Aiming to elevate the visual quality of its production services for broadcasts of the U.S. Curling Trials for the winter games in Italy, Stadium Sports Network selected Telycam Explore XE cameras to deliver the pristine video they needed. The resulting quality gains exceeded their expectations, outperforming much more expensive alternatives.
The Goals
Stadium Sports Network’s roots began as specialized systems integration firm Curling Stadium, focused on deploying streaming solutions in curling arenas. The success of those deployments led to requests for the company to provide full production services for organizations such as USA Curling and international governing body World Curling. Founder and CTO John Benton expanded the company into the full-service Stadium Sports Network to meet this growing demand.
Now serving an increasingly high-end clientele, Stadium Sports knew they would need to upgrade from their previous PTZ cameras. “World Curling and USA Curling distribute our feeds to premium buyers such as TSN and other international television channels, who then air it on linear TV,” explained Benton. “We knew we needed to provide better quality for linear television, and that our existing PTZ cameras weren’t going to cut it.”
Benton wanted cameras with 1-inch sensors and the ability to handle the unique demands of capturing curling. This objective became even more important when Stadium Sports was contracted to produce the U.S. Curling Trials in South Dakota for NBC Sports in November 2025. The event – which would determine which teams would represent the United States at the world’s biggest quadrennial sporting event in Italy – was to be broadcast on USA Network and NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service.
“When we were working on the Olympic curling trials, it was crucial that the cameras could handle the lighting, exposure and focusing challenges of shooting on a 200-foot sheet of ice,” said Benton, who is a former Olympian himself. “There were cameras from the big broadcast brand names that could do it, but their high cost meant that purchasing them rather than renting them would make it difficult for us to offer our production services cost-competitively.”
Stadium Sports’ partner in Scotland, David Owen of Curling Stadium Europe, recommended that Benton look at Telycam’s Explore series. Benton tested Telycam Explore XE broadcast-class PTZ cameras, and was so impressed that he purchased three Explore XE units for the upcoming production.
The U.S Curling Workflow
For the USA Curling event, Stadium Sports used the three Telycam Explore XE cameras as primary cameras. Two were positioned as overhead cameras that were hung on a truss above the ice, over scoring areas at each end known as “the house”. The third camera, referred to as the “slide camera”, was deployed on the field of play. All three cameras were constantly panning, tilting and zooming throughout the matches.
The Telycam PTZ cameras output NDI HX3 streams, which were transported to the production room over an Ubiquiti network with 10Gbps fiber connectivity. The production center housed four space-efficient operator stations: the main switcher system running vMix software; two camera operator positions; and a graphics and audio station featuring Singular Live HTML5 graphics and a Behringer X32 mixing console.
“Unbelievably” Spectacular Results
The upgrade to the new PTZ cameras delivered the quality gains Benton had strived for. “We couldn’t be happier with the Telycam Explore XE cameras,” he praised. “And more importantly, NBC Sports and Peacock were also very happy with the quality we produced.”
The impressive results were even more striking when compared to Stadium Sports’ recent experience with more expensive alternatives. “For the mixed doubles curling trials in Colorado earlier last year, we had rented high-end cameras from a big broadcast brand, but we struggled a bit with them,” Benton explained. “With curling, you’ve got arena lighting and a white sheet of ice. You’re often tilting from the far end to the near end, and as you come to the near end, you’re getting tons more light because you’re looking directly down to the ice. Telycam’s auto-exposure and focus management absolutely blew the more expensive cameras we rented out of the water.”
“What we got in terms of quality with the Telycam cameras is unbelievable,” Benton continued. “It’s almost insane to think that at the price of the Explore XE, it would give us superior quality than we were getting from a high-end camera from a much more expensive brand.”
Beyond the visual quality advantages, Benton also praises the operational benefits of the Telycam cameras. “The user interface is easy to understand and to find what I’m looking for, and you can actually see the difference in how the image is changing when adjusting features. That’s not the case with many other cameras we’ve used. Matching the exposure and color temperature between cameras is also super-simple, and out of the box, the Telycam cameras were as close as any set of cameras we’ve ever used.”
Enabling Business Opportunities
Benton plans to purchase more Telycam cameras as Stadium Sports expands, and sees the USA Curling event as an example of the direction the sports production industry is headed. “You don’t need an OB truck with super-expensive gear and large crews,” he said. “With broadcast-quality PTZ cameras, a few computers, NDI connectivity and a small crew, we can bridge that gap. Cost-effective gear and the reduced labor level allow us to bid these events out at a price point that nobody can beat.”
The Telycam cameras have become an important part of that shift. “From beginning to end, my engagement with Telycam has been great,” Benton concluded. “From the sales process and getting answers to technical questions, to the outstanding results, it’s been a super-pleasant experience. The Explore XE cameras are giving us incredible value, which allows us to be competitive at the high end of our market.”
