Inside a production truck deep within University of Phoenix Stadium, ESPN’s John Vassalo talks to a legion of broadcasters who will complete the network’s next Megacast.
With more than a dozen ways for fans to watch Alabama take on Clemson, the operation lives up to that name.
Last year’s inaugural College Football National Championship game set records for the largest audience and highest rating in cable television history and that’s one reason ESPN is expanding the ways fans can watch Monday’s game in Glendale.
“You’re hoping that you’re prepared for anything to happen,” said Ed Placey senior coordinating roducer for ESPN and ABC College Football.
Placey joined ESPN the same year Tim Brown won college football’s Heisman Trophy. To put that in perspective, Brown was inducted into the NFL’s Hall of Fame with the class of 2015.
Placey is joined at the stadium by enough people from ESPN to occupy a village of mobile homes on its south side, and a handful of production trucks parked where team buses will drop off players and coaches.
“I’ve heard rumors we might be in four digits for ESPN credentials,” Placey said.
Those wearing them will be in position to monitor, edit and feed what’s captured by about 90 cameras into productions shown on ESPN and its networks like ESPN Deportes, ESPN Classic, ESPN U and the SEC Network.
About one third of those cameras are inside the end zone pylons, which are those orange 3D rectangles standing up on the far ends of the field. People watching the ESPN online streaming broadcast can see video coming from the 12 pylon cameras with the best view of the action.
“There’s this whole different world of exploration that we get to have this type of stage to take advantage of,” Placey said.
ESPN calls itself the “Worldwide Leader in Sports.” It owns rights to broadcast Major League Baseball, the NBA and the NFL.
Does any of its programming sort of compare to what will happen in Glendale?
Oddly enough, maybe the X-Games, said Josh Krulewitz, Vice President of communications.
“Nothing is bigger in what we do than this,” Krulewitz said.
If 14 alternate ways to see the next national champion crowned sounds overwhelming, traditionalists can still watch a regular television broadcast. Those who are even more old school can listen to it on ESPN radio.
