The comfort level of a sports TV production team is very important in assuring a quality telecast.
There are many aspects in a sports television production that must work in unison in order to deliver a quality product.
The Producer and the Director are the team that makes the ultimate decisions about what airs on the telecast. The closer these two positions interact as one entity on a telecast, the better the telecast will be.
Every single member of a Major League baseball telecast team has an equal value to the quality of the final product.
A typical St. Louis Cardinals home telecast, where the comfort level is at its highest during a baseball TV production, includes the following positions: (since each position is of equal importance, this list of crew is in no particular order)
A1 – main audio mixer
A2 – assist to A1
Video – shades cameras for video quality
Duet Operator – graphics
Phone Coordinator – communicates with coordinating studio (commercial inventory)
Elvis Operator – main video replay producer
2 Replay operators – in conjunction with Elvis operator
Score box operator – coordinates balls, strikes, runners, and promos on score box
7 camera operators
Stage Manager – works with announcers in booth
EIC (Engineer in Charge of Mobile Unit) – oversees all truck components
Utility – pulls cable for hand held camera and assists camera operators
Producer
Director
As we have experienced this season, if one part of this “team” breaks down, the whole telecast suffers. I believe our home telecast group at Busch Stadium really understands the importance of teamwork during a telecast.
This belief was confirmed yesterday.
A regular member of our telecast team approached me with some ideas about the use of his camera during the telecast. This valuable member of our team was actually thinking about his camera position while we were on the road! After the experience with the apathetic crew on the last road trip, it was so refreshing to hear that a member of our team was thinking about improving the quality of the telecast when he wasn’t even working! During the telecast, this camera operator implemented his ideas into his position and the results were terrific. The shots from this camera provided some unique insight into the “ballpark experience” and added value to our telecast.
Sports TV production teams that continually throw around ideas about the production are the telecast teams with the highest quality productions.
It is comforting to be part of such a team.