NBC Talent Ramping Up
TAMPA - Tuesday afternoon, while reporters and camera people jockeyed for space near John Madden, Al Michael, Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick, Fred Gaudelli sat staring at a printout of numbers.
Gaudelli, the producer for Sunday's Super Bowl XLIII on NBC, was asked what he was staring at so intently. The answer? Breaks. Which ones needed to be a hair longer than normal, which ones were dropped in to spots you normally wouldn't find them.
"We have to make sure the officials know when these breaks are and that we communicate with them so they don't come back too early," explained Gaudelli.
This is Gaudelli's third Super Bowl and first for NBC. He, along with director Drew Esocoff, will be pulling the visual levers on Steelers-Cardinals.
"The biggest challenge of doing a Super Bowl is all the things you do that don’t have anything to do with the game itself. It takes a lot of choreography, a lot of preparation and it can become taxing if you allow it to," says Gaudelli. "Between 6 and 6:30 (right before kickoff) there’s a lot of pomp taking place. You have the teams taking the field, you have America the Beautiful, you have the Naitonal Anthem, you have the Walter Payton Award winner, you have the coin toss with many dignitaries. A lot of money, time and production has gone into all that from the NFL’s end and you have to cover it in a very, very special way.
"But at the same time America’s ready to watch a game," he says. " So you want to keep things moving but you want a tight, crisp production. These people that (do the pregame festivities) do it all the time but they don’t do it with teams all the time. We do and we know the traps to doing that so it’s a collaboration."
Once the game begins, the broadcast team - including those who never appear on-camera - needs to walk the tightrope of engaging the once-a-year fan while not irking the diehards.
"You’re on to the trick," said play-by-play legend Al Michaels. "There aare a lot of people who know next to noighting about it and they will sit down and watch one game a year and this is that year. On the other hand, every football fan in Amercia knows a lot about the game and will watch it. But you can’t do Kurt Warner's life story in the middle of the game. You just can’t. Even though it might be interesting to someone watching their first Super Bowl game and they'd say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know that,’ it's impossible. So what we try to do is find little sidebars to the main story that advance what the basis is but avoids pissing off the fan that watches all the time. You have to be so careful about what stories during the week have been told ad nauseum. There will be some stories that will be played out by Saturday. People will say, 'Enough.' We have to be aware of what those stories are."
Nobody's louder post-Super Bowl than the armchair media critics that lambaste the product. In some cases, they have a gripe. Michaels, Gaudelli and Esocoff want to avoid giving them one.
"You should be prepared to tell the seminal stories of the game but there’s a good chance the game won’t lead you to all of your stories and you don’t want to force them," said Gaudelli. "If all of a sudden, you’re doing your own show, you’re pissing off most of America. There’s really nothing better than a crisp football game. Just make sure you have it covered and people will be enthused about it as opposed to doing your own thing."
Michaels says this is just the third Cardinals game he's broadcast in 23 years. Because of that, he's spending his time brushing up on the Cards at "60-40" rate.
"We’ll go into the game ready to do anything and everything," says Michaels. "You go in completely prepared but you have to let the game come to you. John Madden says, 'You have all of this info and then a game breaks out.'"
In addition to Madden and Michaels in the booth are Andrea Kremer and Alex Flanagan on the sidelines.
-- Tom
Gaudelli, the producer for Sunday's Super Bowl XLIII on NBC, was asked what he was staring at so intently. The answer? Breaks. Which ones needed to be a hair longer than normal, which ones were dropped in to spots you normally wouldn't find them.
"We have to make sure the officials know when these breaks are and that we communicate with them so they don't come back too early," explained Gaudelli.
This is Gaudelli's third Super Bowl and first for NBC. He, along with director Drew Esocoff, will be pulling the visual levers on Steelers-Cardinals.
"The biggest challenge of doing a Super Bowl is all the things you do that don’t have anything to do with the game itself. It takes a lot of choreography, a lot of preparation and it can become taxing if you allow it to," says Gaudelli. "Between 6 and 6:30 (right before kickoff) there’s a lot of pomp taking place. You have the teams taking the field, you have America the Beautiful, you have the Naitonal Anthem, you have the Walter Payton Award winner, you have the coin toss with many dignitaries. A lot of money, time and production has gone into all that from the NFL’s end and you have to cover it in a very, very special way.
"But at the same time America’s ready to watch a game," he says. " So you want to keep things moving but you want a tight, crisp production. These people that (do the pregame festivities) do it all the time but they don’t do it with teams all the time. We do and we know the traps to doing that so it’s a collaboration."
Once the game begins, the broadcast team - including those who never appear on-camera - needs to walk the tightrope of engaging the once-a-year fan while not irking the diehards.
"You’re on to the trick," said play-by-play legend Al Michaels. "There aare a lot of people who know next to noighting about it and they will sit down and watch one game a year and this is that year. On the other hand, every football fan in Amercia knows a lot about the game and will watch it. But you can’t do Kurt Warner's life story in the middle of the game. You just can’t. Even though it might be interesting to someone watching their first Super Bowl game and they'd say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know that,’ it's impossible. So what we try to do is find little sidebars to the main story that advance what the basis is but avoids pissing off the fan that watches all the time. You have to be so careful about what stories during the week have been told ad nauseum. There will be some stories that will be played out by Saturday. People will say, 'Enough.' We have to be aware of what those stories are."
Nobody's louder post-Super Bowl than the armchair media critics that lambaste the product. In some cases, they have a gripe. Michaels, Gaudelli and Esocoff want to avoid giving them one.
"You should be prepared to tell the seminal stories of the game but there’s a good chance the game won’t lead you to all of your stories and you don’t want to force them," said Gaudelli. "If all of a sudden, you’re doing your own show, you’re pissing off most of America. There’s really nothing better than a crisp football game. Just make sure you have it covered and people will be enthused about it as opposed to doing your own thing."
Michaels says this is just the third Cardinals game he's broadcast in 23 years. Because of that, he's spending his time brushing up on the Cards at "60-40" rate.
"We’ll go into the game ready to do anything and everything," says Michaels. "You go in completely prepared but you have to let the game come to you. John Madden says, 'You have all of this info and then a game breaks out.'"
In addition to Madden and Michaels in the booth are Andrea Kremer and Alex Flanagan on the sidelines.
-- Tom
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Except for a fluke in 1947 the Cardinals have been hexed in the postseason by the curse of the Pottsville Maroons- the NFL champs in 1925 who had the title stolen by the Cardinals. The Maroons had a better record so the Cardinals threw in a few games
against some college and high school kids to up their record. Then apparently had buyers remorse and refused the title but they had effectively stolen it from the Maroons.