The second-best thing about hockey is when someone gets body-slammed into the wall and the consistent brawling on the ice that we all get to watch, safe in our seats. The best thing is something that almost no one knows they’re watching.
In the first two weeks of June, to cover the Stanley Cup Final, ESPN deployed more than 80 cameras, a SkyCam flying over the ice, HDR workflows, alternative broadcasts, remote production resources, and teams spread across multiple cities to bring the games to audiences around the world. Supporting an operation of that scale requires more than cameras and replay servers. It requires a reliable system for managing, moving, and organizing media across the entire production ecosystem.
Enter: One login to rule them all. CMSI Playbook.
Throughout the playoffs and final, CMSI supported ESPN’s media management workflows, helping move content between event sites, ESPN facilities, league partners, and broadcast stakeholders. Through CMSI Playbook, production teams were able to access content libraries, manage workflows, and streamline tasks that would otherwise require navigating multiple systems. CMSI also supported HDR and SDR conversion workflows, helping production teams navigate the complexities of modern multi-format production environments.
A New Tool in a High-Pressure Environment
Built to provide centralized access to production assets, CMSI Playbook gives users the ability to locate content, manage media libraries, and perform workflow tasks from virtually anywhere. During the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the platform proved valuable enough to earn praise from the production team using it every day.
According to ESPN Senior Operations Specialist Brock Wetherbee, “Any time you can allow creativity to flow and all it takes is a quick process of clip, the more opportunity you have to tell stories or feature our athletes.”
Built for Modern Production
The challenges facing live broadcast environments continue to grow. Productions are larger, content demands are higher, and production teams are often distributed across multiple locations.
Tools like CMSI Playbook are designed to address those realities by giving operators, producers, editors, and engineers easier access to the content and workflows they depend on every day.
The Stanley Cup Final provided a real-world proving ground for those capabilities. While viewers saw a seamless broadcast, production teams behind the scenes relied on a combination of people, workflows, and technology to keep content moving at game speed. Although we are (clearly) a fan of brawling, CMSI Playbook has kept the frustration and fighting to a minimum in the control room. It’s an expected consequence of solving an old problem with a new broadcast technology solution.
