Harrison Butker has earned a reputation as one of the NFL’s great kickers. The two-time Super Bowl champion caught all 14 snaps in the Kansas City Chiefs’ playoff victory this season and has become as reliable as Stephen Curry in his art.
But ironically, it was Butker’s missed field goal in last year’s Super Bowl that gave CBS Sports vice president of remote technology operations Jason Cohen an epiphany.
Butker’s 42-yard field goal shot hit the top of the left upright with 2:24 left in the first quarter of Super Bowl 57 between the Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. . (Fox broadcaster Kevin Burkhardt, describing the play: “So a good at-bat ends with a ‘doink!'”)
A bad kick and it’s still a tie.
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As it happened, Cohen and CBS Sports Vice President of Engineering Mike Francis were sitting in the end zone where the penalty was missed. Cohen and Francis looked at each other excitedly as the sound of the miss echoed through their area.
“The ball bounced off the pole and made a really loud sound – a ‘boom’ sound,” Cohen recalled this week. “We looked at each other and I said, ‘We need a camera on a pole.'”
After Butker fumbled, Cohen immediately texted Blake Jones, the NFL’s senior broadcast director, who was at work. He excitedly told Jones he wanted to put a camera on the pole when CBS broadcasts this year’s Super Bowl. Jones was amused and immediately texted Cohen back, saying they should talk after the Super Bowl.
After months of planning and testing, we built a set of “doink” cameras for Sunday’s game. CBS’ broadcast will feature a total of six 4K cameras that have been inserted into the columns in both end zones at Allegiant Stadium. There are two cameras on each column, facing the field at a 45-degree angle. The other is facing inward, capturing the side profile of the ball as it flies by. They feature high-resolution zoom capabilities and ultra-slow-motion playback. CBS will be able to do highlight replays of any field goal or extra point, but the dream is for someone to hit the post.
“The doink camera doesn’t just shoot upright,” said Harold Bryant, CBS Sports executive producer and executive vice president of production. “If the shot is tight, we’ll set up three different angles on each post so we can see it in three different spots.”
After texting Jones, Cohen immediately began digging around on the Internet and found a company called Sportsfield Specialities, which designs and manufactures sports construction equipment, including football goal posts. He sent a LinkedIn request to the company’s sales director during the competition. Cohen and his team ended up spending months drawing engineering drawings and schematics to ensure the integrity of the columns was not compromised. Sportsfield helped CBS with pole design and drilling. Cohen said Fletcher Sports, a professional camera capture company that often works with CBS Sports, designed the inserts that go into the uprights and figured out how to mount the cameras.
The proof-of-concept was initially obtained during a preseason game between the New York Jets and Tampa Bay Buccaneers on August 19 at MetLife Stadium. Cohen and his staff consulted with kicking analyst Jay Feely to find out where he thought might be a good place to put the camera.
“We came up with our ideas early and we developed a pre-season plan,” Cohen said. “The NFL has had time to evaluate the program and then provide us with feedback after preseason testing.”
The next live test is October’s Week 6 game between the New England Patriots and Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium. It took a lot of trial and error to get to this point, but the Doink camera’s debut on television was a success.
Ryan Galvin, lead replay producer for this year’s Super Bowl, explains how the Doink camera replay process was actually implemented. During the Super Bowl, production specialist Amanda Smerage will run a machine that controls six cameras from an upright position. They call it “DOINK” in production trucks. Steve McKee normally handles production for the team of Andrew Catalon, Matt Ryan and Tiki Barber, but now serves as replay producer for this year’s Super Bowl , he will monitor these cameras. If DOINK created something memorable, he would remind Galvin.
The Doink Cam is mounted inside the post, providing a unique perspective for field goals and extra point attempts. CBS will place three on each goal post. (Courtesy Jason Cohen)
With over 60 replay sources at his disposal, Galvin ultimately had to decide which replays to use on the fly throughout the game, including doink cameras. Galvin loves the technology, but is quick to point out that ultimately you have to make the game in front of you and rely on the people around you.
“It can be tricky for the audience to have a new look,” said Galvin, who will be playing in his seventh Super Bowl. “Is it going to be a little confusing? Can people ‘get it’ in six seconds?” I’m not smart enough to answer this question. I know Jason Cohen and our entire operations team are working extremely hard to fill the toolbox of cameras and replayers for our crew. My job is to get the best replay at the right time. “
Jones said the NFL is always trying to find the next broadcast innovation. For example, pylon cam is now standard for all broadcast partners of major NFL games. The Super Bowl often provides the opportunity to do something unique, and sometimes what debuts at the Super Bowl can become standard in game production.
Ultimately, such broadcast innovations are dictated by the networks as they have to invest budget and R&D. If viewers instantly fall in love with a shot, the NFL’s other media partners are sure to take notice.
“In the past, sky cameras were only seen during big prime-time games,” Jones said. “Now we’re moving into a more regular Sunday afternoon game. We’ll learn a lot after this week. In the end, these are network decisions that we support and facilitate, rather than necessarily saying you have to have camera X, Y and Z. It’s a very unique use case where you need a certain part of the game to happen a certain way to get that wow factor. It will be interesting to see how this all unfolds.”
“There’s no history as to what is the perfect camera to capture the perfect move,” Cohen said. “Part of it is luck. Where is the ball likely to hit? I’ll tell you, we were in preseason in August. We put the camera in different positions during the game and the game in October, and we looked at every possible angle, trying to figure out the pros and cons. … We came up with heights, angles and wide shots that we thought were appropriate.”
The Doink cam is in place, ready to go inside the goal post, with a plexiglass cover. (Courtesy Jason Cohen)
Cohen said tests showed it wasn’t just an image of a ball flying toward the viewer, but the viewer needed to see another goal post as a frame of reference to see if the ball went through. Sportsfield Specialties was able to get the cameras where CBS wanted them through custom installations. There is a camera cylinder tube with an unbreakable piece of Plexiglas inside that slides into the pole through the rear opening of the post. “Think of it like there’s a little door or a chamber behind the column, and this little camera slot kind of goes inward,” Cohen said. “Then a curved piece of Plexiglas is pushed forward so that it is completely flush with the rest of the column.”
On Wednesday, Doink cameras and appropriate wiring were placed inside the uprights at Allegiant Stadium. Testing is scheduled for Thursday evening, when final on-site installation will take place. There will also be a preview on Friday. Cohen said he will be in a CBS production truck with other CBS executives during Sunday’s Super Bowl. He admits that he supports fools.
“Listen, you never root for someone else’s pain, and I don’t want to bring bad karma into the world and hope that the player who shot the shot doesn’t do their job,” Cohen said. “But it’s such an innovation that if someone hits the post and our cameras get a good look at it, it’ll make us really happy with all the work and effort we put into inventing that angle. So when they do that week I’ll definitely be holding my breath when I line up to play football.”
deeper
Super Bowl broadcast Q&A: Jim Nantz, Tony Romo and Tracy Wolfson discuss the big game
(Top photo of monitor showing “Doink Cam” view during preseason testing between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New York Jets: Courtesy of Jason Cohen)
