[vc_row full_width=”” parallax=”” parallax_image=””][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]By Ed Murphy
Our guest speaker at our regular lunch meeting on April 2nd was one of our own members, Bob Akamian. Bob recounted how sports games get to television and radio, from planning and scheduling years ahead of time to the last 30 seconds before airing the event live. And he should know – Bob has been involved in TV and radio for the last 35 years. He is currently General Manager and Executive Producer, West Region, for PlayON! Sports. He is also Manager of bobtv, LLC, and Talent/Producer for ROOT Sports.
Bob first talked about the long time-frame. He used the Blazers as an example. He said what games will be on TV are decided, 2, 3, 5, even 10 years out. But as the time draws nearer, there are more specific schedules to work out, days of the event to be selected, and facilities to be rented. He said that as the timeframe gets down to several weeks, there are TV trucks and other equipment that need to be specified and rented for particular dates. He said the Trail Blazers do not have their own equipment – they rent the trucks and cameras. ESPN’s favorite camera now is the fly camera – it runs about $10,000 a game for one of those!
About a month before the event, Bob will visit the arena in advance to do a “walk-through”, and will decide things like the number of cameras needed and precisely where they will be located. About a week ahead of the event, he will send out a “facts sheet” – listing everything about the show, including important details like who will be unlocking the gates and at what time. Then finally, it is Game Day. He said it takes about 7 hours to set up everything – the TV trucks, cameras, cables, lighting, etc. The last hour is used to check the transmission – making sure that everything looks and sounds right. The clock ticks down. Last chance to go to the bathroom or grab a bite to eat. Then it is down to the last 30 seconds before live broadcasting. Bob said that doing live sports is the hardest job, because it is not scripted, and no one knows what will happen. He said to do it well, one really needs to love sports (which Bob obviously does).
Bob reviewed some of the key positions in sports broadcasting, going over the duties of the Executive Producer (who gets the money), the Producer (the “Father of the Show”, who decides how to spend the money), the Director (who picks out every item that goes on the air), the Assistant Director (a second set of eyes and ears), the Technical Director (who pushes the buttons and programs every move), the Graphics Director and Assistant Graphics Director (who check for accuracy and appearance), and more. Bob said that these are highly skilled positions, and the decisions of each one of them will affect the quality of the broadcast. In response to questions, Bob shared a few of his memories of things that have gone wrong during a live sports broadcast – nothing too serious, and humorous in retrospect, if not at the time.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]