What It's Like To...
What It's Like To...
What it's like to Produce NFL Games (and more)
If you usually watch sports couch potato-style, here's a chance to learn about the work that goes into each television broadcast. In this episode, CBS Sports Producer Ken Mack takes us into his production truck and walks us through a typical week: planning graphics and storylines for the broadcast, travelling from stadium to stadium, meeting with coaches and players ... and then goes into detail about the intense, exhilarating hours of live television he produces each week. We find out:
-When do you break for commercials?
-What if an announcer says something outrageous on air?
-How do you handle six people talking to you at once... during a live broadcast?!
It's the ultimate reality show, and we have the best seat in the stadium.
Want to know more about Ken?
- Connect with him on Twitter: @kenmackcbs
- Follow him on Instagram: @kenmackcbs
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I've always felt that the day that I'm no longer nervous about doing a game or anxious or at least a little on edge is the day I should probably stop doing it. Because if doing live TV doesn't get your blood pumping, then you probably need to find a different line of work.
Ken Mack has been doing live TV for three decades. As a producer for CBS Sports. He's helped call the shots behind the scenes for the Super Bowl, March Madness, weekly NFL games, the Tour de France, the Olympics, the US Open and a lot of other events. And he's won several sports Emmy awards for his work. I'm Elizabeth PearsonGarr, and this is the Experience podcast. In this episode, we get to take a seat in the production truck right next to Ken. I'm a big sports fan. So I had a lot of questions about everything that goes into getting a live sporting event onto the air. Currently, Ken is one of the producers of the NFL on CBS. So he and his team travel around the country broadcasting a different game each week.
I appreciate you doing this because I have so many questions. I'm really excited to get to talk to you, Ken.
Yeah, no,
I'm happy to do it.
Oh, let's go.
Okay, thanks. I feel like we're such a sports obsessed nation. And so many of us just love watching sports and feel like we know so much about it. But we don't really know much about what goes on behind the scenes. And we just kind of take it for granted that we sit here and we cheer and we get to enjoy it all couch side most of the time. And there you are in the trenches. And so I'd love to get the real scoop from what it's like in the booth or in the in the truck, I guess is maybe my truck.
Yeah.
You're a producer, sports producer, can you tell me kind of what that entails? Let's take the day of the game. Let's start there.
Sure. The Week begins Monday. But the nice thing is when it ends on Sunday, let's say we're doing an NFL football game. The day of the game is it's kind of the fun stuff at the end of the week. It's a very long week of preparation. But Sunday morning traditionally is busy with making sure that we are set up for everything that we've planned during the week, we'll spend the morning going over our graphics going over all the pieces of videotape rehearsing things with the announcers. And then we have involvement in a lot of the CBS pregame shows and in and around that and getting everything done and getting the announcers chances to set all their stuff up. We make it to air and we'll do a little pregame show will you bet five minutes before the game actually begins and then come one o'clock or 425 or whatever time it is, we hit the ground running and see where the game takes us over the course of the next three hours. And then the game ends and we wrap everything up, run to the airport, get home and start the next week. So we can do it all again in a different city the following Sunday.
So during the game, what are your actual duties? I know you're there, the director’s there? There are several other crew members. But what are your actual jobs? What are you responsible for?
You know, the way I've always described it, the producer is like the head coach of any broadcast, he or she is really in charge of the entire vision. That is everything from who we're going to talk to during the week, what storylines, we're going to follow how we're going to construct, the way that we get on the air, what we call our open, which can depending on the game and the timing of it can be anything from 10 minutes worth of content to 30 seconds before the game gets kicked off. The producer is really in charge of, as I said storylines, talking to the announcers during the game. And during commercial deciding on all the replays, most of the split second decisions have everything that you see in a broadcast, other than the live cut of it is sort of in the purview of the producer. He or she works very closely with the associate director, who is our eyes and ears connection to the field in terms of coordinating when we're going to go to commercial and things like that. And then the director is really in charge of the live cut of the broadcast. So if you and I are doing a game together and I'll say okay, coming out of this commercial, we want to talk about this person and the director says great camera number two, I need a shot of this person in camera three, I need his parents in the stands and camera for any big wide shot of the stadium. So when we've had the discussion about the producer as sort of the head coach and the director is the quarterback, it is the quarterback who in many respects is helping to along with the head coach execute this vision of what the game is. And obviously that is if done well in lockstep in in concert with your announcers. And it's finding that balance as both the producer and director and they work very closely together. It's that balance Have going where the announcers want to go. But also getting them sometimes where you feel like the show needs to go. And it's like any business or any marriage or any relationship, it's finding the right balance and the pushing the pole to tell the best story that you can.
So how do you do that? That maybe goes back to what you were referring to earlier in the week, you sort of start on the Monday, you find the storylines, and you're all there together you with the answers, and you're all figuring out kind of who's injured or who's strongest that week, or what the good tension will be in the game.
Yeah, you know, you're exactly right. I mean, for me, the week really begins, the moment you get back onto the plane, like we were talking about, and it's doing all the things that you've got to do to put that game to bed, I always go back. And the first thing I do after every broadcast is rewatch the game we just did. So I can take notes, whether I do it Sunday night or Monday morning, I'm taking copious notes, because I'm a big believer that the best way to get better for all of us, but for me, in particular, is to watch what we're doing. And are we getting in any bad habits? Are we not serving our audience the best way possible? Are there other creative ways to do the things that we have to do? So that's the first step. And then Monday is really, in park, putting things to bed from the previous week, some meetings that we have, with our bosses in New York going over the telecast, anything that came up that we need to address as we go forward. And then it's a lot of preparation for the following week. And that involves everything from speaking to the team's reading information, whether it's stuff that they sent me or it's stuff that you find on the internet, talking to the announcers, and getting their sense of what they want to talk about. It's watching the previous so let's say the next week, we're doing two new teams, I need to go back and watch their previous games, I always find that to be a really helpful thing. Hopefully, you're tapped in, and you're getting a flavor of the NFL every day. It's it's the world that we live in. But it's also a passion of mine. So it's something that you that you're following all the time,
it'd be tough to do your job. If you didn't really enjoy the NFL.
I've often said, I think you could do any of the jobs in sports television, you could do them if you weren't a sports fan, but it's hard to do them well, to be passionate, because there's a lot of sacrifices like there are in any job. But to be gone from home as much as we are, you better love it or it's it's hard. So during the week, you're preparing for these teams, you're getting to know all the information that you can, you are meeting with your contacts around the league, and with the NFL themselves at times, to make sure that we're hitting all of the major storylines. And then you're making a plan as the week goes on. And that involves having meetings with the Associate Directors and broadcast associates that I work with, and going over ideas for videotape, what we call videotape. You know, nothing's on real videotape anymore, and graphic ideas and all those sorts of things. Hey, guys, these are the storylines we want to talk about. And that's such a wonderful collaborative thing. We always meet on Tuesday morning, me and a portion of our crew, and go through the things that we think are big storylines. And as the week evolves, those storylines evolve. And so we make sure that we've got full page graphics, and we've got interesting videotape clips, whether they are related to that specific game, or whether they are things more big picture or historical or league wide. And then as the week progresses, you know, storylines change. And you have this great collaboration with your announcers. And it's not just the two announcers or three that you have in the booth, but also your sideline reporter, and our sideline reporter that I work with, during the NFL does a terrific job of, Hey, I saw this thing on Instagram, this player, it's something he's really passionate about. And we want to be able to talk about that kind of stuff to to humanize some of the guys if the time allows. And so it's always great to have those graphics or pieces of videotape in your hip pocket to tell those stories. Well, you know, and then you go in, and as the week progresses, you make a plan for what you want to do and what your major storylines are. And we meet with the teams on Friday and Saturday. And then we meet as a production team on Saturday night and kind of go through everything. I think if you're doing your job, well, you go in with a great plan, but then the game takes you where the game is gonna take you you need to know, these are the storylines that we've got kind of going in. And these are the things that we want to talk about. But if the game takes a turn, you got to go with where the game is taking you if you're doing it right.
Elizabeth
So when you said you meet with the teams on Friday, what does that entail? Are you meeting with a couple of the people on the coaching staff? Are you meeting with some of the players? What are you looking for when you're meeting with the teams?
It really depends. So in a normal year, traditionally, what our crews would do is that you'd fly into a town on Friday, and you'd meet with the home team that day and you'd go to practice and get to see them on the field and then you'd go back into their practice facility and you'd go meet with The head coach and the quarterback, and then a different combination of other players, or coaches. And part of that really depends on who you're working with different analysts. And TV is really an analysts medium, whereas radio I've always thought is much more of a play by play person's forte is the analyst that drives the train, on TV, whatever he or she sees, that's really the voice that you're presenting. And they are the ones who kind of help you figure out what you want to talk about, and how you want to make it accessible to the public. And depending on the analysts, some of them are more analytical and would like to talk to a lot of coaches and a couple of players, some would like to talk to a lot of players, and just the head coach, also some of the play by play guys, they'll have an idea who they'd like to talk to. And all that helps sort of round out your story. So on Friday, we get a chance to speak with the home team. And then Saturday, when the visiting team gets into town, what we've always done or until last year is that we go meet with them at their hotel, and talk to, again, a head coach and a handful of players. And all that helps us tell the story that we want to tell on Sunday. Now, last year was a little bit different. For the first time, no one was setting foot in anyone's buildings. So we all got quite acquainted with Zoom and conference calls and things of that nature. And it allowed us to get a certain level of access, but not as much as we've had previously,
do you think they might want to keep you at arm's length a little bit, as long as you know what happened?
It's interesting, I think that there'll be a combination, there's certainly a benefit to being there in person. But there are certainly benefits to doing things remotely from the team standpoint. But also from ours, when we go to see the visiting team, when they come into town on a Saturday, they may be staying an hour away from where we're staying. And there could be like in a town like LA, the hotels, where most of the teams stay or about 45 minutes from where we stay. And now you're stuck in LA traffic both ways. And you get to the hotel, and the team may have had a delay on their flights, or they've got a problem with the buses. And next thing, you know, you're spending two hours that you could be sitting in your hotel room getting work done, you're spending it just sitting there in in their hotel waiting for him. So we'll see what happens, we'll figure out something that'll be mutually beneficial teams have always been great to work with because they, you know, they want the best product out there as well. And they really understand what we're trying to get done. And we try to be so respectful of the fact that they've got a game to play, and we want to do the best we can to get the information that we need but not make their lives too too difficult. So it's a nice partnership.
It's a mutually beneficial relationship. I mean, they need you guys to broadcast their games the other way, no one's gonna I mean, otherwise, what X number of 1000s of people will see it but not the millions.
Exactly, exactly.
So by Saturday night, you go in you said with a plan that can take many left turns depending on how the game goes is that sort of a general like rundown, you've got of how you're hoping or thinking the game will go, you've got certain graphics in place certain ideas of what you'll go with, I don't think
it's always beneficial to overload your announcers, they've spent a week preparing for the games. And they're such amazing professionals that they have a really good sense of the stories that they want to tell as well. So we certainly don't want to be sitting in a meeting for three hours and kind of going through every detail. So we really try to plan out that opening four minutes before we're on the air the the little pregame show that I was mentioning, I think that's always a good thing. And then we kind of go through here are some of the big graphics and some of the videotape that we may want to show some of the real big picture stuff that we think ties in well to the broadcast and things that have come out of our research or our meetings during the week. And then it's really sitting in sort of talking about the themes going in, hey, just listening to your analyst talk about, okay, this is what I think are going to be the big storylines of the game. It's this cornerback against this wide receiver matchup. It's the great offensive line of Team X against the very good defensive line of team why just so that we're all on their page that we're all seeing the game through the same set of eyes, so that as the game goes on, we can be prepared for things like that. And that can be things as little as, boy, I love this matchup between this wide receiver and this defensive back and they're going to match up all over the field. This great cornerback is going to follow this guy over the field we want to make sure that not only do we have information about the two of them, but we've got even little things like if we're going to do an in game package of them a little highlight package in the middle of the game. We want to make sure that we've got a little graphic for the beginning of that package. So that needs to be built in advance. It's little stuff like that, that hopefully to the audience becomes seamless but takes time for the graphics people to work on and the videotape people to work on and then knowing what our 30,000 feet storylines are going in and then starting to get smaller and smaller as the game gets going.
Like you said you're the head coach of the broadcast. What are you doing? What are you saying?
plays are happening. And it's three hours of constant conversation between producer and director. And then as I said, a lot of it is between producer and announcers. But also both of the people in what we call the front bench, the producer and director with the rest of the crew I'm talking to, I've got a team of five people in videotape and they're recording everything. And the moment after a play all those split decisions that you're making, okay? This was a great play, I want to see replays of it. So I'll say to my director, we're going to go to our videotape machine. So once you're going to VTA, and then after that, go to VTB. And after that, if you have time, go to V T w. And so the director is rolling all of those replays in, but it's also giving the director space for him or her to do their thing. My director during the NFL, Suzanne Smith has been at CBS for gosh, almost 40 years, and she's terrific. So you want to make sure that she has time to get the live shots that she wants, right? There's a conscious decision after every play. What are we doing here? Are we doing replays? Is there a graphic that we really want to do? Is there a sponsored obligation or a promo for CBS is Sunday night lineup that after every play, you're making decisions as to what you want to do. And sometimes the best thing to do, oftentimes, the best thing to do is nothing. It's letting the game breathe, letting the director get live shots, letting the announcers talk, it's finding that balance between just putting the right amount of stuff into your bag.
That's one thing I was thinking about getting ready for this interview, just as a spectator watching the game. We have no idea until I started thinking about it. How do you make those decisions in that split second of when you're doing the replay when you're going to the crowd, when you're going to just look at the coach talking to the guys on the sideline or something. When you're going to commercial? I assume there's just certain set times this is a commercial break time, obviously, if it's a timeout or something, so it feels like it's a real pressure situation for you there.
You all must. You're used to it. You're in your zone, you're usually
but yeah, sure, you hope that most of the time you make the right call, but they're certainly not all the time. And whether it's something as simple as going to replay when you really don't need it. And you'll want to should be setting up the next play or going to commercial when perhaps you didn't need to or those kind of things. You hope that those are few and far between things happen. I mean, it's it's it's live television, and that's what's exhilarating about it. But that's the tightrope that you sometimes you know, walk you know, you're asking about the commercials and the timing. For the NFL, they're sort of I don't want to say standard times. It's much less formulaic than something like college basketball, which we cover a lot college basketball has distinct times, you know exactly when you're going to commercial. Traditionally, you go to commercial at 16 minutes, 12 minutes, eight minutes and four minutes, each half so prescribed, as soon as the clock hits 16 minutes, the next dead ball, the next stoppage of play, you go to commercial 1612, eight and four. And then there's usually one extra timeout during the NCAA tournament. There's one other big commercial and then their little commercials, you know, 32nd breaks when the team goes away. But during the NFL, it is not as formulaic. It has a rhythm and a routine to it. And the NFL years ago, used to have five commercials and every quarter, and it was a lot of time. And he would oftentimes go to commercial and what we would call a double up, you would go to commercial after a touchdown. And then they kick off and you go right back to commercial. And the NFL found that to be something that the fans just hated. And what they also found was that they didn't mind as much if the commercial breaks were a little longer. So maybe six years ago, five years ago, the NFL made the very astute decision, instead of having five commercials that were a minute 40 I think we have four commercials a quarter that are longer there to 20 to 30. And it's helped the flow of the game in measurably that double up that I mentioned, almost never happens anymore. And it's one of those little things that you're sitting at home, you probably wouldn't realize, but I think it's helped the flow of the game, from a viewer standpoint. And I think for the players in the field, too.
from your standpoint, you just know that after a certain amount of time, the next dead ball you need to go
no,
it's really at the end of a drive sort of a natural play. The NFL has kind of I don't want to say strict guidelines, but they have ideas of when they'd like you too. And our Associate Directors, the lead associate director who is the one who sits in the truck, he or she is in constant contact with the people on the field, saying okay, after this point, we're going to go to commercial. Well, all of a sudden, if there's a timeout, but the team is at the 10 yard line going in, they may say we don't want to go to commercial here. We don't want to ruin a team's momentum to go away for two and a half minutes instead of just 30 seconds. So we made our go to commercial that's a constant conversation that the associate director is having with the people on the field.
How are you communicating with the announcers? I know the people in the truck you're just talking with because they're right there with you.
Well,
I'm not all of them, we have multiple mobile units. So we all wear headsets. And I have a microphone, the producer and director both do that pretty much everyone in the compound can hear all the time when we're on, they can hear me so I can talk to all of them. And then they can hit me on this little point to point sort of walkie talkie set up so that somebody hits a button, and it comes straight into my ear so that nobody else needs to listen to it. But there are 3456 conversations going on at once. I may be talking to two people in videotape, but also saying graphics, hey, let's make sure we've got that going up. And somebody may be saying to me, don't forget, we want to do this promo. And all of that kind of stuff is going on. But that's what we do. Right? It's that level of multitasking that you get comfortable with and a lot of give and take during the game with the producer in the announcers is happening while they're on the air. You know, we mentioned the commercial time we try to use that really advantageously. I mean, I try to give him a little break. But we also talk about okay, What haven't we hit so far? What storylines are we missing here? I'd like to make sure we get this promo, and after the kickoff and all those kinds of things. But it's also taking a step back and sort of how are we where are we? Are we doing too much are we doing too little and just kind of that constant self check. And then during the game, it's trying to talk to the announcers to help them know where we're going next, but not talk too much to them. And that's a relationship that builds the more years you work together with my analyst. Now, we've been together for four years, his name is Trent green, but all over the NFL is a terrific quarterback, and Trenton I have this kind of couple word code system that I'll send him Okay, after this play, I'll tell him, I'm going to give you this replay and then not one, or watch this guy on the far end of the line. And then he can circle them and you know, so that he can tell me what he sees. So that I can give him the replays that help him tell the stories he wants. And sometimes it's me leading him with, Hey, I'm going to give you this replay that he knows what's coming so that he can know kind of how to frame his
topic, well,
you're kind of dancing together,
that's a great way to put it. And it's the same thing with your play by play person, and trying to find the right times to get in their ears. Some of them, you can talk while they're talking for the entire broadcast. And some really wants you to wait, everyone's different. And they're all so gifted and so talented, and just trying to help them, you know, succeed, helping them show off all the hard work, and the talents that they've got to make for the best show.
I'm sure it's one of those jobs that a lot of people think, Oh, it's so easy. And it's not so easy. It's a real skill set to do that job. Well.
I think to do it. Well, I'm sure they put in a ton of work. Every week, our announcers, all the CBS announcers that I've worked with, they come so unbelievably prepared for the games, knowing everything from the mundane to the esoteric, everything. And then it's always a challenge of figuring out how much you can get into a broadcast. So one of our announcers has always said, if it's a good game, he's gonna have a big board of stuff. And if he gets the 10% of it, that's about the right number. He's gonna do all this work, and it may never see the light of day, because again, the game is gonna take you where
it's gonna go.
Well, also, he's done what you were saying he's, he's prepared.
Yes.
You notice the On Air chemistry that certain teams have. And I was assuming that that also went behind the scenes, as it clearly does. Because under percent that really shows because you can't just throw people out there and assume that the whole ship is going to steady, you know. And so how long do people tend to work together? And does your whole team kind of go from game to game?
Yeah.
What traditionally happens with CBS during the football season in particular, is that you're with a crew, and you will be with them for the entire season. And in the case of the announcers, and the director, you may be with them for multiple years. My current NFL team that I'm with is Kevin Harlan, is our play by play, man, Trent green, our analyst, and our sideline reporter is Melanie Collins, and Trent i this will be the fifth year that we're together. Kevin's now gonna be the second year that he's joined us and Melanie, I think it's our fourth that we've all been together. And my director, Suzanne and I have been together for five years. Certainly with the On Air Group, you get a sense if you're watching the game, if they have chemistry, if they're listening to each other. It's one of the most important things in life, but certainly in our business is listening to each other so that the analyst isn't saying something and then the play by play guy is going back and re asking the same question or that the producer and director are listening to each other that we're all pulling on the same rope in the same direction. It's very much like a team on the field, a normal regular season game that we'd work on football game, you'd have two or three big mobile units that come in. And myself, the director, the technical director, who is a key part of the broadcast, the person who pushes all the buttons next to the director. All of that group sits in the front, in the first truck, along with our videotape people and our associate directors. And then there's a second truck, which does all the graphics and all that kind of stuff. And then there may be a third truck, which has maintenance and some other things. So those trucks usually either parked right outside or right underneath the stadium. And then our crews, our technical crews, they work so hard, you know, they come in and on Friday and Saturday morning, they're building in to an entire stadium. I mean, they're running cables when they need to and setting things up. And because every week, all the cameras get constructed and everything. And then they all go away because then somebody else may be coming in the next week to do it.
And those trucks, those two to three trucks are traveling from city to city,
we also have a technical crew. And there's a core part of that crew, or people that my director and I have worked with us every single week. So wherever we go, Hey, we're in Seattle this week, we're in London, the next week, we're in Dallas, the next week, they're with us every single week, we also have a group of people in a TV truck, a mobile unit crew, an engineer for it, the drivers, and they all come with us every week to so these guys talking about tough work. These guys, the drivers sometimes are going straight from one site to another site to another site to another site. They do such amazing work to keep everything and all of this equipment running unbelievably smoothly, every single day. Certainly, when you're together week after week, and things are going on at home, they're going to be weeks that are harder than other weeks. And they're going to be games that are terrible. And maybe you've got technical difficulties this week, but it's doing the best you can to keep everybody on the same page as much as you can and in the best position to succeed.
Have you ever had a circumstance? Or what would you do if an announcer someone on air said something really outrageous? Or egregious? Or just off the cuff? Do you just try to talk into their ear and have the other one cover it?
It depends on what you mean by egregious. I mean, if they say something that's outlandish, but that may be off the wall in terms of the comments, then perhaps it's something you have fun with. Or I've worked with some wacky guys and gals over the years. And you know, you have fun with it. If somebody says something or makes a bold prediction that you think is totally out of left field, call him or her on it, have some fun with it. If they say something that's inappropriate, certainly, that's a different story. And then you've got to figure out the best way to address it, to apologize for it to clarify it if need be. But that's one of those things that certainly the first line of defense is me and all of us in the truck. But you may also get feedback on something if it's to that level, from our bosses who are watching in New York, CBS may have seven games going on the air at the same time. And there are people watching all of them. And if if someone says something out of line, we may be starting to handle it. But they may also say hey, look, we need you to do this, or we need them to say exactly that. But not going to what I haven't I haven't had one of those. But you know, things come up all the time. I mean, whether it's stuff that is related to your broadcast, or developing stories, though, week of the game, the morning of the game, whether it's something legal that's happened the night before to one of the players or you're doing a college basketball game, and something happens with institution in that week, you need to figure out the ways to best handle it journalistically. And then again, finding the right balance of how much you talk about it, and how much you focus on the game itself.
So I wanted to get into your head now hours leading into the game, do you sort of need to meditate ahead of time or what's your state your mental state getting into there? Because that's three, three and a half, four hours of pretty intense work, just needing to be super present. Yes. So are you kind of anxious leading up to that? Are you excited and nervous?
All of the above. I've always felt that the day that I'm no longer nervous about doing a game or anxious or at least a little on edge is the day I should probably stop doing it. Because if doing live TV doesn't get your blood pumping, then you probably need to find a different in a line of work. But try not to be nervous. I think that the best cure for nerves, at least for me is preparation. If you know that you've done the work all week, all month all year. If you've been doing the work then you know that you're ready for it doesn't mean that the night before I don't ever have that bad dream. There's every once in a while you have that dream where you're not prepared for a game and the worst ones to wake up from but I think if you're prepared you don't feel overwhelmingly nervous. But look, I mean, certainly Really, the bigger the game, the bigger the stage, the more anxious you are that you've got every T crossed and every i dotted, because you know, it's never gonna go perfectly. That's the fun of it. That's also the hard part. The dates are exactly I mean, the number of times you sit there and go, Okay, we're gonna do this element or this promo right after this play. And then something major happens, you know, there's a touchdown, there's a penalty, there's a any number of weird things happens. And you just need to be able to adjust on the fly. And I think that that's one of the biggest things that I've found over the years is like they talk about for athletes, whether it's pitchers or defensive backs are obviously gonna have a short memory, I think it's the same thing. In TV, things will go wrong, things sometimes go wrong. And you got to make sure that whatever the last thing that happened, whether it was good or bad, doesn't affect the next thing. And being in that moment, I think is a key to what we do.
Well, I
think it's also probably exhilarating. And in a way, it's an exciting way to live, because your job makes you be fully in the moment you have to be fully present 100% Your hunters cannot do your job on cruise control. So you really are there. And probably at times, do you ever say how are we at the end of the fourth quarter already?
Or at the end?
I think most every game. You're 100% right. You're absolutely absolutely right. One of the funny things is when you make the transition whenever it is at the end of the football regular season, or if you're doing the playoffs or you're working on the Super Bowl, the football games are there long. They're three hours, three hours and change whatever. But the funny thing is when you make that transition and the first week of doing college basketball, and all of a sudden you look up and you go Wait, it's halftime already, like the game's halfway over. And you haven't you just settled into a rhythm. It just like it goes like that. It's so funny, every year and I've been doing this for decades. And every year I still go, Wait a second. It's already halftime. Like I'm not ready for this right?
How different is it working the Super Bowl versus a regular season game.
It's much different on on many levels. When I work on the Super Bowl, I go as one of the producers, we have 50 or 60 Replay sources at the Super Bowl, because we want to make sure that we see everything. And look, it's the biggest event on the yearly sports calendar. And if you're going to have that many people watching it, we want to make sure that we've got everything covered. So you never know when the next play is going to be the play and you are going to have the angle of it. The best thing about doing a game but certainly a big game is when you walk away you go, I'm exhausted, I've got nothing left in me, that's a good feeling. Because I think that means that you've, as you were saying, Stay present and in the moment for as much as you can. And really think your way through everything you can. But also feel your way through. Because it can't all be paint by numbers, there are moments when you just need to take a step back and remind yourself that doing nothing is letting the scene play and the crowd cheer. And the pictures tell the story. It may be a good time not to do anything not to talk not to replay not to put any graphics in. And again, it's finding that balance of the right time to do all those kinds of things.
Do you prefer doing the regular season or being a part of the big production on the Super Bowl,
I mean, they each have their own,
they all certainly have their own merits. But you get into a business like this to do big events. When you're doing the Super Bowl, when you're doing anything that that's big or unique. It's pretty special, when you get to do something that you know is unlike anything else, that's really fun, whether that's the NCAA Tournament, or the NFL playoffs,
that leads me to another thing I had been curious about was just all the technological innovations that have happened throughout your career and how that has affected your work. And even maybe how the game is played.
I think it's made the TV audience much smarter. And I think it's pushed us to innovate. We have a whole team of people who were coming up with creative ways to do all of the technological things, our operations people, and I love the opportunity to try things because again, it gets you thinking about things a little bit differently. And I think that the technology has done an amazing job of really bringing it to people in a different way. I mean, there are things that we have now on NFL broadcast that you can't imagine not having on the game anymore. And the best example, I think is the first and 10th line. That little line is
thinking that the blue line that comes out
Yeah.
And I often look at that and I think how is that so precise.
It is a remarkable thing. But think about it, whatever it was 20 years ago didn't exist. And now you can't watch a football game. You know, I go back and you watch games, you know old games and you go, where's the first outline? Right? Did they get the first enemy? Even simple things like a constant score and o'clock. That's not a humongous technological advance, but it's one of those things that, that you've just gotten used to, as the football fan technology's done such a great job of helping make the audience smarter, which is I think pushed all of us to do our jobs better and to explain things a little bit better.
And I'm sure you have to weigh off all of these things to the audience is so varied. There are some who really want the analytics, there are some who want the real gameplay there are some who want the personal stories. I mean, that that is what draws people and like I think about, you know, my mom loves sports, but she's really drawn in by knowing the backstories on all the personal stuff. And I'm sure there's other elements too, that draw people in. And so how you kind of weave all these together, and it's a broadcast, right? So you have to get to the broadest audience, like you said,
it's the balance, right?
It's right. Some of that I think, is predicated by the people you're working with, you want to put them in the best position to succeed. So some of the broadcaster's that you work with are better storytellers. Some are better big call meat and potatoes doing the play by play kind of people. Some we've a nice combination. So I think what we do in the way that we see the game has to impart be informed by the people you're working with your broadcast is going to be a little bit different, because you want to play to their strengths.
What part of your job? Do you find the most enjoyable or sort of exhilarating? And what part would you do away with if you could,
the most exhilarating part is the teamwork, I think it's the camaraderie, we've kind of went through the schedule. And this is what we do on Fridays than we do on the one really nice time. That's, I think it's always been a wonderful thing is that sort of Friday night, we try to get the whole crew together and go out to dinner. And it's great if there's no football talked at all. Now there usually is. But it's really nice as we get to know each other, because they're different people coming into your crew every year. And it's trying to get our production team that we can't really do it with the entire technical team to it's a much bigger, complicated thing. We try to do that a couple of times a year. But for the production team, we can get out to dinner every week. That's a really nice thing. Because you start to get to know people and to your earlier point about chemistry on air, I think you you feel when a group of people has spent time together and likes each other and is invested in each other. Because you start to see the game the same way and you trust each other. And trust is a big part of all of it. The biggest drawback is the time away from home, and I love what I do, and I love traveling. But it is tough to be away from your family every week, especially when your kids say, hey, you know, why are you going again this week? I really don't want you to go this week. That's really hard. But the answer that I've given my two kids forever is, boy, you know, I don't like being away from you guys any more than you like maybe in a way, but you'd much rather I was doing something I loved and felt strongly about, you know, and had a career that I just felt so blessed to have, that I was doing something I didn't love and was homework because you know, I probably wouldn't be too much fun to be around.
So in the NFL season, when are you home, your home for a couple days,
I'm usually home, it depends on where we're going for the week, if we're going to the West Coast, I traditionally leave on Thursday night and come home on Monday, if we're going to a place that I can get to Friday morning, I'll leave Friday morning and come back Sunday night. So the schedule often dictates how much time you're home. But pretty much from the middle of August until the middle of April. There are not a lot of Friday and Saturday nights that I'm on here. If you find a road family that you really like and respect, it makes it a little bit easier. But certainly not not the easiest thing to be away from home.
Do you have any goals and dreams that you haven't yet reached of things you'd love to produce?
One of the things that's fun about what we do is it's the only real true reality TV. When people say Oh, I'm doing a reality TV show. It's always being edited. And there's a producer and the director working on that for us, the game kind of plays out and you get to experience it. So even having done it for this long, it still feels new every week. So there are still challenges every time and I think it's just kind of finding ways to get better. That's the only thing that I really kind of every week and every year try to do is how can I get better? And how can I challenge myself? What kind of new things can we be a part of and just have fun with?
Are you just exhausted by the end of the season?
Yes. Yeah,
but you said you were all right into basketball.
Yeah. And usually by the end of April, I'm warped It's tiring, and it's it's a lot of travel. But again, when you love what you do, it's you still don't feel like you're working. It's tiring, but it's not so bad. It's absolutely worth it. Yes.
Well, I've taken way too much of your time but thank you Ken
It's my pleasure. Appreciate you doing this has been fun to take the time to talk over
some stuff.
I appreciate you doing it. I feel like I've really gotten a seat in the tracks. Thank you.
A lot of Ken's experiences as a professional sports producer can apply to all of our lives. Here are some of my takeaways. Number one, a good way to keep improving is to rewatch or reevaluate your work to be prepared, but also be prepared for change. Go in with a solid plan, but the game is going to take you where the game is going to take you. Three, listen to each other. Collaborative, teamwork yields great results for things are never going to go perfectly. And that's the fun of it. Five, have a short memory. Make sure that the last thing that happened, good or bad, doesn't affect the next thing that happens. And finally, number six, sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. Many thanks to the wonderful Ken Mack, for sharing his time and expertise in sports production with me. Please visit our website, the Experience podcast dotnet. To explore other episodes, sign up for our insiders list and newsletter and find out how to follow us on social media. And if you liked what you heard, please rate review and subscribe to this podcast. It helps others discover us. I'm Elizabeth Pearson gar thanks for joining in the experience