Side-by-side broadcasts will share some resources, and Nickelodeon will have its own cameras
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| Noah Eagle (left) and Nate Burleson will “share” the booth with SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star for the Nickelodeon broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII. |
The CBS Sports TV compound for Super Bowl LVIII will be a little bit larger than usual, housing production facilities not only for the CBS Sports production but also for the Nickelodeon production, which will bring the Big Game to Bikini Bottom, the realm of SpongeBob SquarePants.
“While all of the action on the field will remain, real players and the plays and everything going on, everything around the field will be in Bikini Bottom,” explained Jennifer Bryson, VP, production, tentpoles, events, and music and specials, Nickelodeon, to Sports Video Group.
The Nickelodeon effort will be a side-by-side broadcast from separate trucks alongside the main CBS trucks. Sharing resources will be important, says Shawn Robbins, coordinating producer, Super Bowl LVIII on Nickelodeon, CBS Sports, but Nickelodeon will rely heavily on its own cameras.
“What’s great,” he says, “is that we’re using the whole backbone of CBS to get this on the air. It’s all flowing through CBS Sports EVP, Operations and Engineering, Patty Power and her group and CBS Sports Executive Producer/EVP, Production, Harold Bryant and his production team, as well as our own production team. We will have access to all the game cameras, and then we will have our own cameras as well that are doing our own augmented reality.”
Nickelodeon will rely primarily on 12 cameras as its main cameras for game coverage, says Robbins. “But we will cut an independent game to what the main broadcast is doing because of the layers and layers of AR that we’re doing from our own truck and our own graphics truck.”
The Nickelodeon team did three tests at Allegiant Stadium during the regular season to make sure that the animated SpongeBob SquarePants world of Bikini Bottom via Augmented Reality (AR) maps properly over the real-world stadium. Animation studio Silver Spoon played a big part as a technical partner in the design of the graphic elements; SMT is involved technically in getting those elements into the right place. And, of course, the army of Nickelodeon animators have been working closely to bring all the characters — including Dora the Explorer, who will help explain some of the rules — to life for the broadcast.
Bryson notes that the AR graphics will make the stadium look different and more vibrant. “We’re bringing in animated characters, and we’ll have SpongeBob and Patrick in the booth. We’ll also have some characters on the field, whether it’s sideline reporters or Larry the Lobster. We’re adding more and more elements to each game, and this one will have more AR than we’ve ever done.”
Robbins emphasizes the importance of showing the real players, the plays, the real field, and the real ball. “That helps the co-viewing experience we want to deliver, where dads and moms can watch the game and [the Nickelodeon version] doesn’t interfere that much with the [main] broadcast. It just enhances the broadcast as we look to keep the kids engaged.
“It’s going to be spectacular,” he continues. “The stadium [is imagined as an abyss], and the Nick Blimp, which is now a submarine, will be able to leave the stadium and come back into the stadium. It is football reimagined in this Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob World, and it’s going to blow people away.”
CBS Sports Embraces AR, XR
The use of AR will obviously be a big part of the main broadcast and the “Nickified” show, but extended reality (XR) elements are also going to be incorporated, allowing players to appear virtually in the pregame studio set.
CBS Sports has done some specialty shoots in Kansas City and San Francisco with players on an XR stage that will transport them to different places. “One of them, of course, being Las Vegas,” Bryant notes. “We can take them anywhere we want from there.”
The portable XR stage was tested in Los Angeles from NEP Sweetwater before hitting the road for the player shoots.
“The uniqueness and the value of that stage’s not just residing in a sound stage but being able to move quickly is a backbone strength,” Jason Cohen, VP, remote technical operations, CBS Sports, points out. “We obviously didn’t find out the teams involved until recently, and we were able to execute and get the stages shipped and deployed.”
Nickelodeon also will use live-motion capture in its set located in Section 101 of the stadium. That set will bring real-world announcers Noah Eagle and Nate Burleson together with the real-world actors who will play animated on-air talent SpongeBob and Patrick.
“What our viewers will see are the animated AR characters right next to the live Noah and Nate,” says Cohen, “and it’s going to appear to our viewers that we have the best seat in the house across at the 50-yard line. The set is full of AR capabilities mixed with green-screen capabilities.”
AR will be used during the CBS coverage as well, in opening graphics displaying on the stadium field and over the Bellagio Fountain, where four studio sets will be located. “It’s really cool, interesting stuff that will make it feel Vegas, like the entertainment capital, make it feel big, and make people want to be in Vegas,” Bryant says. “But there are also AR elements that help tell the story, whether it’s something that captures a touchdown or a special graphic for a big drive of the game. We’ll use AR to help enhance the storytelling.”
Super Bowl LVIII Live from Bikini Bottom airs Sunday, February 11 at 6:30 p.m. ET / 3:30 p.m. PT, exclusively on Nickelodeon. It all kicks off with an exclusive performance of "Sweet Victory"!
From Sports Video Group:
Live From Super Bowl LVIII: Inside the CBS Sports, Nickelodeon Game Booths
CBS has a curved-rail cam to capture its team; Nick will take fans to Bikini Bottom
Historically, Super Bowl booths have not been a place where new technology transforms the viewing experience. This year, though, both the CBS Sports announce booth that Jim Nantz and Tony Romo will call home and the Nickelodeon booth housing Noah Eagle, Nate Burleson, and, yes, SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star are taking things to a new level.
“The announce booth is unbelievably spacious and state-of-the-art,” says Jason Cohen, VP, remote technical operations, CBS Sports.
Announce booths typically aren’t described as spacious, but, for Super Bowl LVIII, CBS Sports was able to install a 26- x 6-ft. curved LED screen manufactured by Planar.
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| The curve of the 26-ft. LED screen inside the CBS Super Bowl booth coupled with the curve of the camera rail will offer a variety of looks. |
“We will shoot the announcers with the LED screen as the backdrop, using a curved-rail cam,” says Cohen. “It’s a Waterbird System that Fletcher is providing, and it will use a Sony HDC-P50 camera on a wired curve track. It’s a nice, small-form-factor rail cam that fits perfectly in our booth, which has a nice curvature that is almost the inverse of the curve of the LED. We also had the P50 wired so we don’t have any audio delays and lip-sync issues.”
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| To capture announcers in the booth, CBS Sports will use a Waterbird System with a Sony HDC-P50 camera on a wired curve track. |
Two other CBS Sports studios will also be active at the stadium on game day: a small studio in the corner of the field can collapse and be out of view of spectators, and a larger studio-show set on Game Day Plaza will have a 53-ft. MovieBird jib from JitaCam.
“The [field] set will also have AR capabilities, provided by Stype,” says Cohen. “The talent will do 90 minutes of the pregame at the Bellagio, move to the Game Day Plaza set, and then, at some point, move to the field set for an incredible vantage point for pregame, halftime, and postgame.”
Into a Stadium Under the Sea
The Nickelodeon broadcast booth is arguably one of a kind. Located in Section 101, it is intended to appear to be inside a stadium not in Las Vegas but in Bikini Bottom, the undersea realm of SpongeBob SquarePants. Nickelodeon will have its own cameras coupled to 13 Unreal Engines that will transform Allegiant Stadium into Bikini Bottom, with AR elements immersing real-world hosts Eagle and Burleson and two actors in motion-capture suits who voice SpongeBob and Patrick Star in an animated Super Bowl (one major point: the on-the-field action shown will be actual, not animated).
“Their overall announcer booth is all virtual with green screen,” says Cohen.
The effect will be in full glory when cameras from around the stadium shoot across the field and look into the Nickelodeon booth, where SpongeBob and Patrick Star will be seen calling the action alongside Eagle and Burleson.
The Allegiant Stadium team has been a big help in getting both broadcasts to this position ahead of game day, Cohen says. “They’ve been incredible to partner with. We had a lot of test games here between the Super Bowl test game and three Nickelodeon tests and were able to demo and test a lot of the equipment. The Allegiant Stadium team was accommodating to work with us on those requirements and all the different truck-parking scenarios. And the space in the compound is fantastic.”
From the Associated Press via The Independent Tribune:
From doinks to SpongeBob, technology to play a huge role in the CBS presentation of the Super Bowl
Inspiration sometimes happens, or in this case, doinks, at the most opportune times.
CBS Sports' Jason Cohen and Mike Francis had end zone seats during last year's Super Bowl when Kansas City kicker Harrison Butker had a 42-yard field goal attempt that caromed off the left upright.
Cohen, the division's vice president of remote technical operations, immediately texted someone at the league's broadcasting department about placing cameras inside the uprights.
On Sunday, the doink camera will make its debut.
"We're excited. We're also not just reliant on a doink. Obviously, if we get one, I'll be very excited and probably high-five each other in the truck, but they can also get other shots from the field from that unique perspective," Cohen said.
The doink cam is one of many innovations that CBS will use during Sunday's game between Kansas City and San Francisco. It will be the 22nd time that CBS has carried the Super Bowl, which is the most among the four broadcast networks.
While the Chiefs and 49ers get the opportunity every season to compete for a Super Bowl, networks will get their chance to carry the big game once every four years under the league's 11-year broadcasting contract, which started this season. ESPN/ABC are back in the rotation, but won't have the game until 2027 in Los Angeles.
"There will be more technology than we've ever seen for a broadcast," said Harold Bryant, the executive producer and executive VP of production for CBS Sports.
There will be six 4K cameras in each goalpost — three in each upright. Two will face out to the field on a 45-degree angle, and the other lined up inward to get a photo of the ball going through. The cameras also have zoom and super slow-motion capabilities that could show how close a kick made it inside the uprights or straight down the middle.
CBS tested the cameras during a New York Jets preseason game at MetLife Stadium and a Las Vegas Raiders game in October at Allegiant Stadium. Cohen said CBS analyst Jay Feely, who kicked in the NFL for 14 seasons, also gave his input on where to position the cameras.
Since Super Bowls are usually testing grounds for ideas that eventually make their way into all NFL broadcasts, the doink camera could join the pylon cams as a standard part of the league's top games in future seasons.
Other than kicks, the cameras on the uprights can provide unique end zone angles, including on sneaks near the goal line or an aerial view near the pylon.
However, don't look for CBS to show angles from the doink cam just because they have it.
"We're not going to force in the elements. We're going to find out what works to help tell the story of the game and the moment," Bryant said.
The upright cameras are part of 165 cameras CBS has for Sunday. The network also has cameras throughout the Las Vegas strip, including one at the top of the Stratosphere.
There are also 23 augmented reality cameras that both CBS and Nickelodeon will use. The Nickelodeon broadcast will use the augmented reality cameras the most because it will appear that SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star will be on the set calling the game with Noah Eagle and Nate Burleson.
Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke, who are the voices of SpongeBob and Patrick, will be in the booth and wearing green suits so that SpongeBob and Patrick can appear.
In all the years of the SpongeBob franchise, Kenny said this is the first time he can remember doing something live in character of this magnitude.
"We're in character a lot because we record many episodes of the shows during the week. The good thing is that there are plenty of times we ad-lib during the recordings because that is encouraged," Kenny said.
Fagerbakke did some commentary during the 2022 Christmas day game between the Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Rams, but that was done from the broadcast truck.
Fagerbakke said, "That's not what he wanted to cook" after Russell Wilson's second interception — a riff on "Let Russ Cook" — went viral on social media.
"Our show has been integrated with the development of social media itself. So it's just kind of a nice extension of that. I've watched Russell Wilson play his entire career. I'm a big fan of his," Fagerbakke said.
While various bells and whistles, like AR, are nice, they also have to be used for the right reasons, which Cohen sees with the Nickelodeon broadcast.
"What I love about the Nickelodeon show is that I feel like it's the most perfect use case for augmented reality in a live broadcast. It's bringing in augmented reality in a way that has a meaningful purpose because it advances the storyline and helps the play on the field come to life, but in a unique perspective that has some flavor to it," Cohen said.
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From Primetimer (via IMDb):
We're About to Experience Our First Nickelodeon Super Bowl
The Big Game from Bikini Bottom pays off four seasons of slime-cannon shenanigans.
The First Nickelodeon Super Bowl: Will There Be Slime?
Super Bowl LVIII is poised to be a historic event for any number of reasons, but the oddest may be the meeting of Patrick Mahomes and Patrick Star in the augmented reality of Nickelodeon’s alternate broadcast of the biggest night in sports. The Super Bowl broadcast from Bikini Bottom is the culmination of a multi-year partnership between the NFL, CBS, and Nickelodeon that has sought to bring playoff football to Nick's audience of kids and vice versa, and by the looks of things, that plan is far from over.
If this season of NFL football has taught us anything, it's that the audience for pro football is as wide as it gets. From the dads barking at the screen to the Swifties tuning in to Chiefs games see what Taylor and her entourage are sporting in the luxury box as they cheer on Travis Kelce, to the fuming men who get so angry at said Swifties getting catered to. It makes all the sense in the world that Nickelodeon would want to make use of their corporate partnership with CBS (both are under the Paramount Global umbrella) to bring their audience of kids to the NFL brand.
For the past four seasons, Nickelodeon has broadcast a select NFL game, tricking it up with animation and augmented reality to deliver a very loud, very busy, but undeniably memorable viewing experience. The first Nickelodeon simulcast was the 2021 Wild Card playoff game between the Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints. That game was something of a snooze, which made it the perfect canvas for Nickelodeon's experiment. Former NFL wide receiver Nate Burleson and Nick star Gabrielle Nevaeh joined CBS's Noah Eagle on the broadcast. Slime cannons appeared to douse touchdown scorers in the signature Nickelodeon green slime (these were all animated overlays), while after the game, Saints coach Sean Payton got slimed for real. It was very silly but very fun, especially since it existed on Nickelodeon, safely away from any easily annoyed sports fan who didn't need Spongebob doing sideline reports.
Nick has continued to broadcast one NFL game a year ever since. In 2022, it was another playoff game, this time between the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks. Last year, it was a Christmas Day game between the Los Angeles Rams and Denver Broncos. The guest commentary by Nick stars got more iconic (Patrick Star absolutely roasted Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson for an interception) as the on-screen augmented reality experiments got weirder (Rams quarterback Baker Mayfield got picked up by a giant claw and moved across the field).
The goofier things got on the broadcasts, the more they seemed to justify the marketing ploy of their existence. If you're going to promote your violent, concussion-prone game to kids, being this unhinged about it is the least Nickelodeon could do. Santa Claus lined up as a wide receiver on a Rams scoring play — that's how unhinged.
Wild Card games and the odd Christmas Day interception-fest were one thing, but the Super Bowl was quite another. And yet on August 1, 2023, CBS announced it would simulcast the Super Bowl on both CBS and Nickelodeon. "We didn't anticipate this," Nickelodeon's EVP of Unscripted and Digital Studio, Ashley Kaplan tells Primetimer. "But obviously it is a welcome opportunity and a next step in our partnership."
Seeing the need to take a step up from mere slime cannons, Nick producers instead put the entire Las Vegas-set Super Bowl into the underwater environs of Bikini Bottom for the special Sponge/bob Squarepants Super Bowl of some stoner's dreams (and/or nightmares).
"At Nick, we always strive to meet kids where they are and give them something magical," Kaplan says, and I suppose this qualifies. It's a sign of how far Nickelodeon has come as a brand that I'm not sure I can envision what a Nick-partnered Super Bowl might have looked like when I was in that network's target demographic. A Rugrats-themed Super Bowl where Tommy and Chuckie toddled across the field while Angelica filed sideline reports? An Are You Afraid of the Dark? halftime show?
The Super Bowl has long since passed the point where it's an event for sports fans. It's one of the last true pop culture meccas, where everyone tends to drop by to see what all the fuss is about this year. Celebrity, music, commercials, current events — it all comes together in a mishmash at the Super Bowl. So, while it's no longer notable that Super Bowl might contort itself to fit into the field of interest of Nick-watching kids and tweens, Nickelodeon getting the point of pride of an entire alternative telecast is a pretty big deal.
Where does Nick go from here in terms of sports partnerships? After all, CBS and its affiliated networks also cover the Men's NCAA Basketball Tournament, a.k.a. March Madness? And wouldn't a brand extension like this benefit from a partnership with women's sports as well? "We are absolutely looking for the next opportunity to do that," Kaplan says. "We're in talks, but nothing is solidified or concrete yet. Nothing at the moment to announce." We'll just be here waiting in somewhat rabid anticipation to see how Squidward fills out his March Madness bracket.
Super Bowl LVIII will be simulcast on Nickelodeon on Sunday, February 11th at 6:30 PM ET.
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From Front Office Sports:
The NFL Is ‘Just Scratching the Surface’ with SpongeBob Super Bowl Broadcast
CBS and Nickelodeon will deliver a kid-focused, augmented-reality-filled production—the Super Bowl’s first alternate telecast.
The league is proving it works to target specific viewers on the platforms they already tune into: “We’re just scratching the surface.”
Jim Nantz will suit up Sunday to call his ninth Super Bowl, and in another booth in Allegiant Stadium, SpongeBob SquarePants will call his first.
CBS and Nickelodeon are delivering a historic, kid-focused, augmented-reality-filled production—the Super Bowl’s first alternate telecast, with an entirely separate production and broadcast crew on another network. This will be their fifth NFL alt-cast, with lovable characters and slime explosions. SpongeBob and his best friend, Patrick Star, will even be voiced by Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke, the same actors who have played the characters for decades.
Why should you care? Well, it’s about more than a sea sponge and a starfish. NFL alt-casts have become the norm in recent years, including ESPN’s Toy Story game, ESPN2’s ManningCast, and Dude Perfect Twitch streams. But, during the biggest event on the sports calendar, the league and CBS are devoting significant resources and personnel to this broadcast. In short, the NFL is serious about alt-casts, and they could become even more of a trend, if not the future, in sports broadcasting.
“I think you’ll see us continue to build on that. We’re just scratching the surface,” the NFL’s EVP of media distribution Hans Schroeder tells Front Office Sports. “What we’re really focused on is how we give our NFL fans an increasing number of options and experiences across screens to engage with the NFL how they want to engage with it.”
Plus, kids broadcasts are “F.U.N.” For example, Patrick told viewers, “Yeah, that’s not what he wanted to cook” after a Russell Wilson interception during the 2022 Christmas game.
Getting Serious About SpongeBob
Nickelodeon has done three separate tests at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas to prepare for Sunday, CBS Sports VP of remote technical operations Jason Cohen said. That’s because, unlike past Nick broadcasts that resemble the main telecast with some AR incorporated, the game will be fully set in Bikini Bottom.
The league is proving it works to target specific viewers on the platforms they already tune into, Schroeder says. It doesn’t hurt that during the 2023 regular season, viewership grew 4% among 2- to 11-year-olds, and 5% for 12- to 17-year-olds.
“The fact that we’re able to continue to grow that fan base, and not just with what we’re doing through these things, but we look outside of that to the investment in flag [football] and sort of getting more young people playing football of all forms,” Schroeder says. “We think all those ingredients are really, really important.”
Outside of Nickelodeon viewers, the production is likely to blow up on social media with nostalgic SpongeBob fans. (The January 2021 Nickelodeon broadcast generated 2 billion social media impressions, FOS previously reported.) The promised rendition of “Sweet Victory” will undoubtedly be a highly shareable clip—and cast a much wider net than Sunday’s Nickelodeon viewers.
The biggest threat to an alt-cast: technical difficulties. It stands to reason that if viewers can’t watch the game, they’ll be more likely to switch to the main broadcast. ESPN’s fully animated Toy Story broadcast was a hit, but viewers noticed tons of glitches. Nickelodeon’s tech has largely held up in previous broadcasts, outside of some bad words caught on a hot mic.
Disney can’t love that a competitor is airing the first kids’ broadcast at a Super Bowl. But don’t count Disney out: Before the Toy Story game, sources told FOS that other intellectual properties (Star Wars? Marvel? Disney princesses?) could be on the table in the future.
Should other leagues lock in on kids-casts?
For its first NFL broadcast—a Bears-Saints playoff game in 2021—Nickelodeon clocked more than 2 million viewers, but that dipped under 900,000 for the ’23 Christmas Day game. Both are a fraction of an NFL broadcast, but they’re far beyond what other leagues are drawing for their kids-casts.
About 175,000 viewers tuned in for Disney and Disney XD’s animated NHL broadcast in March 2023, according to Sports Business Journal. The NBA has shown the Slam Dunk Contest on Cartoon Network and did an AR Marvel-themed alt-cast of a Warriors-Pelicans game in 2021 that got 274,000 viewers. The MLB offers a KidsCast during the Little League Classic, which uses an all-kids broadcast team. But none of these events were title games, much less the Super Bowl.
Schroeder says some factors make it easier for the NFL to produce alt-casts than other leagues, specifically having fewer games on the calendar, but he suspects other sports will start doing more of them “in their own way.” Will we see Bugs Bunny return to basketball at the NBA Finals? Mickey Mouse in an MLB clubhouse? Let’s see how Sunday goes.
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From Independent:
From SpongeBob to TikTok, leagues and broadcasters using many methods to attract, retain young fans
There were plenty of critics when CBS announced four years ago that it would produce a kids-centric broadcast of an NFL playoff game on Nickelodeon.
Now, if a league or network isn't doing something to appeal to younger fans, they are behind the times.
Nickelodeon will air its fifth NFL game on Sunday when the Kansas City Chiefs face the San Francisco 49ers for the Vince Lombardi Trophy. It will also mark the first alternate broadcast of a Super Bowl game.
For CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus, the progress from Nickelodeon's first game during the playoffs in the 2020 season to now has surpassed even his wildest expectations.
“I thought it would be kind of fun with the younger announcers and other hosts, but I never thought it was going to for three hours be this explosion of graphics and commentary and augmented reality. I really credit the folks at Nickelodeon with their technicians and graphic designers and all that and what they’ve done with our CBS sports brethren,” McManus said. “We’ve set a new standard every time. So many fathers and mothers have come up to me and said they've never watched a football game with tehir young son or daughter, but they love the Nickelodeon experience.”
The thought of SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star describing a Travis Kelce touchdown isn't for everyone, but it does target an audience and demographic that is important to future success.
In an age where viewing is measured more by minutes than hours, and cord cutting shows no signs of slowing down, any increases that leagues and networks can get is huge.
“We know that those who you expose to the game are much more likely to become fans, but it's also about how do we approach the availability of our games and how do we give different experiences? How do we tailor in an appropriate way but still deliver a high quality viewer experience that caters toward different parts of our fan base?” said NFL EVP of Media Distribution Hans Schroeder.
Besides two Nickelodeon games this season, the NFL partnered with Disney+ and ESPN+ to have a “Toy Story” themed broadcast during the Oct. 1 game in London between the Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars.
By all indications, the Nickelodeon and Disney games were successful. The four previous Nickelodeon games have averaged at least 900,000 viewers while the “Toy Story” contest was the biggest live event to date on Disney+ according to the ESPN.
According to the NFL and Nielsen, the audience share for ages 2 to 11 was up 4% while 12 to 17 increased 5%.
“I’ve always felt football usually grabs your attention around the time that you’re able to play it. Now we’re able to grab their attention a little bit earlier, with the way that Nickelodeon puts on these games,” said Nate Burleson, who reprises his role as a commentator on the Nickelodeon game Sunday.
The NFL is not alone in trying different ways to cultivate younger fans. The NHL will present its second “Big City Greens” game on ESPN and Disney+ later this season. The NBA and Marvel teamed up in 2021 to present an alternate broadcast featuring The Avengers.
“Like every sports league or media entity right now, we are well aware that the consumption level and behavior of younger viewers is different. There are more choices and fragmentation from a content distribution standpoint than ever before,” said Dave Lehanski, the NHL's EVP of Business Development & Innovation. “There’s a lot of opportunity in all of that to create different types of content.”
In many ways though, using animation is not new when it comes to teaching sports and its rules to young viewers. The Walt Disney Company produced animated Sports Goofy shorts in the 1940s about football and baseball.
Much like Goofy resonated back then, SpongeBob and Slinky Dog from “Toy Story” are teaching rules and strategy now.
Animation also isn't the only avenue to get younger viewers. The NFL's increased investment in flag football as well as its “Play 60” program, which encourages exercise, have appealed to diverse audiences.
ESPN has also had success with young announcers. The network uses an all-youth crew, mostly from the Bruce Beck broadcast camp, for a KidsCast during the MLB Little League Classic in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
“I think the unique nature of of the kids in Williamsport participating and really leveraging that within the broadcast in a way that I think is really special and unique,” said Julie Sobieski, ESPN's Senior VP of League Programming and Acquisitions.
Networks and leagues also continue to experiment with social media and creating more viral highlights to keep younger fans interested.
“There’s just so many more tools now at our disposal to address the complex consumption habits of young fans. They like live games, but obviously they like watching highlights, consuming content on social media and creating their own content. The pie has many more pieces to it for young fans,” Lehanski said.
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From BVM Sports:
Innovative Production Plans Revealed for Super Bowl LVIII in Vegas
CBS will utilize advanced technology for Super Bowl LVIII, with robotic cameras set up around Las Vegas and a 1,000-foot fly cam. The network plans extensive pregame coverage with interviews, features, and a formal kickoff show at 6 p.m. ET. The production will include a record 165 cameras and will offer an alternate broadcast on Nickelodeon tailored to a younger audience. Kickoff is at approximately 6:30 p.m. ET, and the game will be presented in 1080p High Dynamic Range (HDR) and 4K HDR. Taylor Swift's potential attendance is a key talking point, and CBS seeks to smoothly integrate her presence without interrupting the game. Analyst Tony Romo's performance will be closely watched, and the audio audience is estimated at over 25 million listeners. CBS has a chance to surpass last year's viewership record of 115.1 million, driven by significant momentum from recent games.
By the Numbers
- CBS plans to use a record 165 total cameras for the Super Bowl
- Estimated 25 million+ audio audience for the game
- Last year's Super Bowl attracted a Nielsen audience of 115.1 million
Yes, But
While CBS plans extensive pregame coverage and an alternate broadcast on Nickelodeon, some might find the focus on potential celebrity appearances distracting from the game itself.
State of Play
- CBS to air Super Bowl LVIII, with extensive pregame coverage and an alternate Nickelodeon broadcast
- Advanced technology, including robotic cameras and a 1,000-foot fly cam, will be utilized for the production
- Potential for a record-breaking viewership, given recent high viewership for playoff games
What's Next
The Super Bowl's success and CBS's production approach will likely shape future event broadcasts and potential innovations in sports media.
Bottom Line
CBS is gearing up for an innovative and expansive Super Bowl LVIII production, maximizing technology, celebrity presence, and alternative broadcast options to engage a diverse audience and potentially break viewership records.
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Originally published: February 06, 2024.
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