In our 20-year history, March has always been one of Reality Check Systems’ favorite times of the year. Why do we love it so much? Two words: NCAA Basketball. Not only do we revel in carefully curating our brackets, but we also get to experience the March Madness excitement first-hand through our work with CBS Sports and Turner Sports. In fact, our affiliation with the tournament dates back to 1999, and remains strong today. Read on for a recap of key highlights from our work on the event over the years.
1999: RCS lands its first job with CBS Sports, providing graphics for the launch of the network’s NFL coverage, which leads to an opportunity to produce graphics packages for the network’s March Madness broadcasts.
2006: We team up with Imaginary Forces to deliver a CBS Sports rebrand, including a graphics package featuring a remote Eyebar, studio scoreboard and more and comprising more than 200 scenes and 120 Vizrt Trio scripts. CBS Sports also brings real-time game stats and data to its tournament broadcasts for the first time with help from a SuperBracket application built by our team. RCS mobile graphics workstations facilitate graphics for remote games across eight locales the first week of the tournament.
2011: CBS Sports, Turner Sports and RCS collaborate on a dynamic, real-time March Madness graphics package with interactive and social media elements, a partnership that continues through 2015. It debuts across CBS Sports, TNT, TBS and TruTV live broadcasts streams. RCS also helps get “Team Stream” off the ground, which stylizes NCAA broadcasts with university-themed team and player story lines, graphics and more. In this time CBS, TNT, TBS and TruTV earn three Sports Emmy Nods for Outstanding Playoff Coverage and two additional nods for Outstanding New Approaches in Sports Event Coverage.
2016: King and Country and RCS join forces to design and produce an all-new March Madness graphics package boasting 230 unique elements. Powered by proprietary software, scripts and several Bullet mobile graphics workstations, the data-driven graphics, which include swooping super brackets, lower thirds, a score bar, full screens, video boxes and more, appear across live tournament broadcasts and studio shows by CBS, TruTV, TNT, and TBS. RCS provides on-site support in CBS’ New York Broadcast Center.
March Madness and every major sporting event we’ve been involved with over the years bring back great memories, especially as this year marks our 20th year in business. Looking back on each collaboration, we’re reminded of how fortunate we are to work with such a talented in-house team, creative clients and innovative technology partners. These experiences inspire us to continue pushing the boundaries of live event production to find even better ways to improve the viewing experience. As we continue to explore uncharted territory, expect great things to come.