NBC’s Super Bowl design blends glass, bevels, stadium ‘spaces’ and AR

Other graphic updates included the use of augmented reality elements that allowed the network to insert virtual “panels” complete with suspension wires, over the field and stadium.

Rocket Surgery’s Terry Daily, Frank Titoni, Bo Cordle, and Kevin Price worked closely with NBC Sports creative team, led by John Schleef, to develop and integrate the elements with Ross Video’s Voyager system using the Unreal Engine for rendering.

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These included a variety of layouts, ranging from current scores, game data and player profiles, and were frequently inserted over a wide shot of the stadium interior that made it appear the elements were “hanging” from the glass roof in the center of the double-sided LED halo dubbed the “infinity screen” installed above the SoFi Stadium field.

The team logos, players and data boxes in this view are all inserted via augmented reality. The ‘infinity screen’ above with the words ‘Rams’ and ‘Bengals’ is, in this case, a virtual recreation of the real LED installation in the SoFi Stadium, while AR was used to ‘add’ a second, smaller element above for the ‘Quarterback Comparison’ banner.

NBC was also able to cover the images being fed to the infinity screen, which is controlled by the stadium’s in house video team, with its own graphics, including the ability to add another virtual element above for additional content. 

Additional AR elements were used with exterior views of SoFi Stadium, including floating on the lake or suspended in the sky above.

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A common theme throughout these elements are “neon” tubes, often in electric blue and subtle rigging apparatus to seemingly support the elements from some unseen (and, in most cases, impractical) structure.