April 19, 2013 - They say that time flies when you‰'e having fun. It has been 25 years since Bexel first undertook a project for ESPN, Inc., The Worldwide Leader in Sports. Around the country and in every corner of the globe, Bexel has been proud to support ESPN‰'s award-winning broadcasts. From Sunday Night Baseball to Monday Night Football, NCAA basketball to College GameDay, and NASCAR to the X-Games, ESPN has been there. And Bexel's collaboration has been by the sports entertainment company‰'s side, providing equipment, engineering and creative solutions.In 1988, Bexel began providing engineered solutions and video rental systems to ESPN. Over the course of the next 25 years, many things have changed. ESPN now broadcasts more than half of all live sports seen in the U.S. via dozens of ESPN-branded TV, Web, and mobile platforms. Bexel has expanded to five locations nationwide and increased its scope of services with industry leading fiber knowledge, scaled Flypack inventory, and custom engineered solutions, among others. And the nature of the broadcast industry itself has changed dramatically with the introduction of high-definition television, fiber-based infrastructures, and tapeless workflows. Through it all, Bexel‰'s relationship with ESPN has continued to strengthen and grow. Whether ESPN needed a small, last-minute rental order or a fully engineered, multimillion dollar solution for a large-scale event like the 2012 Summer Olympics (where Bexel supported four control rooms for ESPN International), they knew they could rely on Bexel to deliver. To kick off 2013, Bexel has already supported ESPN at two of sports biggest events, Super Bowl XLVII and the X Games Aspen 2013.Bexel‰'s Broadcast Services division has devised many integrated systems for ESPN that have met the complex challenges of countless large scale projects. In the last few years, the U.S. Open has become an all-hands-on-deck project, with racks from every office in the U.S. finding their way to Flushing Meadows, NY. The core of last year‰'s U.S. Open project ‰ÛÒ used by ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN News, ESPN 360, and ESPN Interactive TV ‰ÛÒ was putting together an EVS server system that included 14 XT[2] servers with Turbo functionality (and 3TB of storage each) to handle HD material and three EVS XL[2] servers to handle low-res proxies of the HD material, as well as providing a replay infrastructure, Avid editing systems, VizRT graphics, and a wealth of Evertz gear. Trading in tennis whites for black tie and tails, ESPN's ESPY Awards telecasts have offered a very different opportunity for Bexel to provide a wide range of support, equipment, and technical and engineering services over the years; including fiber design, integration and engineering support between ESPN's main show production trucks, and the ones for red carpet and ESPN International, as well as several others. In addition, Bexel has provided HD, SD and analog signals to the throngs of local and international press that covers the event, as well as production communications engineering between the pre-show, main show, international show, and red carpet stages.Everyone loves a major championship, and while Bexel is proud to contribute to the success of those projects, it is the real fans that tune into the regular season games. Supporting remote broadcasting environments and enabling innovation has been a hallmark of Bexel‰'s ongoing history with ESPN. Bexel‰'s custom Eagle Announcer System has become a staple of Monday Night Football on ESPN. Tackling the challenge of reducing the technical space requirements in the Monday Night Football booth was a project Bexel welcomed. While other integrated sportscasting products contain the circuitry and configuration features directly in front of the announcer, Bexel‰'s Eagle Announcer System maximizes performance in both physical format and audio performance by splitting the functionality into three parts: the rack-mount Central Interface, the Announcer Control Interface (ACI), and the Headset Interface Module (HIM), taking up less space in the broadcast booth.As their fans know, ESPN uses technology to strengthen story telling on each and every broadcast. Through technical advancements, such as the introduction of High Definition telecasts, ESPN continues to bring the viewer closer to the action. While High Definition broadcasts benefit the viewing audience, they present a constant challenge for the technical staffs of each production to overcome. Bexel‰'s introduction and continued support of fiber-based infrastructures on remote events has helped to smooth this transition. Continued investment in fiber-based projects by Bexel has proliferated, and it now plays a significant role in the production of almost all ESPN productions."It is no small thing to say that we have provided huge technical and rental support to ESPN for Monday Night Football, the NBA, MLS, Boxing, College Football, and probably Cricket,‰" says Joseph Wire, vice president of sales for Bexel. ‰"But that‰'s not the heart of our relationship with the truly amazing company that is ESPN. Bexel has always provided highly engineered solutions in response to our customer‰'s needs, and over the years, that has built a deep foundation of trust. ESPN is a very forward-thinking company, and we rely on them to influence our purchases and the direction of our solutions. There is a tremendous sense of camaraderie between the Bexel and ESPN teams, and we look forward to the next 25 years of working together.‰"[sc name="news-footer"]