NBA Rolls Out Skycam Broadcast To Give Fans Overhead Look At Summer League
By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
The NBA’s media operations and technology chief has loved the images captured by overhead cameras since 1986 and this week Stephen Hellmuth gets to see the Skycam technology in full bloom during two NBA Summer League game broadcasts in a few days.
NFL viewers have grown accustomed to the overhead Skycam filming game action from above for years, but on Wednesday the Skycam Wildcat camera will be flying on cables 32 feet above the Thomas & Mack Center court to give viewers a look from above and from behind the action, Hellmuth said during an interview with LVSportsBiz.com on Day 1 of the 12-day NBA Summer League Friday.
Hellmuth envisions about 80 percent of Wednesday’s 1:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. games to be filmed with this Skycam overhead, trailing perspective, but he noted it will be up to the broadcasts’ producer and director to literally call the shots.
It will offer a broadcast look that will mimic a video game as the camera capture the action from above the court and from behind, he said. That video game perspective should appeal to younger fans who are used to playing video games, he noted.
“It will be the first time at the Summer League,” Hellmuth said. “It’s a difference maker with ESPN.”
Hellmuth said he has liked this overhead camera angle since 1986, when he worked on NBC Sports productions during an NFL preseason game that involved the Los Angles Rams at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The old XFL used the overhead camera technology during its one year before the NFL adopted the Skycam, he noted.
The NBA has used the Summer League as a technology incubator through the years, testing everything from using a tenth of a second on shot clocks to “clear shot clocks,” said Hellmuth, who works out of the league’s Secaucus, NJ offices that includes the replay center. He began working at the NBA 28 years ago.
It’s the Summer League. It’s a good time for experimentation. — Stephen Hellmuth, NBA executive vice president for media operations and technology
The Skycam will chase the action from behind as part of the NBA’s “optimal telecast” efforts and will be controlled by a two-man team sitting in the arena’s upper bowl, Hellmuth said. One person will control the Skycam’s movement, while another will handle focusing, tilting and zooming responsibilities, he said.
Thomas & Mack Center helped out with the overhead camera experiment by raising the center hung scoreboard eight feet so that the Skycam be fly below the scoreboard at the 32-foot level. The scoreboard is typically 32 feet above the court in NBA arenas, Hellmuth said.
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The Skycam workers will manipulate the overhead camera via computers, with the Skycam moving on four cables above the court. Handheld cameras will also augment the broadcasts Wednesday, Hellmuth said.
The NBA’s media technology head is just as curious as fans to see how the game broadcast will look via an overhead and from-behind perspective. Fans are used to watching basketball game action captured by cameras on the side of the court, but now the perspective has been shifted 90 degrees and the game action views will come from this trailing, over-the-top camera, he said.
“I’ll be waiting to see how it works,” Hellmuth said. He plans to gauge fan reaction after Wednesday’s broadcasts.
The NBA is also rolling out a new vertical mobile device feed that will allow handheld device users to see the summer league broadcasts in a strictly vertical design in China Thursday, Hellmuth said.
The vertical design will look like the vertical Instagram feeds and will allow cell phone users to not turn their devices in a horizontal position, Hellmuth said. He noted the vertical game feed came via the NBA Beijing office, which sent a memo on the topic.
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