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Customer Story · Live Sports Production

FOX Sports builds a unified platform for next-generation remote production

FOX Sports selected Appear as a strategic technology partner, deploying the X Platform across its REMI infrastructure, a major global soccer event in the Americas and its Jewel Events production systems — one flexible foundation that scales from compact field kits to premium live broadcasts.

FOX SportsLive sports broadcasting
Appear X Platform · X20 & X5Solution deployed
North AmericaRegion
104 / 39
Live matches contributed across 39 days of summer soccer coverage
60
JPEG XS contribution paths over dual diverse 100 Gbps circuits
2022-7
Seamless dual-path protection — packet loss invisible to viewers
X20 + X5
One platform spanning encode / decode and commentator workflows
01The Challenge

One architecture for every kind of live production

FOX Sports produces live sport at enormous scale and variety — from field kits and mobile units to its most demanding premium events. To move faster, it set out to retire legacy contribution and processing systems in favour of a single, flexible foundation.

Heading into its most complex summer of live sport, FOX Sports needed infrastructure that could adapt across venues with very different connectivity profiles, while holding the highest standards of performance and reliability constant.

What FOX Sports manages end-to-end

  • Remote production (REMI) across field kits and mobile trucks
  • Standards-based IP contribution for a major summer soccer event
  • Highest-profile national broadcasts via Jewel Events
  • Distributed, synchronised commentator workflows
02The Solution

Three capabilities that unify the workflow

FOX Sports adopted Appear’s X Platform as a common foundation across its production models. The impact shows up in flexibility, resilience and density.

01

One platform, every workflow

JPEG XS over SMPTE ST 2110 for ultra-low latency, plus low-latency HEVC and SRT for constrained or variable networks — all on a single platform, so teams pick the right approach venue by venue.

The right codec for every venue

02

Broadcast-grade resilience

Dual red and blue circuits with SMPTE 2022-7 seamless protection. If a path is lost, traffic reroutes automatically with no interruption visible to viewers.

No dropped frames on air

03

Density that scales

High-density X20 chassis power the REMI and Jewel Events environments, while compact X5 systems let remote commentators receive feeds and deliver synchronised commentary.

From field kit to premium event

How it connects
The FOX Sports live production signal path, end to end
Stadium venue with live camera coverage
01 · Venue
Venue / field kit
Live camera feeds acquired at the venue

→

Appear X20 high-density chassis
X20 · Encode
Appear X20 — Encode
JPEG XS or low-latency HEVC in the field
Explore the X20 →

→


Path A
Path B

02 · Transport

Transport
Dual diverse 100 Gbps · SMPTE ST 2110 · 2022-7

→

Appear X20 high-density chassis
X20 · Decode
Appear X20 — Decode
At the IBC and central operations
Explore the X20 →

→
Broadcast production control room
03 · Production
Production
Control rooms and transmission facilities

Where Appear sits: the X20 handles encode and decode across the chain — one high-density chassis per site — with seamless SMPTE 2022-7 protection so path failures stay invisible to viewers.

A flexible, standards-based deployment

A single platform lets FOX Sports choose the optimal approach for each environment — from JPEG XS over SMPTE ST 2110 for ultra-low latency, to HEVC and SRT where networks are more constrained — while keeping production workflows consistent across venues.

The infrastructure spans Appear X20 chassis across FOX Sports’ REMI and Jewel Events environments, alongside Appear X5 systems supporting distributed commentator workflows. Following the summer soccer event, FOX Sports plans to redeploy the same infrastructure across other major national broadcasts, including American football and baseball, maximising long-term value.

At a glance

Customer
FOX Sports
Industry
Live sports broadcasting
Deployed
X Platform · X20 & X5
Functions
Encode / decode, JPEG XS, HEVC, SRT, ST 2110
Pillars
HRP REMI · summer soccer · Jewel Events
Region
North America
Use case
Next-generation remote production
03The Result

The real-world impact

One platform now carries FOX Sports’ most demanding live productions — and keeps paying off after the season ends.

Seamless

Automatic rerouting keeps feeds on air with no viewer-visible interruption.

No dropped frames on air

Unified

One platform spanning REMI, Jewel Events and premium live productions.

REMI · Jewel Events · Summer soccer

Reusable

Infrastructure redeployed across future national broadcasts for long-term value.

American football & baseball next

“

By adopting Appear across our REMI workflows, Jewel Events productions and summer soccer coverage, we are creating a flexible production architecture that can support the scale and complexity of sports broadcasting today.

Rob ReesVice President, Live Production Engineering, FOX Sports

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