Second Drone Flight with SU Football

On Thursday we went back into SU’s Manley Field House with a camera-equipped dji Phantom drone to perform some new test flights. Our goal this time was to get aerial footage of a few typical football plays, including short passes, long passes and runs. You can watch the video here:

While it’s a little choppy (an issue that can easily be addressed with the addition of a gimbal), we got some good results and were able to show how aerial photography can be a safe, effective way to get footage that is difficult or impossible without the use of a drone. You can see the best example near the end, where the drone follows a player during a long pass.

Covering a casual practice is one thing, but it’s difficult at this point to say how this type of footage could be captured safely with more players on the field, not to mention a live audience in the stands and coaches and players on the sidelines. Thankfully, we’re not the first to attempt this, and we most certainly won’t be the last. Fox Sports in Australia is already well into its second year of drone-assisted sports journalism with its FoxCopter, and the FAA specifically mentioned “communications and broadcast, including news/sports event coverage” in a roadmap document about the introduction of unmanned aerial aircraft systems in the U.S. The question of using drones to cover U.S. football games is a matter of “when,” not “if.”

We want to thank Bob Brotzki, Assistant Football Coach, and Steve Scarnecchia, Director of Football Operations, for their participation. Both are featured in the video along with other SU football staff members.

Professor Pacheco in the Press

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  • “I think we will be seeing two camps: Microsoft and a few startups like Meta2 and Vuzix on the business end, and Magic Leap and Apple (when Apple releases its rumored glasses) on the consumer end,” Dan Pacheco, a professor of journalism and chair in journalism innovation at Syracuse University’s S...

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  • Nonny de la Peña had this to say about Professor Pacheco after her acceptance of an I-3 Mirror Award.

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Immersive journalism: What virtual reality means for the future of storytelling and empathy-casting - TechRepublic

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  • Prof. Pacheco co-authored the primer on virtual reality in this report on The State of Virtual Reality in Journalism for Gannett and the Knight Foundation. - Dan Pacheco

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