Important partners on the projects include Alpha Video, Anthony James Partners, WJHW
At 25, Kaseya Center is in the middle of the NBA pack in the age department. The Miami Heat — a three-time NBA champion and an Eastern Conference representative in two of the past five NBA Finals — needed a complete tech overhaul at their home venue on the shore of Biscayne Bay. Taking a walk-not-run approach, the organization flipped its control room to an IP-based environment prior to last season and erected a centerhung featuring a nearly 50-ft. Flame Ball with 2,525 sq. ft. of LED.
“This entire project has been under way for several years after starting in 2016,” says Ed Filomia, senior director, broadcast services, Miami Heat. “It has been a learning process that didn’t really start until the end of last season, but now we feel like we’re ready to run.”
Long Time Coming: Eight-Year Control-Room Project Comes to Fruition
A ceiling-to-floor glass window allows the crew in the control room to see the entire lower bowl.
Most renovation plans materialize through dedication to a goal, but, for Filomia and his game-presentation/broadcast-services crew, patience was truly a virtue as the once aspirational dream was transformed into a tangible work space. Sights were set long before Jimmy Butler joined the Heat — he was still playing for the team that drafted him, the Chicago Bulls — and three years before Dwyane Wade retired in 2019.
Because the existing control room had been built in 2009 during the transition to HD, plans called for grandiose upgrades. These included a new private network for video-feed ingest and distribution to lower-bowl LEDs and other workflows, including IPTV, media-asset management, lighting, internal editing on Avid and Adobe systems, and the Dante audio infrastructure. Also planned were an IP-based and 1080p HDR-capable control room and a refreshed centerhung display with the latest and greatest videoboard technology.
The new control room at Kaseya Center during Brooklyn Nets vs. Miami Heat game on Nov. 16, 2023.
Once approved in 2018, the project had a start date in the 2019-20 fiscal year, but the COVID-19 pandemic hit just as the work was ready to begin. Construction was halted for a full year, but talks resumed in 2021, coincident with increased enthusiasm after the club made it all the way to the championship round of the memorable NBA Bubble in 2020.
The first phase centered on the $50 million network and was completed in April 2023. A few months later, changeover of the control room was delayed by another battle for the Larry O’Brien Trophy against the eventual champion Denver Nuggets.
“We had to push that whole portion back by six weeks, which wouldn’t allow us to be set to go by the next season’s home opener,” says Filomia. “We had to produce these games out of a production truck for the first few games [of the 2023-24 season]. When the umbilical cord for our production is on the press level and we’re trying to do something by the truck dock, it isn’t easy.”
Temporary Setup: Crew Works from Local Production Truck for a Handful of Games
Many professional teams strive to pop champagne bottles and celebrate a championship, but postseason runs are rarely ideal for in-venue production crews during a massive tech reset. Forced to adapt, the organization turned to local mobile-unit provider Sinemat to supply a single production truck to house the crew while the control room was finished. The truck pulled up to Kaseya Center on Monday, Oct. 2, just under a week before tip-off of the Miami Heat’s 2023-24 home schedule.
A Grass Valley K-Frame is the operation’s primary production switcher.
“We rolled with three cameras and our [Ross] XPression graphics but had someone sitting just inside the truck dock with their own set of replays that were connected to our Evertz DreamCatchers in the control room,” Filomia explains. “We used the truck mainly for switching and for corralling all the video sources and playback graphics. Once the truck arrived, the vision was to not use this production model more than once, so we made sure to set it up the way we wanted. Once we were ready to launch the control room, we’d break everything down and send the truck on its way.”
A total of seven games were produced via the temporary setup in 2023: the annual Red, White, and Pink Game for cancer research on Oct. 9; three preseason games on Oct. 10, 15, and 18; Opening Night vs. the Detroit Pistons on Oct. 25; Nov. 1 vs. the Brooklyn Nets; and an NBA Cup matchup vs. the Washington Wizards on Nov. 3. The Sinemat truck was initially slated to leave on Nov. 10 but left Nov. 7, the day after the crew worked its first official game in its new digs: against former player Lebron James and the Los Angeles Lakers.
During the development process, Filomia reached out for advice from industry peers Barclays Center VP, Arena Technology, Kyle Love and United Center Senior Director, Scoreboard Operations, Sergio Lozano. As production lead of the group, he also relied on the technical expertise of two colleagues: Director, Broadcast Services, Blake Engman was critical in designing the layout of both the private network and the control room, and Director, Arena Video Production, Kurt Doster was the voice that instilled confidence that the new workflows would indeed work.
“Kurt knew we had to rip the Band-Aid off and get to it,” says Filomia. “It took about 20 games into the season before we got a full grasp on HDR and how to paint our cameras correctly, but we’re in a much better position now.”
A NewTek TriCaster TC2 is backup production switcher.
Another critical partner in the project was systems integrator Alpha. This wasn’t Alpha’s typical assignment: it generally had all summer long to put things together. Its team arrived in Miami in late September — an extremely short timeline — but the project was completed without a lot of games missed. The Heat’s previous show deploying six cameras (five hard, one handheld) was enhanced with three additional handhelds and 10 POVs. Besides elevating production quality, the increase in equipment serves up a hefty dose of competitive advantage.
“The first thing we noticed,” Filomia explains, “was the replay system immediately paying dividends. Late in the game last season, there was a critical replay that we got on the videoboard really fast. [Head coach Erik] Spoelstra saw it, called timeout, challenged the call, and got the call overturned.”
Driving this new era of production is an impressive suite of solutions. At its core, the space features IP switching by Juniper Networks and router orchestration by Imagine Communications Selenio network processor. On the front bench, Grass Valley K-Frame with Kayenne panel is the main production switcher; NewTek TriCaster TC2 is the backup switcher. Other gear includes Evertz DreamCatcher replay and video playback, Ross XPression graphics, ENCO Systems HotShot audio playback, Daktronics Show Control for the LED-content–management system, and comms by Riedel Artist and Bolero. Outside the control room, video is acquired by Grass Valley LDX150 and Sony PXW-Z750 cameras; Canon 110X, 45X, 24X, and 17X lenses; and Panasonic UE160 indoor PTZ cameras and UR100 outdoor PTZ cameras.
Cross-Country Tour: Filomia Explores Different Venues To Find the Right LED
Evertz DreamCatcher replay servers allow the coaching staff to challenge close calls with more clarity.
During the years before any new hardware was installed or any software was brought online, Filomia went on a little research road trip. Checking the venues of the league’s other 29 teams, he weighed each centerhung display against certain criteria: how it embodies character, represents the city and the franchise, and has a high level of functionality for fans in the seats. The top three were the Detroit Pistons’ car engine at The Palace of Auburn Hills, the Charlotte Hornets’ beehive at Spectrum Center, and the Toronto Raptors/Maple Leafs’ maple leaf at Scotiabank Arena. The common denominator of all these structures was that they were designed by Anthony James Partners (AJP), a familiar entity in the sports and entertainment space. Filomia knew that the project needed AJP’s creative input, and once AJP Co-Founder/CEO Michael Rowe came on board, the brainstorming process went into full swing.
The result is a physical behemoth featuring one of the league’s most unusual elements: an LED representation of the Heat’s iconic Flame Ball. Equipped with multiple zones of content and also capable of presenting one large image, the Flame Ball has 2.5-mm pixel spacing and is surrounded by four 19.5- x 29.5-ft. primary video screens, two 4- x 213-ft. upper LED rings with 3.9-mm pixel spacing, and four 10- x 21-ft. underbelly displays with 2.5-mm pixel spacing. These displays increase the venue’s total LED surface area to 7,440 sq. ft. and 55 million pixels.
“We wanted something that was going to fit the building,” notes Filomia. “After going through 24 renditions, we settled on this one. The Flame Ball is going to give us the opportunity to do a lot of different things. I look at it like Sphere in Las Vegas, where the main purpose isn’t necessarily for advertisements but for creating content that will make viewers look at it.”
Sony camera shading corrects the image of the operation’s Sony PXW-Z750s.
The WJHW-supervised and Daktronics-installed centerhung packs a strong punch with the other LED displays in the building: four 17- x 44-ft. corner displays with 5.9-mm pixel spacing, and four 1- x 1.5-ft. basket stanchion displays, 12 3- x 5-ft. event floor-clock displays, and, above the vomitories, 30 displays ranging from 1.5 ft. to 3 ft. high and 5 ft. to 11.5 ft. wide, each with 2.5-mm pixel spacing.
Overall, the venue now has 61 LED displays with more than 11,000 sq. ft. of LED. This is a 585% increase from the previous displays.
Giving Fans What They Want: Tech Upgrades Incorporate Stats for More-Informed Viewing
The centerhung made its unofficial debut at this year’s edition of the Red, White, and Pink Game, which means that Filomia and company are getting it ready for two key upcoming dates: the first preseason game vs. the New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday, Oct. 13 and Opening Night vs. the Orlando Magic on Wednesday, Oct. 23. Although the new Flame Ball and other elements will have fans’ eyes dancing and darting, the fans will be comfortable with the layout of LED displays since it’s similar to the old centerhung.
“We’re continuing with this model because we want to keep that familiarity,” he explains. “We have a lot more canvas since we went from 32 in. high to 48 in. high for clock and score, and the diameter of the rings is 60 ft. compared with 25 ft., but they’re still in the same position.”
This increased LED real estate lets fans dive deeper into the game with enhanced analytics and real-time data and information.
“We came up with new templates for stats, but we needed to get them approved by executives within our organization,” says Filomia. “We also sat down with Spoelstra and associate head coach Chris Quinn to make sure that we gave them what they wanted to see since they’ve never had LEDs on the underbelly of the centerhung. For years, Heat fans have been craving more stats, [according to] focus groups, so we’re giving them what they want. The corner videoboards are also much larger, so it’ll be pretty cool to deliver more info to them.”
After Opening Night, the Miami Heat will host two more home games in October: vs. the Detroit Pistons on Monday, Oct. 28 at 7:30 p.m. ET and the New York Knicks on Wednesday, Oct. 30 at 7:30 p.m. Fans will have a chance to experience the new centerhung multiple times during the regular season, with five games in November, six games in December, eight games in January, three games in February, 12 games in March, and four games in April.
