WBZ SPORTS HUB STUDIO PROJECT, ULTIMATE TEAM SPORT

Examples of team sports are basketball, baseball, football, hockey, and, for reasons that will make sense to anyone who has seen the back of a TOC rack, we’ll add studio projects.

There is no finish line without a dash of luck, an occasional punt, and a whole lot of teamwork. That’s true for any studio project, and it was especially true for 98.5 The Sports Hub, Boston’s flagship station for football, hockey, basketball, and soccer that moved into a new studio space a while back, along with seven other Beasley stations.

In the run up to a new 25,000-square-foot studio in Waltham, the stations were operating out of a modern WheatNet IP audio networked facility in Dorchester. Here, LXE console surfaces put in 18-hour days (read When Faders Fly) covering games back to back for the New England Patriots, Boston Bruins, Boston Celtics, New England Revolution and Boston Red Sox—all with commentaries, plays, and replays bouncing between the booth at the field, the analysts downline in a studio, and the live action on the field.

How did Beasley Boston keep all that on track while moving seven stations and WBZ FM 98.5 The Sports Hub to new digs in between the Celtics playoffs and the Patriots training camp?

Teamwork is how.

Meet the team: Beasley Boston DOE Dennis Knudsen and his team of engineers; intelligent AoIP networking by WheatNet with AoIP expertise by our tech team at Wheatstone; studio design by Steve Burns and his team at V Three Studios; systems integration by the team at Inrush Broadcast Services; and additional AoIP scripting by Chris Penny at Agile Broadcast.

The result was a thoughtfully laid out studio core of 17 on-air and production studios networked together through WheatNet IP with some 20 AoIP control surfaces of various types (LXE, L Series and Sideboards) moved over from the Dorchester facility. Networked in were WideOrbit automation and more than 40 codecs ranging in brand and capacity that now keeps The Sports Hub hopping with live sports coverage from the field.

From two control rooms and a horseshoe shaped set with six talent positions, The Sports Hub is managing overlapping live coverage for the Boston Bruins, New England Patriots, Boston Celtics and New England Revolution. Five key AoIP designs make this possible:

Dual-redundant, mirrored WheatNet control rooms for fast switching between sporting events, each with their own delay, local IDs, and breaks for everything from live color commentary and highlights to interviews from the sidelines.
Custom touchscreens above every LXE console for quick network sends to the syndication headend along with the correct automation tones and triggers for distribution to Patriot, Bruins, and Celtics affiliate stations. The tap-through routing menu was designed using ScreenBuilder tools and is within easy reach of the surface controls.
Automatic mix-minus, GPIO logic and associated codecs for saving precious seconds when potting up a live report from the field. The right mix-minus automatically follows the right source, whether it’s down the hall, in the booth, or across a link, along with the relevant GPIO logic for triggering mics or breaks. Even connections associated with those sources follow along for things like getting the right return feed with the right Tieline or Comrex codec, all courtesy of WheatNet IP intelligent networking.
Tracks piped through the WheatNet talkback system studio-to-studio so sportscasters can quickly pivot from covering live plays one minute to commercial reads the next, all in one sitting.
Close collaboration between producers and hosts through LXE shared fader tracking and controls. The LXE console surface in the talk studio mirrors the state of the active control room’s LXE console surface, down to the position of physical faders, making it possible for operators in both studios to seamlessly share mixing controls. Custom scripting was originally provided by Chris Penny of Agile Broadcast and updated for the move to Waltham. Other panels were scripted using Wheatstone’s ScreenBuilder tools by Mike Dorris of Inrush for monitoring EAS, VoxPro and other ancillary equipment.

The Sports Hub went live from the new studios in late 2022, just after the Celtics playoffs and right before Patriots training camp, along with WBOS-FM (Rock 92.9), WBQT-FM (Hot 96.9), WKLB-FM (Country 102.5), WROR-FM (105.7 WROR), and WRCA AM/FM (Bloomberg Radio).

Click the images below for a gallery of photos.