NEP Group and their team at Bexel today revealed how the organizations have supported multiple US broadcast and media outlets at this year’s NCAA tournament, leading into this weekend’s Final Four Championship Games, where they will continue to provide significant technical expertise, equipment and outside broadcast technology.
NEP’s US Mobile Units division has deployed 10 mobile units throughout the tournament to provide production facilities and equipment to clients at multiple locations. The CBS television network and CBS Sports Network are each utilizing five trucks, which have been traveling between six states over the last few weeks. For its Final Four coverage in San Antonio, Turner Sports will use five trucks in total, two shared with CBS. For Turner Sports’ off-site studio show at Tony Roma’s restaurant, two trucks will be serving up the production resources, while two are used for TNT’s TeamCast coverage.
“NEP is the place where high-profile broadcasters come for the best in mobile sports production,” said Glen Levine, President of NEP U.S. “With 10 trucks in use for the NCAA Tournament by the CBS television network, the CBS Sports Network, and Turner Sports, these broadcasters, as well as others we support, know that we have the capacity and technical talent for any single event or large series of events. This is what we do, day in and day out -- making sure that broadcasters have the facilities they need to produce programs that viewers love.”
For coverage being broadcast by CBS, Bexel has provided broad range of equipment, including Sony HDC-4300 super slow-motion camera systems, multiple 12-channel and 8-channel EVS slow-motion replay systems and 18 VizRT graphics systems, initially deployed across eight sites at the tournament’s opening.
Both CBS and Turner Sports will be providing coverage of the Men’s Final Four Championship. Bexel will support CBS and Turner through a massive fiber deployment with transport hardware and cable, including on-site fiber engineering support at the Alamodome in San Antonio. In addition, there will be a 16-channel IPTV compound network with engineering support, EVS network support equipment, Camera Corps Q-Ball POV camera systems and multiple on-site editing systems with editing support, as well as Vizrt graphics systems, an assortment of wide angle and large studio lenses and several teleprompters.
“Bexel has always been and continues to be an equipment rental and support powerhouse in the broadcast and media industries,” said Lee Estroff, VP of Strategic Accounts, Bexel. “The NCAA Tournament is a major undertaking for us, but even with the large inventory of equipment and support personnel that we are providing for broadcasters, we are continuing to serve our existing clients, and even taking on new clients. At Bexel, we have plenty of resources to be able to satisfy the needs of the industries we serve.”
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