast rights agreement that makes Tegna's KFAA in Dallas the exclusive local television partner of the Dall...
14/02/2025
Amazon's Prime Video has released a new app for Apple TV that the streamer said delivers an improved streaming experiences with faster scrolling, improved s...
14/02/2025
CLEVELAND Telos Alliance announced a software update for its Axia Quasar XR and SR line of audio-over-IP (AoIP) mixing consoles and will show the offering at th...
14/02/2025
Puget Systems Returns to HPA Tech Retreat 2025 with New Analysis Tools for Puge...
14/02/2025
Glass Animals: Tour of Earth Uses Blackmagic Live Production Workflow
Brie Clayton February 14, 2025
0 Comments
80six deploys Blackmagic URSA Broadcas...
14/02/2025
A dispute between Paramount and Youtube TV that would have pulled CBS stations and Paramount's cable channels from the streaming service has been temporaril...
14/02/2025
Colourist Deidre (Dee) McClelland details how she helped shape the distinct look and feel of whimsical Oscar-nominated stop-motion film, Memoir of a Snail
By C...
14/02/2025
BitFire said it intends to introduce forward-looking services that simplify the launch of live production workflows, and enhance real-time collaboration
By Jen...
14/02/2025
The claim by the liquidators is the latest twist in the ongoing saga of the companys collapse at the end of 2021
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: February 14, ...
14/02/2025
A carriage dispute between YouTube TV and Paramount could come to a head today (Feb. 13), with the virtual pay TV provider threatening to pull all of the progra...
14/02/2025
ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J. LG Electronics USA has opened a new in-house, state-of-the-art virtual production studio at its 360,000-square-foot North American headqu...
14/02/2025
NEW YORK In a bid to help local broadcasters find new ways of monetizing their content, the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) and TVB have relea...
14/02/2025
WASHINGTON Three Democratic U.S. Senators have sent a stern letter blasting FCC Chair Brendan Carr for the weaponization of the agency for attacking broadcast...
14/02/2025
Years after launching the streaming service Apple TV+ in November of 2019, Apple has finally released a version of its steaming app for Android devices....
14/02/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. Red Digital Cinema will make its V-RAPTOR [X] and KOMODO-X camera systems available with Nikon's premier Z Mount, providing filmmaker...
14/02/2025
DAYTONA, Fla. The Fox Sports production of this year's Daytona 500 will see the addition of a few new tech elements and the continued unfolding of the broad...
14/02/2025
Watch Bryson Battles Blind Audition on The Voice Get a Four-Chair Turn Michael Bubl said the Boston Conservatory at Berklee musical theater senior might have...
14/02/2025
2025 Daytona 500: FOX Sports Looks To Ride Super Bowl LIX Momentum Into NASCAR S...
14/02/2025
14 Feb 2025
VEON's Kyivstar and the Come Back Alive Foundation Raise USD 2....
14/02/2025
Max Renews THE PITT, Starring Noah Wyle, For A Second Season
Max
Warner Bros. Television Group
The Pitt
New Episodes Of The Medical Drama From John...
14/02/2025
This year, Technicolor proudly celebrates 110 years of shaping the magic of cinema pioneering color, visual effects, and innovation that bring unforgettable l...
14/02/2025
NBA All-Star: More Games, More Teams, More Music, More Sound From the Court Turner Sports' team will deploy familiar tech to capture all the audio By Dan D...
14/02/2025
LIV Golf Continues To Innovate With Drones, Data-Driven Graphics, and All-Access...
Tech Focus: Sports & Entertainment Production - In Convergence, Two Massive Worlds Share Venues and Infrastructure Music is the connective tissue between the two domains By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
