It’s not just the 49ers and Chiefs who will be turning out next week in Miami for Super Bowl LIV. The Unreal Engine, of all things, is also going to be there, powering a bunch of the graphics that will be shown during Fox Sports’ broadcast.
While we’re all familiar with Unreal for its use as a gaming engine, it also has commercial uses that are employed by companies like sports broadcasters. To give you an idea of just what that stuff can look like, here’s a showreel from Fox’s coverage of the Women’s World Cup in 2019:
For the Super Bowl specifically, it’ll be used atop some augmented reality cameras inside the stadium, as well as some on-field graphics that’ll appear on everything from goal post cameras to that big camera that glides round on cables above the field of play.
So yeah, if you’re watching the game next week and notice any of this stuff, remember that even the Super Bowl is running on the Unreal Engine.