Problogue: The start of our video broadcast production year is always stressful. Because North Central Missouri College doesn't have a "broadcastable" sport in the fall, our start to the production year is the start of basketball season, which in 2021 tipped off at 5:30 on November 2.
I was right again...it was stressful, partly because I was gone for two weeks leading up to the game.
Here's a recounting of that week.
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After a long vacation, a series of broadcasts to start the year meant an 85 hour work week (Monday through Saturday) for me at Pirates Digital Media.
Why?
Here's a recap of the facts:
- Mid October trip, two wonderful days in San Diego (first time, won't be the last), 10 more wonderful days in Hawaii (came close to drowning, but didn't ruin the trip).
- Stepped off the plane at midnight October 31.
- Tip off of first televised basketball broadcast November 2nd, followed by five more games over the weekend--that's the 85 hour work week--and then two more the following Tuesday, which meant another 21 hour day.
Here's the narrative, some explanation and opinion:
At North Central Missouri College, we televise our games online. I choose those words carefully. We're not like other schools at our level (National Junior College Athletic Association) and almost every other collegiate level outside of NCAA Division 1.
I say "televise" our games online because we have an in-house basketball production unit that features a multiple camera set (five cameras this year), a staff of at least five (three live camera operators, a director, and an announcer), three wireless cameras, a wireless microphone system for natural court sounds (placed on the backboards for rim and net sounds, as well as player grunts and sneaker squeaks and ref whistles), an automated scoreboard graphic, and a replay system.
During the broadcast, we feature interviews in the pregame with both coaches, commercial breaks that highlight North Central, halftime interviews produced before the game with our players and other people associated with our school, and a live interview court side with our coaches after the game.
Because our basketball facility is used by the community as a wellness center, we put up our equipment before games and take our equipment down after games. That is about a four hour process, if everything goes well.
As a producer, it also takes time off-site to set up interviews for the game, record those interviews, and edit and publish those interviews. We have six interviews for a basketball doubleheader, the opponent coaches are taped on Zoom and our coaches/players/guests are taped in our studio. Just guessing, I'd say it's an average of one hour per interview to produce completely.
Additional duties are to make sure wireless batteries, camera batteries, and communication radios for video staff are charged and working. And I set up my own tables and take them down, too, and am proud to do it.
As a play by play announcer, I prepare my game notes and spot charts starting about a week before the day I'll actually use them.
- After the first games, the North Central information is simply updated, but preparing for our opponent is a process of converting a roster into workable notes and a scoresheet kept during the broadcast, including
- Finding cumulative statistics and whittling them down to what I'll use during the broadcast, including where teams are nationally ranked among other teams. Also going back go find the team's record last year.
- Finding individual stats for each player and interpreting them (for instance, a free-throw shooter's average of 100% is a little misleading. Is it 40 attempts or four? Big difference. And I look them up). Too many stats are too many stats: I'm interested in points, rebounds, shooting percentages, assists, steals and blocks. And where they rank nationally in those categories.
- Researching what each player has done in the past two or three games, going back in the stats to see what happened in previous meetings over the past two seasons between the two teams and what current players did in those games.
- Researching some personal information on players, like nicknames, parent's names, best accomplishments, any thing else that might be usable during the broadcast.
- Keeping track of the national rankings.
- Writing a pregame show and in-game notes, which include updates on upcoming games and news from the NCMC campus.
I had my Audio/Visual class come up the other day to see what setup for a multiple-camera shoot looks like, and they asked me why I do that much work, and what extra money I earn by going to that much trouble for our live broadcasts.
Answer: I don't know. And I don't.
I don't truly know why I go to the extremes to put on a broadcast like we put on.
I do have some theories...
I have yet to see another NJCAA school, run in-house at least, that does multi-camera/announcer centered game broadcast. When I was at the NCAA D2 level, nobody produced shows like that either. I felt we were #1 in the nation then at the D2 level, and I think we're #1 right now at the JUCO level.
I like that feeling a lot. File that one under the "ego" theory...
I also think that it does the school to have the finest production possible. Parents and friends watch (from both schools), recruits watch, other coaches watch. All good for NCMC, although it's impossible to assign a financial number to it, much to some people's dismay through the years. I call this the Public Relations theory.
Also there's the Goliath theory...we want to look bigger than we actually are, perhaps. Isn't that pretty normal on social media? Don't companies promote themselves in an effort to appear bigger and better than their competitors? Don't people try to show their best lives to their followers? No difference here.
How about the "chip on the shoulder" theory?
I've worked in relative obscurity for much of my career. My belief is people think, because I have created systems from scratch and have focused on amateur athletics, I must not be any good. We don't have expensive equipment (I'd rather pay for people's services than high end tech); I don't cater to advertisers, I don't need the best seat in the stadium and certainly don't want a gaudy press credential around my neck. I like to be nice to everybody, not just the high flying media phonies and the people they use/abuse to get what they want, and everyone knows it.
And finally, the legacy theory: I want people to remember us as the leaders in the industry of streaming live sports (at least among student-staff, in-house productions) and I want our students to know that they were the biggest part of that legacy.
Now, about the money.
I get paid (very fairly) to help promote the school, recruit students for our building digital media program, and produce media featuring NCMC. I've had to work for money sometimes, and I don't mind being paid, but it does not motivate me. What motivates me is the process, telling a story, and being good to people. And to a very real and large extent, not letting people down.
That's why I am willing to work an 85 hour work week.