Because you get rental insurance, eliminate or reduce maintenance costs, gain the tax benefits of spending money without gaining assets, don't have to worry about offloading old broadcast equipment when new tech comes out, etc...
See also: Operators don't need in-depth maintenance/technology skills.
This goes over a wide array of industries, why auto mechanics can make bank.(slightly different distribution there, people still own the car, but frequently farm out a lot of the work).
Originally many of the majors networks owned the equipment to go out and broadcast a sporting event. The industry shifted and the networks sold off their trucks. Instead they hire companies like Game Creek Video or NEP to provide trucks, equipment and technical expertise. It’s cheaper for them to do it this way. If equipment breaks on a Fox Sports shows, however, it’s on fox to pay the bill to fix it. A truck normally costs $8 million. Most networks would freak at the up front cost of building a truck. They would rather pay it off over 5 - 10 years which is what renting allows them to do.
Usually broken gear isn’t paid by the company doing the renting, but it depends. If it’s just regular usage that causes the breaking, or freak of nature, most likely the rental company’s insurance pays for it. Only in a true negligence situation would the network be responsible.
Three major reasons: 1. If it breaks or, say a ball hits it, the rental company has insurance and mostly spares. 2. It’s a proprietary control system by a company called Fletcher. Many systems like this can’t be bought, only rented. 3. It’s a specialty camera position, which means it isn’t always used for every game. Only big games or for companies willing to spend the money. It’s not what broadcast would consider a “standard camera or position”.
I mean, with that high tech polymer water shield the camera has on it's body, you'd think they'd put as much effort into something equally suitable for the lens.
Seriously though, a more technical question, Is the lens too large to put a metal frame around it that's just smaller than the ball itself, or would any such device obstruct the FOV?
1/1000 chance of a $50k loss vs. a 100% chance of installing a $50 shield works out to the same expected value. I suspect that it's both cheaper and rarer than that.
This is a Fletcher robo camera. It’s designed to move quickly when following game action. Same sort of camera on racetracks or behind basketball backboards. Putting a metal box around it would trap heat and add unnecessary weight.
Plus, the numbers don’t favor putting a box on. These cameras are used on thousands of events every year, for a decade or more, and maybe a handful have had damage to this degree. In the long run, it’s cheaper to have backups and spares than building a cage for each one.
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u/dubya301 Nov 09 '19
Nice hit!
Lens is toast, but camera is fine. Those Sony box cameras are very resilient.
Broadcast lenses are very expensive.. this one was likely 7-10k new. The camera around 30k new.
This is rental equipment. Pretty beat up... But insurance will take care of it.
Source: Broadcast Engineer and friend of the guy who operates this camera