ESPN has transitioned its Bristol, CT, campus to an IP-based SMPTE ST 2110 core infrastructure to support 4K HDR distribution for its direct-to-consumer platforms. The project, developed in partnership with Evertz, enables end-to-end 1080p HDR production and upconversion to 4K in preparation for Super Bowl LXI.
The shift to an uncompressed IP-based workflow allows Disney to control the final output quality rather than relying on consumer device upscaling. By standardizing on 1080p HDR for production, ESPN balances the high bandwidth costs of native 4K with the visual improvements viewers expect on modern displays. This technical foundation is critical for the network's direct-to-consumer strategy, providing the flexibility to launch graphics-heavy alternate feeds at scale. Industry observers should monitor the technical performance of Super Bowl LXI in 2027 as the ultimate proof of concept for this 2110 infrastructure.
Evertz has emerged as a leading supplier for SMPTE ST 2110 facility builds across North American broadcast operations. The company's EQX platform, which handles uncompressed IP video switching, has been deployed at multiple tier-one broadcasters and sports production facilities in recent years. Evertz was selected by ESPN to deliver the IP infrastructure backbone for the Bristol campus transition, a project that required replacing a baseband SDI core with a 576-terabit-per-second IP fabric. The scale of that deployment positions Evertz as the reference vendor for other broadcasters evaluating similar transitions, particularly those preparing for high-profile live events where signal integrity and low latency are non-negotiable.
The broader business case for ST 2110 adoption has been reinforced by recent industry data. Bitmovin's 2026/2027 Video Developer Report found that low latency for live streaming has overtaken cost control as the top concern for 36 per cent of respondents, with 28 per cent planning to adopt Media over QUIC within 12 months. While MoQ addresses delivery-layer latency, the production-side equivalent is ST 2110's ability to move uncompressed video across IP networks without the compression artifacts and timing jitter inherent in SDI-to-IP gateways. For broadcasters like ESPN that control both production and distribution, the standard eliminates the quality ceiling imposed by legacy baseband routing and enables direct-to-consumer pipelines that preserve HDR metadata end to end.
On the technical side, competing approaches to IP-based production continue to mature. The State of Streaming Codecs 2026 report from Streaming Media noted that startup Deep Render and others are pursuing IP-centric models for video contribution, reflecting a wider industry shift toward software-defined media transport. Meanwhile, Mux launched its Robots API in 2026, offering first-party video AI analysis that runs natively alongside ingested assets, demonstrating how platform vendors are integrating intelligence directly into the media pipeline rather than bolting it on after encoding. For ESPN's workflow, the ST 2110 core provides the uncompressed signal quality that downstream AI-assisted graphics, ad insertion, and alternate-feed generation depend on, making the infrastructure decision a prerequisite for the software-defined production features broadcasters are beginning to deploy. Other major organizations are following suit, such as when the at their home stadium.
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