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Inside NBC's Super Bowl Telecast

Tribune photo by JIM REED

Tim DeKime, NBC director of sports operations, and his crew have been hard at work for two weeks.

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By TONY FABRIZIO | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 30, 2009

Everything about the Super Bowl is bigger, grander and more expensive. There is no better example than the live television production.

Broadcasting Sunday's Pittsburgh-Arizona game at Raymond James Stadium will cost NBC $8 million to $10 million, and that doesn't count $600 million a year in rights fees the network is paying to also get "Sunday Night Football" through 2011 and the 2012 Super Bowl.

NBC's first Super Bowl since 1998 is a massive undertaking requiring some 450 production and engineering people, 45 trailers and trucks and 50 miles of fiber optic cable left over from the Beijing Olympics.

Preparation began long before the teams arrived.

"The first group started Monday Jan. 19 and the trucks arrived Tuesday, so it's taking almost two full weeks for us to run all of the cable and set up the cameras," Tim DeKime, NBC's director of Sports Operations, said during a tour of the compound.

Crews had to construct a temporary booth above the 50-yard line for lead announcers Al Michaels and John Madden. Crews also had to build two sets outside the stadium and one on the first tier of the pirate ship for the six-hour pregame show.

Producers will set camera angles today using Plant High's Class 4A state championship team. Players will simulate the pregame introductions and run plays diagrammed by former Los Angeles Rams and Southern Cal coach John Robinson.

HIGH-TECH WIZARDRY EVERYWHERE

Viewers won't notice any new gimmicks or major enhancements in the telecast, but there's already enough technology in a Sunday or Monday night NFL telecast to land Ben Roethlisberger on the moon.

Basically, the Super Bowl telecast is an amplified edition of "Sunday Night Football."

The command center is the three-unit ND3 truck supplied by Pittsburgh-based NEP Sharpshooters. A wall of HD monitors captures the camera feeds, allowing producer Fred Gaudelli to choose the best angle for a particular shot.

Editing and graphics are handled in another unit. ND3 is supported by a second truck, and all feeds are recorded on one-terabyte external hard drives there.

Activity is frantic once the game begins, and with NBC Sports and Olympics chairman Dick Ebersol sitting on the back row in ND3, nobody wants to make a mistake.

"It's the Super Bowl, so the intensity level is four times higher than it would be for a Sunday night game," operations director Tim DeKime said. "And it's pretty high then."

ALL THE TOOLS FOR RIGHT CALL

With 50 cameras overall and 38 devoted to the game (up from about 26 for a standard Sunday night game), NBC should have all of the angles covered.

Three 300-frame-per-second X-Mo cameras from Inertia Unlimited will deliver highly detailed slow-motion replay. They'll give frame-by-frame views of close plays at the goal line and on the sidelines.

Cablecam, a remote-controlled camera that travels on cables above the field, provides additional views.

Replay officials will have access to all the angles, giving them a greater opportunity than usual to make a decisive and correct call.

"We have so many cameras that virtually there would be nothing on the field that wouldn't have two or three different angles," operations director Tim DeKime said.

NEW NETWORK, OLD FACES

The "best of the best" get to work the Super Bowl, director Tim DeKime noted, and that, of course, includes the announcers.

Although this is NBC's first Super Bowl in 11 years, viewers will see familiar talent. Al Michaels and John Madden, the premier announcing tandem in pro football, will work their third Super Bowl together. Andrea Kremer is the sideline reporter.

"You can't do enough of these," Madden said. "This is the essence of why any of us get into this business, and God willing everyone stays healthy there is more to come."

Bob Costas will host the pregame show form the pirate ship, along with Cris Collinsworth, Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann. Jerome Bettis, Tiki Barber and Sports Illustrated's Peter King will provide analysis. Al Roker of the "Today" show gets to interview celebrities from a "super suites" set.

Former Bucs and Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy will be among several other participants in the pregame coverage.

Overseeing the production are producer Fred Gaudelli and director Drew Esocoff, a pair of Super Bowl and "Monday Night Football" veterans.

DOUBLE EVERYTHING - JUST IN CASE

What if a camera fails, cable breaks or the power goes out? Viewers should never notice.

"With an event this big, you have to have redundant everything," operations director Tim DeKime said. "Everything is backed up, from our transmission to our fiber to our satellite trucks to our power. For the Super Bowl, we don't take any chances."

The entire TV compound and cameras are powered by Greco 450-kilowatt twin generators. They're twin units so that if one motor goes out, the other can carry the load.

GOING GENTLY ON THE ENVIRONMENT

NBC has brought a crew of seasoned pros to the Super Bowl. About the only thing green is the production's impact on the environment.

The twin 450-kilowatt generators powering the encampment are burning bio diesel fuel - about 130 gallons an hour. Bio-degradable plates and utensils are used in the giant catering tent. Instead of water battles, crew members wear containers on their belts and stop at filling stations.

"We're trying to do our environmental thing as well," operations director Tim DeKime said.

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