Big Ten Network (BTN): Behind the Scenes

The Big Ten Network (BTN) began its coverage of college wresting in 2007 and after some initial success the network broadened their commitment in 2009 in the hopes of attracting profits and building a national cable audience.

Wrestling is the BTN's third most-watched sporting event, broadcasting 16 high definition events, and streaming 15 events online. However, like the magic of a Hollywood movie, few fans know what is necessary to run a top-end television production, especially one that guarantees fans access to the best in the Big Ten wrestling every week of the season.

Sunday, January 31, Welsh-Ryan Arena, Evanston, Illinois

There are few places in America as cold as Chicago. In the winter, it's your extremities that always suffer the most: hands go numb, eyeballs dry out, hair freezes. The January 31 Northwestern home match against Illinois is no exception: 13 degrees and a slight off-lake breeze that delivers pangs of pure misery. While the college crowd sleeps off their hangovers in a warm twist of sheets and duvets, the first of the Big Ten Network's crew arrives at the Welsh-Ryan Arena to crank the production truck, turn on the heat, and brew the coffee.

Big Ten Network microphone

Each crewmember is on a different schedule, with most showing up for work between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. -- several hours before the match's scheduled 2 p.m. start time. The production truck, a 40-foot white box stuffed with millions of dollars worth of audio and video equipment, is wedged on a sidewalk between in the Welsh-Ryan Arena and a field house with indoor turf where a girls youth lacrosse tournament is being held. The tournament's overflow crowd -- filled with chatty bubblegum teens and over-caffeinated lacrosse moms -- mug the entryway of Welsh Ryan in a mess of color-coded lacrosse outerwear. The crews don't seem the slightest bit thrown.

Like a wrestling camp or all-star travel team, the crew is a hodgepodge of independent professionals asked to work in a team format for the day. Each crewmember was chosen from a pool of production freelancers by a company hired to staff the event by the BTN.

Introductions and "Oh, so you must know ...?" are commonplace in the early morning hours, but the motley collection of video whizzes, sound engineers, production managers, and on-air talent is here to churn out a finished television product, not become best friends. Small talk is rare.

Doug Brooker (left) and John Flower (right)

Orchestrating the tangled wires and managerial madness is Doug Brooker, a television producer with over 25 years of experience producing live and tape-delayed television sports coverage. Brooker, a polite man with a tussle of gray hair, lives in Seattle and travels to the Midwest every few weeks to produce Big Ten dual meets and special tournaments like the Midlands Championships. He started in producing for television in the 1980's and was one of the originators of Iowa Public Television's initial college wrestling broadcasts. His job is to make certain his staff was on task for the day's broadcast. "I'm here to be sure that we can get a final product to the fans, but that's impossible by myself," Brooker said.

Brooker's crew of video specialists and producers are experienced in sports -- independent technicians and audiophiles who usually work for the Cubs, Bulls, White Sox and Blackhawks. Brian Unverzagt, an EVS specialist with 16 years of experience in the truck, splices the highlights for pre-match teasers and the insta-recaps that are prevalent during the in-match playbacks. His working alcove has 49 television screens and only one EVS assistant -- to most people who suffer with debilitating electronic incompetence the entire scene is and epic confusion of wires and gadgetry. According to the barrel-chested Unverzagt, "It's not too difficult to pick out a highlight in wrestling, a takedown is always going to get replayed."

The BTN brought five cameras to film the action, each with a defined role in the day's broadcast: two are at mat level for wrestling action, one is handheld for interviews and bench shots, the last is an open shot from the top of the arena. Four of the cameras are manned and in consistent use, while the final camera is used as a stationary shot of the mat and stands, or the "the beauty shot" as Brooker refers to it.

Jim Gibbons, Dan Gable, and Tim Johnson called the Iowa-Minnesota meet (Photo/The Guillotine)

Adding to the validity of the BTN production are announcers Jim Gibbons and Tim Johnson. The duo arrives around 11:30 a.m. to prepare for pre-match interviews with the Northwestern and Illinois athletes and coaches. Brooker outlines the storyline for the event (rebuilding year for Northwestern, Jim Heffernan's first season as head coach at Illinois) and asks Gibbons and Johnson if they have individual requests for interviews with the former wrestlers in attendance -- Jake Herbert, Dustin Fox and Sean Bormet were all considered.

At 1:45 p.m. the pre-match preparation is complete and Brooker takes his seat in the middle of the production truck where he faces no fewer than 50 active television screens relaying the video of the event and pre-packaged footage. It's been nine hours since workers first arrived, and seven since Brooker began his on-site production.

Brooker's technical director is also confronting a complicated array of options. His panel has flickering green, red, and white buttons that together look like a rapper's soundboard or a call center for late night infomercials, but really are just the controls for switching incoming images to the ones we see on-air. When Brooker asks for a camera angle, or pre-edited piece, his technical director send it to a 22-inch prep screen. Once approved, Brooker asks for a "push" or a "fade to black." It's all happening at a maddening pace which according to Brooker, throws production crews the first time they do wrestling, "They think it'll be easy, but then they get here and it's crazy and fast-paced."

As the 2 p.m. start time approaches, the crew takes their positions around the arena and brings all five cameras into a live picture. The truck's main compartment is readying for the day's first action between 197-pound wrestlers Patrick Bond of Illinois and John Schoen of Northwestern. The assistant director, a commanding and steady voice in the creative process, readies to track the length of each segment on her stopwatch and provide commentary for which shots might be helpful. The EVS team is preparing to grab match highlights. Gibbons and Johnson are sitting comfortably behind the main scoreboard. All the relevant sound checks, video cues, and upcoming interviews are prepared.

HD video cables

Five minutes before the first whistle Johnson sees longtime Northwestern coach and Midlands Director Ken Kraft and requests a last-minute interview. The truck scrambles to find information on Kraft for a relevant screen graphic. Word is sent to the cameramen to adjust the lighting and camera angle at mat side, ask questions, and direct the shot's lead-in and fade out. The process, from passing thought of Tim Johnson to full-scale television production, takes less than 90 seconds -- though they are forced to re-shoot the segment when an errant sound corrupts the original soundtrack. The crew performs over 30 of these interviews, graphics feeds, and highlights in the course of two hours. It's labor intensive with a commitment to perfection, and a lot more time and energy than shooting a match with your Flip cam and uploading it to a Web site.

Wrestling starts at 2:02 p.m. "Ready to lay one down?" Brooker asks the truck. A series of fade-ins, fade outs, and fist pumps. (Think: less Jersey Shore, more marching band) Brooker's second in command continues to tally time spent, while the technical director is busy pushing buttons and jamming down a throttle, his fractured and choppy motions mimicking those of a busied airline pilot.

As the match score widens and the drama of the dual match is lost to a certain Illinois victory, the tempo in the truck remains pegged at full speed. The crew puts small graphics together at the fifth weight class, a tally of takedowns and back points, InterMat rankings are scrolled along the bottom crawler. Through nine weight classes the truck has been glued to their over 150 television screens, no one seems to be pausing for a break.

John Dergo's pin in the 10th match leads to the crew's first quasi-disorganized panic of the day. The team had tried to cast their "Wrestler of the Meet" before the end of the dual, but with the unexpected fall, Gibbons and Johnson decide to highlight Dergo, the second-ranked 184-pound wrestler in the country. Unfortunately, the graphics team has already sent the billboard to the technical director, which leads to on-air confusion between the highlights viewers were watching and the introduction of Dergo by the broadcasters. The team was working with a tape delay and was able to untangle the confusion and tape a coherent ending to the program. Sometimes the magic of television requires a second take.

Main board displaying cameras and preset packages

After some final edits and an upload of their finished broadcast and teaser to the main production hub in Houston, the team begins to break away in a string of disappearances. The day was a success, but there aren't any high fives or commitments to grab beers, just a smattering of "good jobs" and "good lucks" along with a quick exit. Most of the truck's crew will go back to work covering the Bulls and Blackhawks. A few might head out to bigger, non-sport productions like American Idol. Johnson and Gibbons will rejoin the Big Ten Network in one week. Brooker is headed to the Olympics in Vancouver.

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