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Television Media Wireless Networking Technology Entertainment Games Hardware IT

NFL's IT Chief Gears Up For His 25th Super Bowl 82

Posted by Soulskill from the i-predict-the-lions-will-somehow-manage-to-lose dept.
BobB-nw writes with this excerpt from NetworkWorld: "NFL IT guru David Port claims he doesn't have a favorite football team, but on Sunday he'll be working his 25th Super Bowl. As the league's vice president of information technology, Port and his IT staff are responsible for building a temporary network to support NFL staff and thousands of journalists during Super Bowl week. Port starts preparing for each Super Bowl two years in advance, working with the city and venues where IT operations and media professionals will be based. More intensive planning starts about 11 months before the big game. Port explained that the NFL essentially built a small data center with IBM blade servers at the temporary headquarters in a local Marriott near the Super Bowl site. 'We built out an infrastructure with approximately 300 computers, PCs and laptops, and wired and wireless networks that are used for NFL core operations, for game production and business operations. Much of it is also for media,' Port said." CNet is running a related story about the technology behind the Super Bowl, focusing on some of the visual effects viewers will see, as well as the hardware that makes everything happen.
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NFL's IT Chief Gears Up For His 25th Super Bowl More

NFL's IT Chief Gears Up For His 25th Super Bowl

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  • Dave is a great guy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Controlio ( 78666 ) on Sunday February 01, 2009 @01:44PM (#26685939)

    Having personally worked with him on SBXL, I can tell you that Dave is a great guy who knows what he's doing. The level of planning is amazing, not to mention the equipment they travel. They bring their own phone network (refusing to use even brand new state-of-the-art switches the house may own), a ridiculous amount of fiber, have fatter data pipes than some small countries, and are completely flexible to individual needs. It's completely night-and-day from any other sports event (including the World Series, Stanley Cup, and the Final Four).

    He also has a bunch of really cool toys. Between him and the FCC, they can pinpoint an unlicensed RF transmitter within 5 feet in under 3 minutes and have it shut down. And yes, this happens multiple times in each super bowl, usually with foreign media.

    • so this toy you speak of, what exactly do you call an illegal RF detector?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Leetum ( 1255228 )
        Handheld portable radio, tuned to the frequency in question, and a directional antenna. When signal's stronger, antenna's pointing at the source of the issue. Get two or three people working it, can triangulate the source pretty quickly. A lot of amateur radio operators do this sort of thing for fun, its called a "fox hunt".

        • Handheld, "body block" is as good or better than a directional antenna. Only one null, and no big things to carry.

          Mobile, you'll have an array and some DSP to get that nice arrow on your dash. Combine two cars or just multiple measurements over time with GPS and you can get the location before you even arrive.

    • So why not just transmit over the cell network?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by bru_master ( 312436 )

      I Worked for Dave and crew at the last Superbowl in Phoenix. I was the wireless vendor that the Superbowl hired for the outdoor wireless. Everything that Controlio says is true. He is a great guy, they have there act together and he is a good man to work for. He led the entire site from weeks before to the week after. Three weeks later I received a hand written thank you card and a gift from Dave. In a world of thankless days, I have kept the thank you note on my desk from Dave Port, He seems to have this g

  • It takes him two years? Wow. Not.

    MLB does this with just a few days of notice for the Division and League playoffs and a week or so for the Series.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Kaleo ( 1041478 )
      The SB is the most watched entertainment even in the US. Every year. And you want to compare it with MLB? What a joke. Color me unimpressed.

      • Doesn't change the facts, no matter how you spin it. He takes two years, MLB does it multiple times in the span of six weeks. No matter how many people watch it, there's still the same number of networks, newspapers, etc... etc...

  • I knew it! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Port starts preparing for each Super Bowl two years in advance...

    I just knew football was rigged!

  • Pointless article (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 01, 2009 @01:45PM (#26685955)

    Can I please get back the 5 minutes that I spent reading the article?. he article had no details about the uplink to the internet/ISP. No details as to the number of hits the web server can handle. No information (not even looking for details) about the firewall.. just a pointless article.

  • Actually... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Vertana ( 1094987 ) on Sunday February 01, 2009 @01:48PM (#26685985) Homepage

    Offhand I can say that the NFL's needs are FAR greater in respect to media needs during the Superbowl as opposed to the World Series, but just in case, I found a link [ning.com] in about 5 seconds on Google.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I want to add a few things I have noticed. In the world series, you can lose one game by a very large margin, say 20, and still be the winner. And if the teams are equally good, you have SEVEN! games over which the decision is made. In the superbowl, the game will be finished today. That is it, no do over, no bad day. If you want to watch the superbowl, it is one day and one day only. The first few games of the world series aren't interesting to many, and if one team is better, the later games aren't

      • That's (in my opinion) part of why the Super Bowl kicks the living hell out of the World Series in the Nielsen ratings, as well as international interest. If I haven't given a shit about baseball all year, I'm not going to start liking it enough to watch seven games. One, sure. Not seven.

    • It would be nice if your article supported your claim. But it not only fails to support it, it utterly and completely fails to address IT needs at all. (Here's a hint for you: The number of people watching has zip point zero to do with the IT infrastructure required - the same networks, newspapers, magazines, etc... are at both.)

  • This years Superbowl is being shown on BBC 1. Other (non-us) stations coverage of American Football is funny enough with the pundits having to cover up all the extra US ad time. It should be hilarious watching a new BBC team try and fill every second. I wonder if they will resort to showing, and commentating on, the ads that actually attract such a massive percentage of the viewing figures.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rob1980 ( 941751 )
      They should run the ads instead of covering them up, that's half the fun in watching the Super Bowl right there! (Although probably not this year, as companies are [or should be] looking for ways to cut back on expenses.)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Lershac ( 240419 )

        (Although probably not this year, as companies are [or should be] looking for ways to cut back on expenses.)

        FUCK THAT. If your company is doing well enough, and thinks that investing in some high profile advertising will increase their profits, more power to em.

        This attitude that we should all be looking for ways to cut back is just fear mongering bullshit. If no one takes risks and tries something new different or risky, then progress is retarded. You want the economy to revive? Correct the problems in the laws and then sit back and let business digest the changes. After a cycle of digestion, investment and

    • Re:No Ads (Score:5, Insightful)

      by carlzum ( 832868 ) on Sunday February 01, 2009 @05:49PM (#26687747)
      The Super Bowl without ads is like an adult movie on American network TV. Even avid football fans find the game boring. The neutral-site stadium is filled with disinterested corporate types, the pace is even slower than a typical NFL game, and the teams tend to play very conservative. The game must be unwatchable for anyone without a rooting and/or monetary interest.

      So why do so many Americans watch it? The ads, parties, beer, salted snacks, and gambling. Don't get me wrong, Americans love football, but Super Bowl Sunday has evolved into a national holiday. Football is as important to the Super Bowl as Jesus is to Christmas.

      • I don't know about everyone else, but this doesn't seem so insightful after the game last night.

        I mean, your second point is right, but the game was far from unwatchable.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by carlzum ( 832868 )
          Well, it was insightful for the first three quarters at least :) This is two exciting finishes in a row, which has to make late-game advertisers happy. With a few minutes on the clock, the conservative game plans went out the window. I live about 10 miles north of the stadium and saw a lot of true Steelers fans there. I'll concede that the game and the crowd were much better than most Super Bowls.

    • Do they really show it live, which would be the middle of the night in England? Otherwise, if it's taped and aired the next day they could just edit it down to a more reasonable length.

      I also can't see them showing the ads too. The ads are copyrighted so it's not like they can just rebroadcast them. While many companies probably wouldn't mind the free airtime, it would probably still be a mess to secure all the rights and do everything proper.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jez9999 ( 618189 )

      As a Brit, could I please beg you to please find a way to get NFL out of the UK? It's the most tedious, inane sport I've ever had the misfortune to tune into from time to time. Idiotic commentators calling players 'superman' etc. don't help. There are SO many more entertaining, worthy sports that don't get coverage that it's really quite depressing that the BBC has started to cover this utter shit.

      • Re:No Ads (Score:4, Insightful)

        by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Monday February 02, 2009 @09:22AM (#26693771)
        Most of us Americans feel the same way about soccer (or football, if you prefer). Watching a soccer game is like watching a seemingly never-ending slog towards someone FINALLY scoring a single fucking goal. But, then, we all see our favorite sports through our own eyes. To each his own.

      • It's the most tedious, inane sport I've ever had the misfortune to tune into from time to time.

        How have you managed to live in the UK and not accidentally tuned into a cricket match?

  • Although the reference is nerdy, he has a great name for a guy in charge of networking.

  • I've long been curious as to whether major stadiums truly have reliable backup power? I know from first-hand experience many minor league stadiums certainly don't.

    It would be interesting to read what they do (or don't do) to handle unexpected power interruptions at the Super Bowl.

    While I figure the IT folks have their end covered, what about the TV folks (I assume they run their own power?), and more to the point, the field lighting and other equipment in the stadium itself, which draw massive amounts of po

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sahonen ( 680948 )
      TV trucks for major shows like this have backup generators. Cameras and microphones are powered from the truck, so the whole show can keep going if the stadium blacks out, though with no lights in the stadium or the announcer booth there wouldn't be much to look at.

      "Routine" shows will run off stadium power since it's cheaper. I've got a couple stories of this backfiring, one of which I was present for... First story is a major entertainment awards show, the truck required 200 Amps of service, so that's

  • outsource the superbowl (Score:3, Funny)

    by weighn ( 578357 ) <weighn@gmailOPENBSD.com minus bsd> on Sunday February 01, 2009 @06:34PM (#26688015) Homepage
    It's my first superbowl (well, could be). Tried to watch before but just couldn't get to grips with all the stops and starts.

    Anyway, go Ben Graham - 1st Australian to play in a superbowl final.

    Next year, how about you outsource all the tech to Putin's Russia. You know, just as an international gesture of goodwill ... MalwareBowl

  • hope it will be a nice game

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