NFL fans tuning in to watch this weekend’s Jackson Jaguars Vs Philadelphia Eagles game will almost certainly have spotted some seriously exclusive pairs of Sony headphones on display: the firm has been supplying the American Football league with sideline headsets for two seasons now, having replaced long-time rival Bose as the NFL’s official technology partner in 2024, but they’re next to impossible to get hold of if you’re not coaching staff. I was one of the first UK media to try them out on my home soil, ahead of kick-off at Tottenham Hotspur stadium.

Sony also gave me a look behind the scenes, to see how its Hawk Eye cameras were helping speed up the game and its Alpha team being on hand to help photographers take the snaps you’ll see on newsstands and on sports websites once the final whistle has been blown.

Listen in

Sony worked quickly with the League to develop its custom sideline staff headset, taking feedback from coaches and keeping the season’s weather extremes in mind. It had to survive Minneapolis winter games, where temperatures regularly drop below freezing, as well as oppressively humid Miami summers.

The firm’s engineers threw prototypes in the freezer and even wore them in the shower. Oh, and extensive drop testing, because no piece of technology within arms’ reach is safe once a coach sees red. Just ask Microsoft, whose Surface tablets were routinely brutalised when games went south. It paid off: of the 2300 headsets used last season and 1100 hours of gameday communication, there were zero hardware failures.

Using the ever-popular WH1000-X series as a base, the firm took just nine months to deliver the finished products: one over-ear headset and two single-ear models, for left- and right-side wearing. Each one has a directional boom microphone that rejects off-axis noise (crucial for clear communications over the sound of the crowd) and auto-mutes when flipped up, meaning one less thing for the coaching staff to think about when their focus is on the game. When your morning commute is some 3700 miles (the distance from Philly to Tottenham), the last thing you want is to be confounded by tech.

With the noise in some stadiums hitting a deafening 120dB, noise cancelling was also a must. Luckily that was something Sony knows plenty about. Staff can control the cancellation amount and headset volume though a belt pack, which transmits wirelessly for coach-to-coach and coach-to-quarterback communication.

One year on from their introduction and you’ll spot them at every game, both domestic and international, across all 32 NFL teams.

I could definitely see some XM4 inspiration in the ear cups. There’s ample padding in the headband and voices came through perfectly clear – though an empty Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is a very different experience to one that’s filled to capacity with shouting NFL fans.

Eagle vision

Fans both at home and in the stands don’t really see Sony’s other big contribution to the game: Hawk-Eye, a set of 32 high resolution cameras positioned throughout the stadium that supply feeds to the instant replay desk and medial review suite, as well as virtual measurements synced to the referee team’s watches.

Hawk-Eye supported 630 officiating events in the 2025 season, its first entire season as official video replay and measurement technologies of the League. The latter was, on average, twice as fast as the traditional chain measurement at confirming first downs by inches.

Each team has two people in the medical review suite, located up in the gods on the stadium’s ninth floor, assessing injuries on the field and communicating to their respective spotters. They’ve all got multiple angles, plus the ability to freeze frame and rewind. I was surprised to see Elgato Stream Decks, consumer-grade tech primarily aimed at streamers and content creators, being used here; apparently they’re easy to program and replacements can be sourced quickly should they encounter any issues.

Over in the instant replay booth, the hardware looked a bit more industrial. Multiple stations have access to 12 cameras long the boundaries of the field; these were standardised from the 2024-2025 season, so every stadium will have the same coverage.

The NFL has a permanent setup in its New York office, giving broadcast oversight on up to eight games at one time. It’s all very much done by hand; the League isn’t looking to hand over refereeing decisions to artificial intelligence any time soon. Sony’s AI-enabled Pant-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) cameras are being solely used for broadcasting, creating unique angles from areas of the field a regular camera just couldn’t get to.

Photography focus

Sony also has a presence in the photographer workroom, supporting snappers with camera body and lens loans, sensor cleaning and minor repairs. When I dropped by all the equipment was stowed in a huge shipping crate, but during game day it would be on display – if not out on the pitch in the hands of photographers.

A lot of press agencies exclusively use Sony kit now – the Associated Press alone captured more than 130,000 images across the 2025 NFL season – so events like this are a chance to try out new glass before the higher-ups can sign off on a purchase order. A one in/one out system and soft time limits ensure everyone that wants to try something gets a chance to, and it’s all done on trust: the rep I spoke to said they had never lost a lens to date.

Unsurprisingly the compact 100-400mm and 50-150mm lenses proved popular loaners at the last NFL game, along with staples like the 12-24mm.