BY DC CUEVA
As the countdown to Super Bowl 50 moves into high gear by way of the Broncos and the Panthers arriving last week and them in full prep mode for Sunday, the preparations are in overdrive for the biggest event in American sports. But it's a more meaningful Super Sunday as usual, as it is the Golden Anniversary of the blue ribbon event of the National Football League, being held in the heart of the golden state of California.
DCBLOG continues its special DC Sports series, DC Big Game 50, as we focus on the NFL and America's national passion of football. And after we looked at the preparations a team goes through in the week leading up to game day, today we turn to a different kind of prep. As Denver and Charlotte map out their plans, another team has been preparing for Super Bowl 50 for the past week. And that would be of the team at CBS Sports, who have been given the assignment of airing this year's landmark game, just as they did for the first one back in 1967 in Los Angeles.
It seems as if this game was invented in 1869 with the premise that it would be the perfect sport for it to be shown on a medium that was invented several decades later and be the perfect sport for television in just about every aspect. But what goes into bringing that excitement into your home? It's the subject of this first edition of DC INSIDE, which will take the opportunity on occasion to go inside some of the various aspects of the entertainment and sports you and I love.
After the jump, DCBLOG takes you Inside Football on Television: the Perfect Combo.
On Thanksgiving Night 2014, me, my dad, sister and brother in law went to Levi's Stadium to watch the Niners vs. Seahawks in their first meeting since their NFC Championship thriller. The game was a lopsided Seattle win, and while the rest of my group stayed at the same place - a standing room area located in the far side of the 50-yard line, I spent much of my time alone walking around all over the stadium taking pictures and video, posting many of them on my Instagram and shot video for my YouTube channel. The highlight of the night for me was when I walked over to the NBC host desk on the other side of the stadium, and there I stood many feet away from Bob Costas. For someone who loves the Olympics, who's been fascinated with sports television and regularly watches SNF, it was a surreal experience.
Make no mistake about it - football is the most popular sport in this country. From pee wee to the pros, nothing breathes fall like a weekend full of action on the gridiron: high school games in communities across the country on Friday night, the passion of college football on Saturday, and what's clearly the most-watched programming on television in the digital age: National Football League games on Sunday and Monday & Thursday nights. The NFL is unique among all sports in the U.S. in that it's the only league where all of its games (including cable games in the home & visiting markets) are shown on free-to-air broadcast television - making it available to everyone. The only other sports properties that come close to it are, viewership wise - the Olympics, and from a network standpoint in terms of consistent weekly coverage - PGA Tour golf.
For many years, the single most-watched day on American television is also the country's biggest sports event, and of course a national holiday: the Super Bowl. The last eight Super Bowls have set all-time TV viewership records, and every year except one in the past 30+ years has the Super Bowl been the year's most-watched event (that one we'll explain here later this year). And everywhere nowadays, there seems to be so much football programming out there: endless numbers of college games airing not only on Saturday but other nights as well, daily studio shows covering all aspects of the game, and going right down to high school action shown on local public access cable. And of course, the rights to broadcast NFL games are among for the most-coveted television broadcast contracts anywhere, and provide the kind of financial & ratings windfall any network desires.
But there's more to televising football than just airing a sport that seems to have been made with television in mind. Beyond the broadcasters providing the soundtrack and the cameras showing all the action on the field, it's the work of a hard-working dedicated team of professionals who put it all together and make this sport the great success it is. It's among the most complex and most advanced productions in sports television anywhere on earth, and it's no wonder why the networks spend billions of dollars to televise this great game. Although the NBA is the sport most followed in my house, and the Olympics being the one event I look forward to more than any other, I've grown an appreciation for football on television. Now, let's take you inside.
A WEEK IN THE LIFE OF AN NFL BROADCAST TEAM
Fans would think that televising a football game is simple, but it's anything but. When you consider the sport's popularity here, the process of televising and covering games at every level gets more and more advanced as technology is increased. But the process of what goes into it is much the same as it has been for years.
Planning for any NFL game telecast begins almost as soon as the schedule is released in April, many months in advance of the opening kickoff. When the games are scheduled, the networks allot air time, circuits and satellite time are reserved and millions of dollars worth of equipment is committed. Crews are assigned to every game: a battery of a producer & director, their assistants and a technical crew behind the scenes that can number as much as 200 for a top network game, and 550 for Super Bowl 50. The producer is in control of editorial content and supervising the overall coverage, including calling replays from the various angles or adding extra visuals.
And of course, there's the commentators who describe the action from the booth above the 50-yard line and a sideline reporter who provides reports from down at field level. The play-by-play announcer is, of course, the team's anchorman and where calling the game's biggest moments are his bread & butter. The analyst - almost always a former player - can dissect the nuances of this sport as well as those on the field thanks to his on-field experience. And sideline reporters provide us updates on player injuries and the like from down on the ground, as well as interview players, of course.
The game announcers are supported by spotters who, thanks to binoculars, can identify players by both names on their jerseys and numbers. A runner is also part of the team who scuttles back and forth between both the booth and a nearby booth where game statisticians are located. Those stats people are the ones who hold the hopes of fantasy players everywhere in providing those vital figures throughout the game, such as yards gained, passes completed, number of turnovers and sacks, individual player accomplishments...the list goes on.
While the teams are going through their run-through at their team facilities, about 3-5 days before any NFL game, about Wednesday or Thursday before any Sunday game, the army of network personnel arrive in the game cities and immediately go to work on their preparations. Prep sessions with the two opposing teams help to inform them of which players will be in uniform and who's injured, who's hot or who's not, and any strategy the teams have up their sleeve. Given the tight-knit relationships between the networks and the teams, PR representatives, players, coaches and the like are always available for much-needed information.
As was mentioned in The Week to Gameday post here before Championship Sunday, the prep sessions are highlighted by weekend meetings between the commentators and producers with the coaches & players as they learn about each team's game plan, identify key storylines and provide a sense of what the teams are thinking and planning for the game ahead. It's these interviews that the networks have with the teams not only here, but also at practices they observe during the week, that provides strong preparation for the broadcasters as they prep for Sunday, which also includes film too.
For the army of technical personnel, game day preparation is almost as intense as that of the teams. They arrive at the stadium as many as 3 days prior to the game to help set up the equipment that will bring the sights and sounds into your home...about three trucks worth of tools on this traveling road show. On Saturday before a Sunday game, the entire crew wires the whole stadium, putting together cameras on platforms and fixating microphones and make sure everything's all accounted for come kickoff. And there's meetings amongst the crew and broadcasters of which players to keep an eye out for that may be crucial to the game's outcome: the QB, solid defensive unit and the like.
And inside the TV production compound either outside the stadium or in the vowels of them are several large mobile units. They control everything that you see and hear on your screen and what gets put on the air, as well as for storage in this moving television station. It's from a bank of plasma monitors in front of him that the director will choose what camera angle gets seen in front of America, and when to cue the people in his production team to stand by for a replay, to cameramen to focus on a player, or for the folks back at the network's studios to run commercials.
The director is front and center in the main control console, where alongside him is the producer on his left, and the technical director on his right. The TD is the person who does the switching of angles and inserting between the hundreds of buttons in front of him, effectively controlling what we see on TV. There's also an associate director who also does some of the other work as supervising the visuals room or contacting the booth.
The director is front and center in the main control console, where alongside him is the producer on his left, and the technical director on his right. The TD is the person who does the switching of angles and inserting between the hundreds of buttons in front of him, effectively controlling what we see on TV. There's also an associate director who also does some of the other work as supervising the visuals room or contacting the booth.
In another section of the mobile unit is the replay area, where a team of operators are in control of the digital-disk recording machines (tape machines before the digital transition) which records whichever isolated angles they're in control of, and for which they can pause recording and play back in slow motion key plays almost instantaneously. Instant replay began at the 1963 Army-Navy Game with a TD being shown again after it was scored, and with cameras located virtually everywhere any play can be seen from anywhere in the stadium.
Elsewhere in the compound, audio technicians keep their ear out for all the sounds of the game from the field and the noise of the stadium crowd, mixing it with the voices of the commentators and music too. The people in the video area make sure that the best-possible pictures in crystal-clear high-definition are beamed to your home. And there's the graphics area, where the graphics operators are on computers with as many as 1,000+ graphics on hand for the players' names, all records and any kind of text that can flash on-screen.
Elsewhere in the compound, audio technicians keep their ear out for all the sounds of the game from the field and the noise of the stadium crowd, mixing it with the voices of the commentators and music too. The people in the video area make sure that the best-possible pictures in crystal-clear high-definition are beamed to your home. And there's the graphics area, where the graphics operators are on computers with as many as 1,000+ graphics on hand for the players' names, all records and any kind of text that can flash on-screen.
Out in the cold, the cameramen must be alert for anything that can possibly happen, and given how skilled they are at doing this, 99.9% of the time they'll capture everything. They, like everyone else, have headsets on that keeps them in contact with the truck and also listen to commentary as well as to best follow the action. Also on the field are several parabolic microphones which, using a dish and a microphone located inside of there, capture the sounds of the action first-hand on the gridiron. Other microphones are placed all throughout the field and stadium to capture all the sound of the players colliding and the stadium's crowd noise...now delivered on pin-sharp 5.1 surround sound - the same as those found in our local movie theaters and now standard for every home theater.
And there's the man who's considered the ninth official of sorts after the 7-man officiating crew and a replay official. With a distinctive colored hat and vest, the sidelines man is the link between the TV crew in the truck and the officials with a sort of control over the flow of the game and how it can be interrupted for commercials. With various hand signals he makes within view of the chief official, he lets the referee when viewers are watching commercials and it's only when his arms are down that the combat can resume. One of two stage managers are on the sidelines to help with that all important link (the other is in the booth to coordinate the commentators when they're on-camera). When you consider that the average NFL game has about 11 minutes of actual game time spread out over 60 minutes of possession time and being filled with about 100 commercials airing during the course of those three hours, he holds millions of dollars of ad revenue and viewers' patience in his hands. One wrong move, and a play won't be seen in front of millions of viewers.
And when the game is on, it becomes, as the section that covered an NFL production in NBC's 50th anniversary book put it, "a fabulous human and technological achievement." The production becomes an orchestrated and chaotic circus as the director voices the cues to the technical director, the producer commands the ship, and an rhythm develops in the control truck as the action intensifies out on the field. There's nothing like being in an NFL TV control room on game day. And when it's all done, it takes upwards for two hours for all the equipment to be broken down and loaded back up for next week...and as they say, the cycle begins all over again.
And there's the man who's considered the ninth official of sorts after the 7-man officiating crew and a replay official. With a distinctive colored hat and vest, the sidelines man is the link between the TV crew in the truck and the officials with a sort of control over the flow of the game and how it can be interrupted for commercials. With various hand signals he makes within view of the chief official, he lets the referee when viewers are watching commercials and it's only when his arms are down that the combat can resume. One of two stage managers are on the sidelines to help with that all important link (the other is in the booth to coordinate the commentators when they're on-camera). When you consider that the average NFL game has about 11 minutes of actual game time spread out over 60 minutes of possession time and being filled with about 100 commercials airing during the course of those three hours, he holds millions of dollars of ad revenue and viewers' patience in his hands. One wrong move, and a play won't be seen in front of millions of viewers.
And when the game is on, it becomes, as the section that covered an NFL production in NBC's 50th anniversary book put it, "a fabulous human and technological achievement." The production becomes an orchestrated and chaotic circus as the director voices the cues to the technical director, the producer commands the ship, and an rhythm develops in the control truck as the action intensifies out on the field. There's nothing like being in an NFL TV control room on game day. And when it's all done, it takes upwards for two hours for all the equipment to be broken down and loaded back up for next week...and as they say, the cycle begins all over again.
THE BASICS AND THE EVOLUTION
Televising a football game can range from just a basic set-up to a complex world of technological wonder. And it seems as if the sport was put together back in 1869 with the premise that it would be the perfect sport for television once the first televised football game took place 70 years later on an experimental basis in New York with an Eagles-Dodgers (!) game from Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. Back then, it would take anywhere from four to nine cameras and a production crew of some 20-100 for a game to be put on the air. But these days, technology is advancing to where now more people and more tools of the trade are being utilized, and everyone is keeping up.
Over the years, football game coverage has evolved, but most of its premise remains unchanged. The blueprint for a typical basic camera coverage layout for an average football game (high school or sub-FBS college level) is rooted in the standard camera coverage for an NFL game in the '60s & '70s.
● Two or three fixed/tripod cameras are located high in the stands, often in the press box and preferably near the 50-yard & the two 25-yard lines. Those cameras work together with the one nearest the ball being the main follow camera used for the live action and the other(s) isolating on players from either or both teams in receivers or a key linebacker.
● There's typically one or two hand-held's on the field, and/or usually one fixed camera to capture action on the ground, closer to the action and located on the sideline. These minicams provide low angles for replays and focus on players of key interest, as well as capture reaction shots and close-ups on the sideline.
● And there's an extra isolated camera behind one of the goal posts. They cover kickoffs and field goal attempts, an extra angle for plays near the goal-line, and provide stadium panoramas.
For more advanced broadcasts, i.e. NFL regional games outside of the network's A/B-unit games, an average FBS college football or a preseason NFL game which local outlets broadcast, the camera coverage is the basic, plus a few extras:
● One or two sideline vehicles that roam the sidelines on a cart that has a camera perched on a cart to provide elevated angles of goal line situations, defense isolates, sacks and general action.
● One or two low angle end zone cameras, which provide tight action and receiver isolates.
● A reverse angle camera, which covers the action from the other side of the 50 yard line and was inspired by an NFL Films angle that corroborated an apparent TD that may have cost the Oilers a Super Bowl berth back in 1979.
● At least one super slow-motion camera, with crisper and more fluid motion on replays
● And that high 50-yard camera known as "All 22" which provides a wide angle of all players on the field and serves as basis for the analyst's Telestrator analysis tool.
And for the top broadcasts, such as the playoffs, the NBC and ESPN games, CBS & FOX's A-unit games and major college football, they generally have all of the above, featuring more cameras - 15-18 for afternoon lead games & 20+ for primetime/playoffs, as many as 15 replay machines, dozens of microphones and over $25 million worth of equipment. That includes that flying camera.
The legacy of the ill-fated XFL is that it helped bring the SkyCam/CableCam into the spotlight in sports production. After debuting experimentally in the mid-80's and used sparingly in the '90s, it was with football that it enjoyed its breakout. SkyCam is remote-controlled by a computer and operator who moves the camera throughout the stadium at all areas being held aloft by a cable on various pulleys located in all four corners. After seeing it on the XFL, ESPN adopted the video game-like angle for the following NFL season, and would eventually make its way to every top NFL and college football broadcast. The XFL's all-access approach also included the now commonplace in-game interviews and more player access, which influenced NFL Films' Hard Knocks on HBO.
The technology on the networks' lead broadcasts also includes high frame-rate ultra slo-mo cameras, which builds on the super slow-motion technology introduced at the 1984 L.A. Olympics by ABC and brings it into the HD age. These high-speed cameras, first utilized by CBS nearly a decade ago on golf coverage to measure a golfer's swings, are able to shoot 300-500 frames a second, with the more advanced cameras using 4-K technology in 3840 x 2160, about 8 million pixels, four times greater than HD. By contrast, HD cameras shoot 60 frames a second at either 1080 interlaced or 720 progressive; SSM technology is also featured on many of our own cameras & phones as well.
The technology on the networks' lead broadcasts also includes high frame-rate ultra slo-mo cameras, which builds on the super slow-motion technology introduced at the 1984 L.A. Olympics by ABC and brings it into the HD age. These high-speed cameras, first utilized by CBS nearly a decade ago on golf coverage to measure a golfer's swings, are able to shoot 300-500 frames a second, with the more advanced cameras using 4-K technology in 3840 x 2160, about 8 million pixels, four times greater than HD. By contrast, HD cameras shoot 60 frames a second at either 1080 interlaced or 720 progressive; SSM technology is also featured on many of our own cameras & phones as well.
As far as football's evolution on television is concerned, it is quite a journey. When ABC Sports entered the NFL with Monday Night Football in 1970, Roone Arledge & his team, with their experience doing college football, Wide World of Sports and the Olympics to boot, put the sport into the double-digit camera and technological future. They expanded the fleet to 9 cameras with an additional sideline and two minicams joining the 4-5 used by their Sunday counterparts, for which director Chet Forte made great strides in enhancing football coverage. Of course, the trio of Howard Cosell, Don Meredith & Frank Gifford became as well-known as the players, and MNF's success made primetime sports a regular network television staple and paved the way for football to become America's favorite sport.
And when FOX rocked the industry a quarter-century later, and with parent company News Corp's experience covering soccer's Premier League to boot, they brought NFL TV coverage to a whole new level, or down a notch, depending upon who you ask. Yes, there is that Fox Box graphic and signature theme, but they also increased the number of cameras & replay machines used to broadcast the games (12 & 8 in season 1) and improved the audio to where Dolby Surround sound stereo is at every game, among other innovations over the years. FOX's strong appeal among young viewers not only increased the network's stature but helped broaden the league's fan base to where it is now.
Nowadays, a typical NFL production is the most complex kind of television production that you can have on a regular basis (not counting the huge production that comes with the Olympics and World Cup, which will be explained here in due course). Cutting edge graphics like the first-down line, new technology and the transition to a 100% high-definition, all-digital platform has made this TV-friendly sport even more enjoyable for those at home and those who work on it too.
Nowadays, a typical NFL production is the most complex kind of television production that you can have on a regular basis (not counting the huge production that comes with the Olympics and World Cup, which will be explained here in due course). Cutting edge graphics like the first-down line, new technology and the transition to a 100% high-definition, all-digital platform has made this TV-friendly sport even more enjoyable for those at home and those who work on it too.
SUPER BOWL 50
"I started thinking about years ago there's a possibility that I could produce Super Bowl 50, and that's what's I was, kind of, my goal for the last 8-9 years when I took over the NFL and started producing our #1 game," says coordinating producer Lance Barrow, who joined CBS as a spotter on its golf coverage under the legendary Pat Summerall in the '70s and has been the network's lead NFL producer since 2004. "So, I'm excited. I can't wait. It's gonna be a huge broadcast, it's gonna be a huge day, not only for the NFL and CBS Sports, and CBS in general, but it's a national holiday the way I look at it, Super Bowl Sunday is here in the United States."
Inside a new state-of-the-art mobile unit that went into service in time for the NFL season, Barrow (also lead producer on CBS golf including The Masters) and lead game director Mike Arnold will have control over 100 total cameras throughout both Levi's Stadium and the Bay Area for the game telecast itself and The Super Bowl Today studio show (helmed by tandem Drew Kaliski & Bob Matina). This includes the return of the Matrix-inspired EyeVision replay system it used when CBS broadcast the first two Super Bowls in its AFC era 15 years ago at Super Bowl XXXV, and where this time 36 computer-controlled HD cameras will line the stadium's upper deck for revolutionary, 360-degree replays. Those Pylon Cam's that have been used increasingly this season, including recently at the College Football Playoff championship, will have its first major exposure on the NFL's biggest stage with 16 mini-cameras embedded into eight pylons to provide both a goal-line and sideline perspective of crucial plays at the end zone, also embedded with microphones.
Also planned for the big occasion are seven hours of pregame coverage with two NFL Films specials, the All-Iron Team and The Super Bowl Today, plus 70 hours of week-long programming on CBS Sports Network and Showtime's Inside the NFL emulating from Super Bowl City in downtown San Francisco. And with the network's broad reach, every component of CBS will be all over SB 50, from CBS Sports Radio and its sports radio stations, to CBS News, affiliates, and all the way to a live postgame edition of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, successor to David Letterman. An army of 550 CBS Sports personnel will be in the Bay Area, based in 12 production trucks and 65,000 square feet of production space.
Also planned for the big occasion are seven hours of pregame coverage with two NFL Films specials, the All-Iron Team and The Super Bowl Today, plus 70 hours of week-long programming on CBS Sports Network and Showtime's Inside the NFL emulating from Super Bowl City in downtown San Francisco. And with the network's broad reach, every component of CBS will be all over SB 50, from CBS Sports Radio and its sports radio stations, to CBS News, affiliates, and all the way to a live postgame edition of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, successor to David Letterman. An army of 550 CBS Sports personnel will be in the Bay Area, based in 12 production trucks and 65,000 square feet of production space.
For the broadcast team who will be covering the game and Super Bowl week, of course they are the ones who will be telling the story of this landmark in NFL history. It includes lead analyst and Super Bowl XXI MVP Phil Simms, a studio panel including SB XL winning coach Bill Cowher, QB Boomer Esiason, TE Tony Gonzalez and numerous others contributing in every aspect.
Three men who have been in both stints of CBS' NFL legacy as NFC and AFC broadcaster, and have also sat at the same NFL Today desk once occupied by Brent Musburger, Irv Cross, Phyllis George and Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder, will all hold important roles on the SB50 telecast. James Brown and Greg Gumbel have the duty of hosting The Super Bowl Today from sets both in Levi's Stadium and in Super Bowl City. Gumbel says, "It's a source of pride when you're able to carry the biggest event all year round. For me, the Super Bowl is like the World Series in that it's the culmination of a season-long competition, finally determining an ultimate winner. I realize that for a lot of people that's what not the Super Bowl is. For a lot of people, the Super Bowl is a national holiday and a reason to gather and eat and drink."
But no important role is as important as that of the play-by-play announcer, who has the honor of describing the year's biggest, highest-rated and most-watched single-day television event to a record audience. And every three years since he hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics, Jim Nantz has had a great tradition in having a front-row seat to three prominent events: hosting & calling the Super Bowl six times, then two months later being courtside calling the NCAA Final Four, and less than a week later at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia for The Masters. Nantz says, "The fact that this is the 50th, it's a milestone...Super Bowl 50 speaks for itself. I think people are clued in right away, just by the sheer mention of it. Super Bowl 50 is going to be the biggest event in the history of television in this country. And for 3 1/2 hours, I'm going to be constructing the sentences to tell the story of this important occasion. I'm telling people what I'm saying on the biggest stage that this sport has ever had; and for that matter, the biggest event the medium of television has ever had in this country."
For CBS Sports Chairman and Executive Producer Sean McManus, son of legendary ABC Sports broadcaster Jim McKay, similar sentiment: "Everybody at CBS is enormously excited about the opportunity to do Super Bowl 50. The Super Bowl is the biggest event in all of television and, in many ways, is one of, if not the biggest event in this country. To be able to do the biggest Super Bowl of all time is both a great opportunity and an enormous responsibility, and we don't take that responsibility lightly." Same holds true for CBS head Leslie Moonves: "We are looking forward to being the home of the biggest event in Super Bowl history, just as we were for the first Super Bowl 50 years ago. I know CBS Sports will do an outstanding job with the broadcast of the game, and we are putting the full weight of the Company behind everything surrounding the game as well. The entire experience will be a huge honor for CBS, and our coverage will provide some of the best television that viewers will see all year."
In a way, the NFL is the most national of the major sports in this country. Although the base of most sports fans' fandom is their regional teams and local events in their hometowns, there is as strong a national appeal for the NFL as there is for Team USA, and that can be attributed to TV. The league's widespread reach from coast to coast sees teams have strong fan bases in every part of the country, not just in their respective regions. This time of year with the league having its broadest exposure with the Super Bowl this Sunday, the sight of seeing a fan wearing clothing of their favorite team or player is just about everywhere, making this large nation of ours a smaller one. And TV's immediacy and the ability to follow your favorite teams wherever you are is a product of the league's empire...the strongest on this side of the Atlantic.
The prelude to CBS' Super Bowl XXXV broadcast fifteen years ago brilliantly summed up this annual ritual of the biggest day in American sports and this unofficial national holiday. It reads, "There is one day each year when all of America gathers for one reason, and one reason only: to take part in a unique celebration. This is a celebration of unlikely heroes, unimaginable upsets, grace under pressure, explosive power, and of lightning speed. It is a celebration of precision, the will to win, of brilliant leadership, and of ultimate redemption. It is the celebration of mere inches that can separate the heartbreak of second place from the legend that is victory. And most of all, it is an American celebration, for at its roots this has always been an American game."
As people gather around this Sunday, the tradition of the biggest audience for a single television program all year watching the biggest sporting event in this country never gets old. They join with a worldwide audience and those lucky to see this in person to see the NFL season's final act, as two teams determine a champion with glory at stake. It's the biggest day of the year for a partnership between a sport and a medium that were made for each other. And as the 50th Super Bowl Sunday approaches, the next - and perhaps the most notable - chapter of this decades-long marriage between football and television is ready to be written.
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FOR MORE...
● For those who want more on the tall task of producing and directing football on television, check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast, hosted by SI sports media columnist Richard Deitsch. This week, Deitsch is joined by CBS director Mike Arnold as they discussed the network's preparations for SB 50 and other matters relating to the NFL on CBS. Before the NFL season began, NBC producer Fred Gaudelli discussed how he produces Sunday Night Football and more. In addition, Deitsch has had a slew of guests from all around the sports media world including FOX analyst Troy Aikman, RedZone host Scott Hanson and ESPN insider Adam Schefter, which you can check it all out on SoundCloud.● And for a unique look at how an NFL game was produced back then, check out "The Game Behind The Game," a documentary produced by CBS affiliate WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C. back in 1977 on Vimeo. The program, hosted by current NBC News coorespondent Steve Gendel, looks at how CBS produced an NFL game in those days, which features the legendary '70s NFL broadcast team of Pat Summerall & Tom Brookshier (Pat's broadcast partner prior to John Madden), and the longtime production tandem who worked with Pat, Tom & John at CBS and then at FOX - producer Bob Stenner and director Sandy Grossman (who directed 10 Super Bowls).
DCBLOG will have more on football and all things sports throughout the month of February and into March with the continuation of our NFL series with Part 3 as this site looks into the first notable event of the NFL offseason, the Scouting Combine.
Don't forget to follow my live coverage hub on Twitter, DCNOW at @DC408Dxtr, for extensive coverage of Super Bowl weekend, culminating with live tweets of Super Bowl 50 from Levi's Stadium on Sunday, plus any events I may go to in the Bay Area now until game day. Also follow my DC Instagram at IG @DC408Dxtr with my photos from all the activities here in the Bay Area, as well as my YouTube channel at YouTube.com/user/dc408dxtr for upcoming video from yours truly.
Along with sports coverage, this site offers wall-to-wall coverage of the MTV Trifecta and The Challenge Bloodlines, with the latest edition of our unique DC SocialPulse social journals covering this week's episode and the DC WRAP episode recap to be posted here in a few days, just prior to the season finale in Berlin, Germany. As always, you can offer your two cents on this post below or directly to me on Twitter @DC408Dxtr.
- DC
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
▪ The Verge: Any Given Sunday: Inside the Chaos & Spectacle of the NFL on FOX, theverge.com
▪ The Golden Years of Broadcasting: NBC's 50th Anniversary Book
▪ Director's Guild of America
▪ Sports Video Group, various articles
▪ Numerous Broadcast Guides from CBS, FOX, NBC and ABC
▪ IBEW Journal-1969
▪ CBS Special Collectors Edition: Super Bowl 50
▪ Television Production Handbook
▪ The Golden Years of Broadcasting: NBC's 50th Anniversary Book
▪ Director's Guild of America
▪ Sports Video Group, various articles
▪ Numerous Broadcast Guides from CBS, FOX, NBC and ABC
▪ IBEW Journal-1969
▪ CBS Special Collectors Edition: Super Bowl 50
▪ Television Production Handbook
▪ Television Sports Production
▪ Wikipedia: National Football League on Television
▪ CBS' Super Bowl XXXV Broadcast Opening
▪ CBS' Super Bowl XXXV Broadcast Opening
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