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Grounded: Networks shoot down drones in live coverage for now

It seemed like we were watching the future of television last year as Fox Sports used drones to supplement its live U.S. Open coverage from Chambers Bay and, two months later, CBS Sports and TNT also used drones during their live coverage of the PGA Championship in Whistling Straits.

The drone shots were unique and added high production quality to both telecasts. They offered perspectives not usually seen on television. The further development of drones in live sports telecasts seemed to be a natural path for the technology — for years, sports business executives talked about using drones more frequently in their productions. They were going to be the next big development in sports production.

Drones were part of live coverage by CBS and TNT at the PGA Championship last year.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
But network technology executives put forth a different view, declaring that drones are not ready for prime time, at least not for live video. This year, neither Fox’s coverage of the U.S. Open nor CBS/Turner’s coverage of the PGA Championship will use drones for its live coverage. Producers and tech executives say the planes’ propellers make too much noise, and they aren’t safe enough to use over a crowd yet.

“There aren’t that many locations to use a drone,” said Tom Sahara, Turner Sports’ vice president of operations and technology, who worked on last year’s PGA Championship. “They’re great for novelties now. They’re great for shooting pre-production, like the opening sequences where you see these dramatic shots on empty golf courses. But during a live event? I don’t see the risk management people signing off on that.”

Because of the vast spaces involved with it, golf has become the sport that has seen the most drone coverage. Networks aren’t going to start flying drones inside arenas or stadiums any time soon.

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“You have to do it in a safe environment,” said Ken Aagaard, executive vice president of innovation, research and development for CBS. “You can’t fly drones over crowds. We’ve got to put them in places where we can pre-tape things and it’s safe. As time goes on, my guess is that drones will be more accepted and become safer and able to be used for live sports.”

Neither NBC Sports nor Golf Channel has used drones on its live golf coverage, citing safety concerns. Golf Channel feels restricted by Federal Aviation Administration guidelines that say drones have to stay 3,000 feet from spectators, said Jack Graham, Golf Channel’s vice president of golf events.

“If your only ability at a tournament live is to use it away from the actual action, I don’t think that enhances the broadcast,” Graham said. “Right now, we can enhance a broadcast better, still, through the use of blimps or fixed-wing airplanes.”

Drones have to become quieter. They worked at last year’s golf tournaments because the networks kept them away from the action: Fox flew its drones over Puget Sound and CBS/TNT kept theirs over Lake Michigan. This year’s venues, the U.S. Open’s Oakmont Country Club outside of Pittsburgh and the PGA Championship’s Baltusrol Golf Club in New Jersey, aren’t situated near large bodies of water. Drones would have had to fly over crowds or too close to the golfers, neither of which was an option.

“There’s no place this year where we can fly them without noise issues,” said Michael Davies, Fox Sports’ senior vice president of technical and field operations. “Typically if you can find a place to fly where there is some ambient noise to mask the drone sound, it works. We have had luck at most courses, just not Oakmont.”

For his part, Aagaard preached patience, saying that it sometimes takes decades for certain technologies to take hold. Aagaard told a story about first using Skycam in 1983 at the Orange Bowl — two decades before CBS started using Skycams on NFL games. The NFL tested the technology — a remote-controlled camera suspended by cables over a game — during the 1990s, but the league never warmed up to it.

“The XFL came along and started to use the Skycam in 2001,” Aagaard said. “Everybody saw how great the Skycam shot was during XFL games, and the NFL couldn’t ignore it any longer. So CBS started to use it on NFL games in 2002.”

Skycam technology continues to improve. Soon, Aagaard hopes that camera shots will be able to incorporate virtual reality graphics, something that it’s currently not able to do.

“We are trying to get data on the screen in a meaningful way other than using an all-22 camera,” Aagaard said. “That is an example that all of us are working on right now with the Skycam guys and graphics guys.”

John Ourand can be reached at jourand@sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @Ourand_SBJ.

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