SkyCam returns for Broncos-Colts on Thursday Night Football
Faced with the reality of two teams already eliminated from playoff contention, NBC, which is broadcasting this week’s Thursday Night Football game, has decided to offer something of an enticement for viewers: the return of SkyCam.
The dual cameras, which maneuver on cables suspended several feet over the field, will provide the primary point-of-view for the Week 15 matchup at Lucas Oil Stadium, rather than the traditional high sideline view.
NBC previously used SkyCam, or Madden view – it’s the perspective users have when playing the wildly popular video game franchise – as the primary perspective for the Nov. 16 Thursday night Titans-Steelers game.
SkyCam is typically only used for replays, for example to give viewers a sense of what the quarterback saw on a deep pass or how a play broke down and resulted in an interception. In this case, it will be the opposite, according to NBC, the traditional view will only be used when situations dictate.
The network discovered the popularity of SkyCam by accident: NBC was forced to use them in the third quarter of the Nov. 5 Sunday night matchup between the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons, after heavy fog settled over Gillette Stadium.
The fog was so dense you couldn’t see the game with the sideline cameras, so Plan B, SkyCam, was implemented.
NBC also had to revert to Madden view for part of the Nov. 5 Raiders-Dolphins game, when the smoke from halftime fireworks lingered.
“With the experience of a full-game telecast with SkyCam and nearly a month to plan and tweak, we are excited to bring back the SkyCam presentation for the Broncos-Colts game,” Fred Gaudelli, executive producer of “Thursday Night Football” and “Sunday Night Football” said in a statement.
