Skycam is a computer-controlled, stabilized, cable-suspended camera system. The system is maneuvered through three dimensions in the open space over a playing area of a stadium or arena by computer-controlled cable-drive system. It is responsible for bringing video game–like camera angles to television sports coverage. The camera package weighs less than and can travel at .
History
Skycam was invented by Garrett Brown (also the inventor of the Steadicam) in the early 1980s. The patent for Skycam was assigned to Skycam, Inc. In 2004, Skycam, Inc. was acquired by Winnercomm, Inc. In 2009, Winnercomm was acquired by Outdoor Channel Holdings, Inc., parent company of the Outdoor Channel. In 2013, Outdoor Channel was acquired by Kroenke Sports & Entertainment.
In 2015, a federal lawsuit was filed by Nic Salomon, the former President of Skycam, claiming intentional interference with contractual relations related to the 2013 acquisition by Kroenke Sports & Entertainment. The case was allowed to proceed by the court in the Northern District of Texas in August 2017. It was then dismissed in February 2019, weeks before a jury trial. In March 2019, Salomon appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In April 2021, the Court of Appeals ruled in Kroenke Sports' favor.
Despite the dispute, Skycam remains an important technology for the presentation of football content.
Usage
While "Skycam" is a registered trademark, the term "Skycam" is often used generically for cable-suspended camera system, and competing systems like CableCam (invented by Jim Rodnunsky but also a subsidiary of Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, LLC), Spidercam and Robycam 3D. Systems like it have been in limited use since the mid-1980s when the technology was first patented, but until the mid-1990s progress was slow due to limitations in computer and servo motor technology as well as cost (a 2001 estimate pegged the cost to use the Skycam at $30,000 per event). All of these systems began seeing more widespread use in the 21st century.
American football
Skycam was first publicly used in fall 1984, at a preseason National Football League (NFL) game in San Diego between the Chargers and 49ers, televised by CBS. NBC debuted the first wire-flown remote-controlled camera used in sports coverage at the 1985 Orange Bowl.
The XFL was one of the first leagues to make extensive use of the Skycam as a primary camera angle for broadcasts when it debuted in spring 2001. Traditional camera angles were used more prominently after the first week of play; the "Xcam" (as it was known in that league's broadcasts) remained in regular use throughout the rest of the season.
ESPN first used Skycam in 2001 for an NFL pre-season telecast and then consistently in 2002 for Sunday Night Football broadcasts. Since then, ESPN and sister-network ABC have made widespread use of Skycam for NCAA football, Monday Night Football, and Super Bowl XXXVII. The networks have regularly offered a Skycam-only internet broadcast of many of its more important sportscasts under the Megacast brand.
CBC used a CableCam in their broadcasts of the 2005 and 2006 Grey Cups.
On October 22, 2017, NBC was required to broadcast the majority of a Sunday Night Football game using Skycam angles, as their traditional sideline angles were obscured by a large amount of fog. Reception to the impromptu experiment was mostly positive (with some drawing comparisons to the default camera angle used in football video games, such as the Madden NFL franchise); NBC announced that it would experiment with intentionally using the Skycam as a primary angle during a subsequent Thursday-night game on November 16, 2017 and again for the December 14 game the same year.
The Skycam's perspective, while making more effective use of the field of vision offered by a television screen (thus allowing viewers to see plays develop more clearly than the traditional sideline view), distorts vertical distances and makes it more difficult to assess yardages, which was part of the reason it has not been used more often. Consequently, in NBC's trial runs, they switched to a traditional sideline camera in short-yardage situations including the red zone, where the shorter distances negate some of the disadvantages of the sideline camera. To mitigate some of these disadvantages, NBC experimented with expanding the live on-field graphics to include a "green zone" that darkens the area between the line of scrimmage and the line to gain for a first down.