Sunday, Monday, Tuesday games will be produced with a mix of workflows

Tonight, for the first time in 23 years, “Roundball Rock” is officially back. When the NBA tips off on NBC and Peacock this evening with an Opening Night doubleheader — Oklahoma City Thunder–Houston Rockets followed by Golden State Warriors–Los Angeles Lakers – it will mark a new chapter for the iconic sports franchise. In terms of total games, NBC has the largest package of the league’s three rightsholders with 100 regular-season games plus an extensive playoffs schedule and NBA All-Star Weekend on the slate.

To pull it off, NBC Sports’ remote-operations team worked with NEP Group to come up with an ultra-flexible production model that will allow NBC/Peacock’s mix of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday games to be produced seamlessly onsite or remotely from its Stamford, CT, broadcast center from week to week.

“We are all incredibly excited and proud to bring the NBA back to NBC after more than two decades,” says Craig Bernstein, VP, remote tech operations and engineering, NBC Sports Group. “We have a solid operational plan in place that will allow our production teams the ability to move seamlessly between our core mobile units without missing a beat between shows.”

Busy Week: Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays, Oh My!

Starting Oct. 27, Peacock will stream up to three games nationwide on Monday nights throughout the regular season (46 games), as well as a 30-minute studio program leading into game coverage. These games will be either an onsite or a REMI productions depending on the week.

Beginning Oct. 28, “Coast 2 Coast Tuesdays” will feature East Coast/West Coast doubleheaders on NBC and Peacock. Both games (42 in total) and a 30-minute studio program will stream live nationwide on Peacock. On most Tuesdays, one game will be produced onsite and the other handled remotely from a Stamford production-control room (PCR).

Launching Feb. 1, Sunday Night Basketball will feature 11 primetime NBA games on NBC and Peacock through April 5 (Feb. 8 and 15 excepted) and include three doubleheaders. A one-hour onsite studio program will lead into game coverage each week on NBC and Peacock. All SNB games will be produced fully onsite; the studio operation, out of a Stamford PCR.

With a half dozen games or more on some weeks, NBC needed to think bigger than simply launching a new set of A-game trucks. It needed a coast-to-coast multi-truck fleet able to handle different production models: onsite, REMI, or a hybrid of the two.

“We needed to come up with a system that was flexible enough to give us the ability to do both on-prem and REMI productions seamlessly out of any truck,” says Bernstein. “We didn’t want to run into a situation where a REMI truck was in Miami but the game was in Seattle and it had to go across the entire country. We wanted all five trucks to be interchangeable. We worked with NEP to come up with a great solution that’s largely based on their TFC platform.”

NBC is deploying NEP TFC (Total Facility Control) broadcast-orchestration platform to tie hardware and software from multiple vendors into one interface, simplifying control, automating tasks, and standardizing workflows.

NBC will produce three levels of shows: A-game onsite productions (Opening Night, SNB, playoffs and conference finals), B-game onsite productions (Monday and Tuesday ET primetime and playoffs), and C-game REMI productions in Stamford (Monday and Tuesday PT primetime).

“I’m very happy with the technical solution heading into this season,” says Bernstein. “I think it gives us a lot of flexibility and, most important, gives the production folks the ability to go into any truck and do their show without having to adjust anything. Whichever truck they are in, it’s going to look the same, it’s going to feel the same, and it’s going to have the same capabilities across the board.”

A sextet of NEP trucks will serve NBC’s various onsite and REMI NBA productions: Supershooter 10, Supershooter 12, Supershooter 8, Supershooter 22, Supershooter 7, and Supershooter 6 — all with accompanying ST B units. Sunbelt Rentals is supplying all power systems in NBA on NBC compounds this season. NBC is also working to integrate some pieces of TFC in Stamford to make it even easier to shift shows between the various trucks.

“The incredible support and partnership of the NEP Group and [President, NEP Americas] Mike Werteen has been incredible,” says Ken Goss, EVP, Remote & Studio Operations, NBC Sports. “The fleet of Mobile Units we have secured is unmatched for our NBA regular season and Postseason broadcasts.”

In addition to providing the mobile units and TFC backbone, NEP Specialty Capture (formerly Fletcher, BSI, and AVS) and NEP Rentals (formerly Bexel) are providing all specialty cameras and rental equipment, respectively.

On the transmission side, NBC will use a mix of JPEG XS paths, LiveU, and Appear x20 for contribution from site to Stamford. In addition, Signiant servers in each mobile unit support file transfer between site and Stamford.

In addition to the REMI PCRs that will house a third of NBC’s NBA game productions this season, the Stamford facility is playing a major role across the board for all games. Two edit rooms will be connected to the onsite mobile units, and Chyron game graphics, Ross Video Piero analysis graphics, and scorebug operations will be run out of Stamford’s “Flex” PCRs.

Big-Time Coverage: High-Frame-Rate Cameras, On the Bench, Mic’d Up

NBC’s A games will feature as many as 40 cameras, including six hards and six handhelds, four robos (Above The Rim Robo and Behind The Glass Sony HDC-P50 systems on both baskets), and one RF HDC-P50 Steadicam. All game-coverage cameras will be high frame rate–capable with the exception of the Steadicam and main game camera. A handful of top-level games will also feature a cable cam and interior and/or exterior drone coverage.

The POV cameras deployed will include a Proton Mini Zoom w/micro robo head at the announcers table, Nucleus cams at the scorer’s table and for NBC’s Courtside Live coverage, stanchion-base cut-out POVs, and Panasonic 150 PTZs serving as hallway robos en route to team locker rooms.

“We’ve done everything possible to provide our production teams with the tools necessary to succeed, especially when it comes to high-frame-rate cameras,” says Bernstein. “As the season goes on, we’ll continue to explore more tools and technologies in order to serve our production partners.”

NBC will also deploy up to six EVS replay systems in the field, along with an ENG crew and teams to cover both teams’ press conferences.

For one Peacock NBA Monday game per week, an “On the Bench” analyst will be dedicated to each team, seated courtside near or next to the team benches during game play. Strategy won’t be leaked, but the analyst will offer unique insights into the game. On the Bench analysts will have a wired broadcast headset with a wired beltpack, an RF IFB, and a small wired handheld monitor. When the analysts get up during timeouts to stand adjacent to the huddle, they will leave the wired equipment on a shelf or basket affixed to the underside of the courtside seat. An A2 will also be added to troubleshoot the bench positions. An added ISO camera will provide full coverage for On the Bench reporters, who will also conduct interviews in lieu of a reporter at halftime.

Beginning in January, NBC will start producing Mic’d Up segments with players and coaches in an effort to offer fans more access to the action on the court. The standard Player Mic and Coach Mic packages will comprise two mics per player plus a spare and include an additional A2. The NBA screener, Mic’d Up EVS operator, and AP will operate from Stamford.

Beyond Linear: Courtside Live, Performance View, Telemundo, and More

NBC Sports’ production team has developed new in-game elements for its coverage. Among them: the Courtside Live feed will cover celebrities and other action around the game, and the Peacock Performance View feed will offer a data-driven graphic overlay of the game action.

“There are a lot of [deliverables] beyond just the main game [feed] for NBA,” Bernstein points out. “The production team and Peacock team came up with a lot of very cool [viewing experiences] this year, and it’s up to us to make sure everything runs smoothly behind the scenes.”

Peacock Performance View mode, which will launch later this season, lets fans view real-time stats that break down the game. On-screen data overlay helps fans understand what might happen, before it does.

Courtside Live is a Peacock streaming feed providing an alternative courtside point of view through scorer’s table robo cameras and dedicated ISO player coverage. All production aspects of Courtside Live, which will debut in the second half of the season, will be managed in Stamford, and the onsite technical team will handle the robo-camera workflow, the added ISO camera, and transmission of the sources.

Peacock Performance View is another streaming alt feed featuring a real-time data-driven graphic overlay on the live game broadcast. A production assistant in Stamford will clip highlights and route them via a drop folder so that game production can promote Performance View within the main broadcast.

In addition, Telemundo will produce Spanish broadcasts of all Sunday Night Basketball games and NBA All-Star via its Miami production facility and will have a reporter onsite. NBC Sports is also providing multiple feeds and deliverables for the NBA international feed and NBA Replay Center.

NBC will also provide support for COSM, which will be on site producing Shared Reality experiences for 15 regular season and 16 playoff games (and sharing their immersive camera feeds with NBC’s production team).

Bernstein adds, “I could not be prouder of the overall planning and execution done by the NBA Remote Tech Ops Team to get us to this point.”

It’s Game Time: The NBA on NBC Team Is Ready to Roll

As the prodigal sports property returns to NBC tonight, The NBA on NBC remote technical/ops team – led by Jenny Powelson, Samantha Ruby, and Matt Martin – and the team in Stamford are ready to tip off what promises to be an action-packed season of hoops coverage.

“As we enter a new era of the NBA on NBC & Peacock led by [President] Rick Cordella and [Executive Producer] Sam Flood, I am extremely fortunate to oversee such a talented and experienced Technical & Operational Teams – both in our Stamford Studios and on location,” says Goss. “Tonight, it’s time to start executing.”