Las Vegas Might Be the Real TV Star Of Super Bowl LVIII

The breakout star of this week’s Super Bowl media coverage could be Sin City itself. From the famed Las Vegas Strip to the Fountains of Bellagio, the city will be the blinking neon co-star of Super Bowl LVIII.

The Super Bowl has shuttled between the likes of Miami, New Orleans, and Los Angeles for decades, but this is the gambling Mecca’s first shot at hosting the Big Game, and CBS will use the background palette of Las Vegas to tell a very different Super Bowl story—more like the exotic locale of a foreign Olympic Games than a domestic Super Bowl.

CBS is marshaling an army of nearly 1,000 staffers and will have four broadcast sets at the Bellagio, plus two at Allegiant Stadium—one inside and another outside. Producers have also installed cameras at the city’s highest points, such as the STRAT Hotel, Casino, and Tower, to capture it all, including the popular new Sphere venue. Beyond that, CBS crews have been in town for months to chronicle the risque history of the desert metropolis that attracts over 40 million tourists per year. 

“We are weaving Vegas into everything we do,” says Harold Bryant, CBS’s executive producer and executive VP of production, who’s working his ninth Super Bowl. 

Patty Power, CBS’s executive VP of operations and engineering, said on a recent press call that she’s planning to deploy 165 cameras, more than any Super Bowl telecast in history. Most will be used to capture the Chiefs and 49ers on Feb. 11, including new “doink cams” embedded inside the goalposts at Allegiant Stadium. But other cameras will have nothing to do with football. A robotic cam atop the former Stratosphere Hotel, the tallest structure observation tower in the U.S., will command a view of the 4.2 mile-long strip, from north to south. Another atop the Renaissance Las Vegas Hotel will capture the Sphere. A third, at Planet Hollywood, will provide views of the Bellagio and the Strip. A fourth, at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, will catch Allegiant Stadium. There will also be a 1,000-foot-long fly cam zipping across the Bellagio Fountains. Drones and fixed-wing aircraft will patrol the skies to capture the goings on below.

“We’ll be using all of those cameras to set the place where we are, show off what’s best about Las Vegas, and bring the audience along with us leading up to Super Bowl Sunday,” Power said.

CBS won’t be the only network leaning into the “Vegas, Baby, Vegas,” vibe. ESPN’s TV set for studio shows, including First Take and Get Up, will overlook the Strip. And NBC Sports will televise The Dan Patrick Show from the Fontainebleau.

Mutual Attraction

The $20 billion NFL can posture about gambling all it wants. But there’s no denying the mutual attraction between sports leagues and Las Vegas. For years, leagues avoided Vegas like the plague. Their caution was validated when a shooting at a strip club ruined the NBA’s 2007 All-Star Weekend. But the metro area now boasts 2.9 million residents and in short order the Neon City has become the home of the NHL Stanley Cup-champion Golden Knights, the NFL’s Raiders, and Formula 1’s Las Vegas Grand Prix. MLB owners have approved the Oakland A’s relocation to Nevada by the 2028 season. LeBron James’s “ultimate goal,” he says, is to own the first NBA franchise in town.

The Super Bowl will showcase the city’s potential as the “greatest arena on Earth,” Steve Hill, chief executive of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, said when he landed the game. And already the NFL is eyeing the city for future games, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

As CBS’s Bryant said: “Right now, this is the center of sports in our country. It’s amazing what’s going on in Vegas and the sports world. We’re gonna lean into it—and use the technology that this group has come up with to help capture it.”

—Michael McCarthy’s “Tuned In” column is at your fingertips every week with the latest insights and ongoings around sports media. If he hears it, you will too.