This Saturday, Major League Soccer’s MLS Cup will, for the first time, be seen in primetime — and will be covered by 19 cameras. Shifting from daytime on ABC to primetime on ESPN certainly means less football competition for the MLS Championship game, but the Hollywood storylines and upgraded equipment arsenal should be enough to bring more fans to the broadcast than ever before.

Thanks to strong teamwork by Fox Sports, Armed Forces Entertainment, and volunteers and staffers at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, Fox Sports broadcast the Nov. 7 edition of its NFL Pre-Game Show from the base. “For me, this was the most engaging and rewarding remote production I was ever part of,” says Michael Davies, director of field operations, Fox Sports.

Tape decks regularly take up large amounts of space both in the production truck and in the budget, but Inertia Unlimited has found a way to cut weight, size, and expense. Working with Convergent Design, Inertia has begun using nanoFlash, an SD/HD recorder/player built on Sony technology that Inertia is already using on an individual basis, with a rack-mounted version not far down the road.

Bad referring decisions in football are routinely reported in newspapers and set Internet forums buzzing but rarely do they cause national or international storms. France’s 2-1 win over the Republic of Ireland in the Nov. 18 second-leg World Cup qualifying playoff has caused a massive row, with Irish politicians and the national football association calling for a rematch and the introduction of video technology.

Few sports broadcasters count both a master’s degree and a doctorate among their credentials, but superior education is just one qualification that makes Dick Enberg a special talent. One of the most versatile announcers ever to take the microphone, Enberg brings a professor’s logic to his preparation, having lent his voice to every major event, from the Olympic Games to the Super Bowl, over the course of his 50-year career.

As the first-ever Extreme Sailing Series Asia gets under way Nov. 20 in Hong Kong, UK hire company Orbital Sound is providing audio communications, having supplied equipment for the European leg of the competition, which wrapped up in Almeria, Spain, in October.

The Kansas City Royals and Kauffman Stadium will reportedly play host to the 2012 MLB All-Star Game. Comcast SportsNet New England reported the news on its site this week, stating that an official announcement could come as early as next month’s league’s Winter Meetings. The Boston Red Sox, which hosted the event in 1999, had hoped to land the game to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park.

The Sports Video Group is pleased to announce that Vista Satellite Communications has renewed its corporate sponsorship. Founded in 1988, VISTA Satellite Communications, Inc., “networks the world,” transmitting clients’ messages to and from anywhere on the globe.

The Sports Video Group is pleased to announce that Fast Forward Video has renewed its corporate sponsorship. Since 1985, Fast Forward Video has been at the forefront in digital video recording technology.

The Sports Video Group is pleased to announce that Token Creek has renewed its mobile sponsorship. Token Creek Mobile Television, Inc. is one of the nation’s fastest-growing mobile HD and digital television production companies.

EveryZing, a leader in universal search and publishing solutions for dynamic web publishing and SVG corporate sponsor, has launched the next generation of its RAMP platform. The platform integrates the company’s growing portfolio of content optimization solutions used by media companies, broadcasters, and content publishers across the Web. Accompanying the launch of the new platform, the company has also renamed and rebranded itself as RAMP Inc.

Streaming Media magazine’s 2009 Readers’ Choice Awards in the hardware-encoder (standard-definition) category went to ViewCast’s Niagara Pro II, marking the third consecutive year that a ViewCast product has received a Streaming Media Readers’ Choice Award.

Liberty Sports Group has been rebranded DirecTV Sports Networks following the successful completion of the transaction involving the combination of DirecTV Group and Liberty Entertainment Inc. (LEI), a company split off from Liberty Media Corp. that included in part the Seattle-based Liberty Sports Group.

The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) is using JVC Professional Products GD-463D10U 46-inch 3D HD LCD monitors as part of its next immersive visualization system, which was prototyped in June at the University of California, San Diego, with the first full-scale version installed at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia.

Helen Carr, who joined Vitec Group Systems Division’s Bexel unit in 2003, was promoted to Bexel ASG pro audio sales manager, where she will oversee the sales efforts of Bexel’s national team that sells, installs, and supports audio brands including Calrec, Lectrosonics, Zaxcom, and Clear-Com.

EchoStar veteran and board member Michael T. Dugan was named president and CEO of the company, succeeding Charles Ergen, who will remain as chairman.

Turner Studios received two more Mira digital-video-production servers from Abekas to join the two Mira servers installed at the cable programmer in October 2008, which are located in the studio for the National Basketball Association’s 24-hour cable network, NBA TV.

Content management and delivery company GlobeCast will provide contribution and world wide distribution of the FIM Superbike World Championships (WorldSBK) to broadcast rights holders for the next two years, following the extension of its relationship with the series promoter Infront Sports & Media.

São Paulo, Brazil-based live production company D2 Video Produções is loading its new HD outside-broadcast van with HD cameras, 3X SloMo cameras, slow-motion replay systems, video routers, audio routers, and HD-video-production switchers from Grass Valley.

When the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall was celebrated, Riedel Communications was all over Berlin, delivering a video, audio, and communications distribution network for the multiple stages, video walls used at the event, and the various departments.

New York Festivals Television & Film Awards, honoring the “World’s Best Work,” has extended its deadline to December 1st. For the first time ever, the competition has introduced the Event Venue category, encompassing all arena and stadium productions including Arena or Stadium presentations, video assets, digital displays, and scoreboard highlights.

Sports Jobs with Junior Seau will debut on Versus with back-to-back episodes Wednesday, Dec. 2 at 10 p.m. ET, and then air weekly in that time slot.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim played nine Major League Baseball postseason games in 21 days. The Philadelphia Phillies played nine in 23 days. And that will change next season, reports Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times.

ESPN’s Jon Gruden is not a great National Football League analyst yet, but he has shown enough positive qualities for the cable sports network to extend his contract, writes Richard Sandomir of The New York Times.

The National Football League’s Atlanta Falcons have three full-time employees and one intern on hand solely to feed video histories of every game, opponent, and practice to satisfy the team’s appetite for intelligence, D. Orlando Ledbetter and Ken Sugiura of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Super Bowl XLIV is 90% sold out for CBS, meaning that only about 6-12 of the 62 30-second spots typically sold for the event remain, reports AdAge.com.

We don't know if watching TV on a 3.5-inch display is your bag, as it were, but it looks like Qualcomm is moving onward and upward with its plans for FLO TV on the iPhone. Not too many details at the moment, just some pics that Electricpig snapped of a handset running a proof-of-concept app that relys on an external device for reception, streaming re-runs of Mayberry R.F.D. to your handset via WiFi. No word yet on the when this device might actually go "prime time," but with any luck the five pocket TV enthusiasts out there may someday be freed from the tyranny of the FLO TV Personal Television. Get a closer look after the break.

A crack audio production team led by audio co-producers Michael Abbott and Tom Davis staged the live telecast of the 43rd Annual Country Music Association (CMA) Awards Nov. 11 at Nashville’s Sommet Center. With responsibilities including audio for both broadcast and the packed venue, Abbott and Davis assembled an elite team that included John Harris and Jay Vicari in the Music Mix Mobile (M3) production truck, production mixers Mark King (broadcast) and Patrick Baltzell (house), and house music mixer Rick Shimer. Baltzell was also the system’s sound designer, putting together a multizone house PA system to cover two stages.

Contrary to popular belief, this economy and the digital transition have actually motivated more people to subscribe to pay TV. You often hear those in the "future is now" camp say that people are looking for ways to save money and so they're looking to free internet TV alternatives and over-the-air TV, but it just isn't true. Our first indication of this was a few weeks ago when Nielsen released a study that showed that about 25 percent of those who relied on antennas for TV, just switched to cable or satellite instead of getting a free converter box; and now the NPD group is reporting that the monthly per-capita spending on entertainment subscriptions is now up to $115 a month. At this point the internet video movement isn't looking that disruptive after all, but with all the technology out there, we just have to believe that something is going to disrupt the existing archaic model.

Look, we get the whole drive behind this 3D thing. For some, there's no better way to experience sports, films, or console game play and consumer electronics companies are desperate for a source of new revenue. But creating a 280-inch 3D LED display meant for public areas doesn't make a lot of sense long-term unless we're expected to carry those swank, polarized glasses everywhere we go. Nevertheless, Sony was demonstrating the 6.4 x 3.4-meter behemoth at the International Broadcast Equipment Exhibition 2009 in Japan. The panel combines 70 LED displays into a single monstrosity of overlapping images. If nothing else this "3D LED Wall" demonstrates Sony's rabid commitment to 3D for 2010 and an ominous future for our friends working in Times Square. See it in action after the break if you care.

The owner of the Sacramento Kings will no longer operate the WNBA's Sacramento Monarchs.

Manny Pacquiao’s 12th-round technical knockout of Miguel Cotto in their welterweight title bout Saturday night drew 1.25 million buys and earned $70 million in domestic pay-per-view revenue for Top Rank, Dan Rafael of ESPN.com reports.

Are ESPN’s Herman Edwards and Mark Schlereth National Football League analysts, or psychologists, Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News wonders.

Detroit Tigers center fielder Curtis Granderson will host Authentic Entertainment’s Stadium Secrets, in which he will bring viewers behind-the-scenes at various ballparks, Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News reports.

Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald praised the work of Bob Papa, Matt Millen, and Deion Sanders on NFL Network’s presentation of Thursday night’s National Football League game between the Miami Dolphins and the Carolina Panthers.

The Chicago Rush, winners of the Arena Football League’s 2006 ArenaBowl, plan to return to a revamped AFL in 2011, Fred Mitchell of the Chicago Tribune reports.

ESPN isn’t the only sports programmer rolling out locally focused Websites, as Fox Sports Net soft-launched one-dozen local sites over the past week, Staci D. Kramer of paidContent reported.

Coors Light branding and messaging will appear on the screens of TiVo users deleting, pausing, fast-forwarding, or rewinding National Football League content under terms of a deal between the brewer and the digital-video-recorder vendor, Jeremy Mullman of AdAge.com reports.