NFL Network and other broadcasters score a big win with The Switch in Super Bowl 50

Live time

■ The Switch needed to meet the needs of the NFL Network, along with a range of broadcasters and rights holders, for Super Bowl 50 – one of the world’s biggest and most iconic sporting events
■ To meet various requirements, The Switch supplied transmissio and/or at-home/remote services for the game feed and relayed live content from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California
■ NFL requirements included video and Ethernet to enable scores of individual services, with support for ‘big data’ a key driver

Always there

■ The Switch enabled massive bandwidth and infrastructure integration
■ Supported more than 28 HDI-SDI, JPEG2000 and ASI video paths and 24 data connections ranging from 50 Mbps to 10 Gbps, totalling more than 7,500 hours of video and data transport
■ Built a backbone allowing clients to migrate to file-based workflows via fully diverse and low latency transport service
■ Two Point of Presence (POP) service trailers allowed a flexible way to extend the reach of The Switch’s network, matching the capabilities and features of fixed location facilities: diverse signal paths and redundant equipment

Always on

■ The Switch reinforced its position as a ‘trusted transmission partner’ of the NFL with its support for extensive connectivity – as it had from NFL stadiums throughout the US during the full season
■ Its Super Bowl operations offered a hybrid approach, enabling clients to leverage best-of-breed at-home/remote production and centralized operations to ensure consistently high-level productions in terms of workflows, personnel and technology
■ Clients were able to conduct all data business seamlessly for applications that included centralised graphics and editing, adding more value in terms of managing remote operations
■ Super Bowl 50 exemplified a continued move toward at-home/remote production operations that connect robust onsite facilities with production teams hundreds, even thousands of miles away