ESPN To Deploy Two Live Drones for Broadcast of Pro Bowl Weekend Festivities Access is key in coverage of skills competitions and flag football game By Mark J Burns, SVG Contributor
Thursday, January 30, 2025 - 11:40 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The Pro Bowl Games broadcasts from Orlando this weekend across Disney and ESPN platforms will emphasize player and celebrity access and incorporate live drone coverage.
The festivities begin at 7 p.m. ET today with the 90-minute Skills Showdown on ESPN and ESPN+, live from Nicholson Fieldhouse on the campus of the University of Central Florida (UCF). Among the competitions are dodgeball, a relay race, quarterback throwing accuracy, and a trivia test.
Sunday's events - starting at 3 p.m. on ESPN, ABC, and other platforms - will feature additional skills competitions and a four-quarter 7-on-7 flag football game at Orlando's Campus World Stadium.
The two-day coverage will also be distributed on ESPN Deportes, NFL+, and NFL digital platforms. Super Bowl champion and ESPN analyst Jason Kelce will make his flag-football booth debut on Sunday, and host Scott Van Pelt, and analysts Dan Orlovsky, Ryan Clark, and Marcus Spears will be part of the Sunday coverage.
The DJI Mavic 3 Pro drone, with a Hasselblad 4/3 CMOS camera on a gimbal, will be used during Pro Bowl Weekend for exterior scenic shots and the Skills Showdown. (All photos: Ryan Humble, ESPN)
For the 2025 Pro Bowl Weekend, ESPN shifted its strategy to streamline communications across the different broadcast functions, such as video, audio and graphics. It's a different mindset, explains ESPN Senior Operations Manager Tommy Mitchell. We basically took all the guardrails off everything and turned it into Okay, we're on the air for five, six hours. We're going to do a six-hour entertainment show - not a game siloed with studio siloed with these skills competitions.
NEP EN1 A, B, C and D units are onsite at UCF today and will move to Camping World Stadium for the Sunday events. Multiple support haulers are also part of the overall production, Mitchell says.
For the skills competitions, the varied camera complement comprises six hard cameras (two of which are super-slo-mo units), four handhelds, two RF Steadicams, one Supracam, and one jib. Super Bowl champs Peyton and Eli Manning - serving as coaches for the AFC and NFC teams, respectively - will wear microphones, as will several players and guests.
Sunday's festivities will be captured by 13 hard cameras, four handhelds, two RF Steadicams, two jibs, one drone, one Skycam, and one robotic booth camera. Six of the cameras will be super-slo-mo. The Manning brothers and several players, including all quarterbacks, will be miked.
The GEPRC Darkstar20 MicroFPV drone will follow competitors in The Great Football Race.
Throughout Pro Bowl Weekend, access and drone use by ESPN are a priority. It's about the skills, the game, and everything that's going on, says Mitchell, but, when we get these access types of things, it's about humanizing these guys who are always wearing helmets and uniforms. He adds that the broadcast will highlight special interactions between participating players and their families, a focus that's not typical of the regular season.
With drones, he notes, ESPN can present elevation, side-to-side movements, and other views not easily captured by other technology. During the Pro Bowl Weekend, he adds, there's a little more leeway to test and implement newer technology than during a normal Monday Night Football regular-season game.
It definitely feels a little bit like the Wild West, Mitchell says of the current state of drone coverage in sports. That's why it's awesome to have an in-house team who knows all the Disney rules and all the paperwork that needs to get done. I literally make one phone call to those guys and say, Hey, we want to do drones. Are you available? Yes. Cool.' They can then run with it.
Michael Shea, who served as a drone pilot for the team's coverage of the two most recent Pro Bowls, is back this weekend.
ESPN will deploy two types of drones for this year's events. The DJI Mavic 3 Pro with added propeller guards, which was used for the past two Pro Bowls, has a Hasselblad 4/3 CMOS camera on a gimbal. According to Ryan Humble, manager, drone operations, ESPN, it will be used for exterior beauty shots in addition to coverage of the Tug-of-War and parts of The Great Football Race, a relay event featuring six players on two teams competing across five challenges.
Pending onsite review and approval by the NFL on Saturday, the GEPRC Darkstar20 MicroFPV drone will also be used on Sunday. It has 2-in. guarded propellers and is flown via first-person goggles worn by the pilot. During the Skills Showdown, the lightweight drone will follow players through obstacles of The Great Football Race, although it won't fly over any individuals, Humble says.
Mitchell notes that, with the use of smaller drones, especially in a live application, there might be sacrifices made on stabilization and image quality during the broadcast.
With the live drone integration, Humble and his team are always looking for new and innovative ways to cover action. The goal, he says, is to further push the boundaries for how drones can be used to get closer and more dynamic in-game coverage.
Most recent headlines
30/01/2025
Steven Yeun and Kristen Stewart at the Love Me premiere (photo by George Pimentl...
30/01/2025
The supply capability of SGL Carbon, a leading international supplier of carbon-...
30/01/2025
Highlights*
2024 orders of $24.2 billion; book-to-bill of 1.14x
2024 revenue o...
30/01/2025
BOSTON - November 7, 2024 - Brightcove (NASDAQ: BCOV), the world's most trus...
30/01/2025
BOSTON - January 16, 2025 - Brightcove (NASDAQ: BCOV), the world's most trus...
30/01/2025
NEW YORK, Jan. 29, 2025 - Black audiences spend 32 hours on apps and websites on...
30/01/2025
Auckland - January 30, 2025 - Data released today by Nielsen Ad Intel and Nielse...
30/01/2025
class=attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail f-align-center alt= decoding=async data-lazy-srcset=https://www.antonbauer.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/David-Pasko-...
30/01/2025
WUPPERTAL, Germany Riedel Communications has announced the acquisition of MECSware, a leading specialist in Private 5G technologies, and the launch of the priva...
30/01/2025
When it comes to current TV-viewing trends, viewers worldwide prefer scripted content to unscripted content, according to a new study from BB Media. But which p...
30/01/2025
COLOGNE, Germany RTW today made available its V 1.3 software for its TouchControl 5 hardware meter, offering support for dialog-gated loudness measurement....
30/01/2025
Ateliere Expands Live Production Workflows with Rapid Integration API for Techno...
30/01/2025
Blackmagic Design Powers More than 40 Sundance 2025 Projects
Brie Clayton January 30, 2025
0 Comments
Independent filmmakers relied on Blackmagic Desi...
30/01/2025
Sony Captures Every Angle of Super Bowl LIX to Elevate the Fan Experience
Brie Clayton January 30, 2025
0 Comments
Over 100 Broadcast Cameras plus Ext...
30/01/2025
LONDON & LOS ANGELES ThinkAnalytics has announced that Dish Network has selected the Think360 content discovery platform, along with ThinkContentExplorer to str...
30/01/2025
NEW YORK Three-fourths of viewers who watch free ad-supported streaming television (aka FAST channels) want to be able to watch all of those channels on a sin...
30/01/2025
The department will be overseen by Hotcams head of engineering, Hugo Santos
By Jenny Priestley
Published: January 30, 2025
The department will be overseen...
30/01/2025
The solution provides users with remote low latency colour grading as part of Baselight 6.0
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: January 30, 2025
The solution p...
30/01/2025
Proposed expansion plans include new film stages and a data centre
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: January 30, 2025
Proposed expansion plans include new fi...
30/01/2025
According to reports, MFE has submitted a non-binding bid to acquire news channels TVN24 and TVN24BiS
By Jenny Priestley
Published: January 30, 2025
Accor...
30/01/2025
SAN DIEGO Sony said a record number of its cameras will be trained on the Super Bowl Feb. 9, when the Kansas City Chiefs meet the Philadelphia Eagles in New Orl...
30/01/2025
LONDON FilmLight has officially launched FilmLight REMOTE, a remote color-grading solution that allows post houses and colorists to work remotely without sacrif...
30/01/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that JoySauce is using its streaming platform Matchpoint to license, monetize and distribute their full library of original ...
30/01/2025
Pliant Technologies, a leading provider of professional wireless intercom solutions, announces an important, new distribution agreement with Leading Technologie...
30/01/2025
Ateliere Creative Technologies, a leading GenAI media software solutions company, has made available a new Application Programming Interface (API) for Ateliere ...
30/01/2025
NAKIVO Inc., a leading provider of data protection solutions for physical, virtual, cloud, and SaaS environments, announced today strong Q4 2024 results, highli...
30/01/2025
TAG has announced a partnership with Tencent Cloud, the cloud business of the leading global technology company Tencent.
Through this partnership, TAG will all...
30/01/2025
Today, Chaos launches V-Ray 7 for Maya and V-Ray 7 for Houdini with new features that accelerate everything from fast 3D environment creation to production shad...
30/01/2025
Supercars Media and EMG / Gravity Media, a world leading global provider of complex live creative production and media services, today outlined the broadcast an...
30/01/2025
Brainstorm, leading manufacturer of real-time 3D graphics and virtual studio solutions, is contributing to the media and broadcasting world's undergoing rev...
30/01/2025
30 Jan 2025
VEON Gets Unanimous Support from Noteholders Voting in Consent Soli...
30/01/2025
Super Bowl LIX: Beyonc 's Holiday NFL Halftime Show Resets the Wireless-Audi...
30/01/2025
NHL Launches New Weekly Animated Recap Show NHL HOCKEYVERSE Matchup of the Week...
30/01/2025
Super Bowl LIX: Telemundo Announces Programming for the Big Game News, entertainment shows will lead up to the game's largest Spanish-language distribution ...
30/01/2025
Riedel Acquires MECSware, Allowing Customers To Tap Into Private 5G More Easily The Private 5G specialist will be part of Riedel Group but remain an independent...
30/01/2025
ESPN To Deploy Two Live Drones for Broadcast of Pro Bowl Weekend Festivities Access is key in coverage of skills competitions and flag football game By Mark J ...
30/01/2025
Disney Entertainment & ESPN Creates Product Engineering Group; Hires Andre Rohe ...
30/01/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: ProximaVision Aerospace Systems' Walter Raps on t...
30/01/2025
ESPN and ACC Re-Up Media Rights Deal Through 2035-36 The ESPN and ACC relationship has spanned more than 35 years and includes ACC Network By Jason Dachman, Ed...
30/01/2025
From tough guy to tux: Danny Dyers butler transformationEast End geezer lands new role as a butler alongside fellow actor JosephThursday 30 January 2025
Danny ...
30/01/2025
Enabling connections, empowering innovations: Rohde & Schwarz presents its mobil...
30/01/2025
Wuppertal January 30, 2025
Riedel Expands 5G Expertise with MECSware Investmen...
30/01/2025
Back to All News
Reza Rahardian and Sheila Dara Aisha Light Up the Screen: Netf...
30/01/2025
Back to All News
Trailer for Dalah: Death and the Flowers' Reveals More Cl...
30/01/2025
Back to All News
Are You in for the Final Game?: Squid Game' Season 3 to Premiere on June 27
Entertainment
30 January 2025
GlobalSouth Korea
Link copi...
30/01/2025
Back to All News
The First Season of The Eternaut Will Release Globally on Netf...
30/01/2025
Integrated into New Neopix and UHD Finepix LED Panels, Enhanced Tech Will Also B...
ESPN To Deploy Two Live Drones for Broadcast of Pro Bowl Weekend Festivities Access is key in coverage of skills competitions and flag football game By Mark J Burns, SVG Contributor 
