Building off the network’s Super Bowl LIII broadcast in February, CBS Sports will expand the use of augmented reality and deploy more high-speed cameras for its NFL coverage this fall.
What remains to be seen is whether CBS will revamp its policy on sports betting. The NFL announced a broad betting data partnership with Sportradar on Monday, and 18 states either already have legal sports betting or have passed legislation that is awaiting enactment. CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said in the prelude to last season’s Super Bowl that “our policy is we don’t discuss gambling information.” On Tuesday, he signaled a softening of that hard line.
“We’re still talking about it,” McManus says. “We have not formulated our plan yet, but it’s under discussion and we’ll have a plan, obviously, by opening day.”
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CBS debuted some on-field AR graphics at the Super Bowl, but executive producer Harold Bryant says new implementations will be within the domain of the studio. “We still want to explore that space and that technology to see how it can enhance our coverage,” he says. “The best place for us to learn about it, to demo it, and then to apply it is in the studio.”
Bryant says there’s no specific plan to use AR for X’s & O’s analysis or other graphical elements. It’s an open invitation for his team to suggest use cases. “The door is open to anything our artists and our producers and designers can come up with,” he says. “Even our announcers—if there’s something they want to do, we’re going to figure it out. We’re going to grow with the technology and use it as much as we can as the season goes along.”
While CBS Sports has no plans for a dedicated 4K Ultra HD broadcast during the regular season, Bryant says the network has still not decided on a postseason plan. Most regular-season games will have more high-speed cameras incorporated into the feed in order to enhance replays. “Adding the super slo-mo is what fans want to see,” Bryant says. “It’s to help tell the story—slow it down, see those fabulous catches, those moves out in the field, crossing the goal line.”
NBC had originally been slated to broadcast Super Bowl LV on Feb. 7, 2021 with CBS taking Super Bowl LVI on Feb. 6, 2022, but in March, the networks agreed to a swap. NBC was motivated to have the Super Bowl in the same season as the 2022 Winter Olympics; CBS was content not to compete against Olympics coverage that month.
The trade broke the typical three-year cycle of Super Bowl broadcasts (with Fox Sports also in the rotation) and reduced the downtime between games for CBS, which has already begun preliminary preparations for Super Bowl LV in 18 months. “We’ve already had our first in-house planning meeting, and we’re going to meet with the NFL, the organizing committee and survey the stadium this fall,” Bryant says.
That was the same timeline CBS Sports followed prior to the most recent Super Bowl, with Bryant making an open call to tech companies to experiment with innovations well in advance of kickoff. He made as many as 10 site visits to Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium to scout locations and plan logistics.
The 2021 Super Bowl will be played at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. CBS has produced a Super Bowl there before—but it was Super Bowl XXXV way back on Jan. 28, 2001.
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