Why do over fifty percent of the fortune? Five hundred use elastic because elastic has done the hard work of making it easier for companies to do generative ay, I write elastic search, powered ay. I helps them make incite full and impact for decisions that speed across search, observe ability, insecurity, elastic, has the power to take your data into the future how elastic and help you at elastic dot, co, slashed search, powered elastic, the search analytics company, I'm gertie Rosen and I'm a contributing writer for the new york times magazine every week. Tens of millions of people in the united states watch football, including me. I watch brought home with my kid. I watch it alone. I watch it

the covers it and height on my cell phone. It's just an incredibly entertaining wait. Amuse yourself for three hours and I've always been interested in the fact that football is so popular with such a broad swathes of americans. It's not just you know, white guys in their man cave, but every kind the person on the demographic spectrum, but I was so interested in the artifice of televised football. The idea that it tv broadcasts isn't just a kind of on mediated doc, I have a game unfolding in real time, but in many ways a crafted televisual entertainment product in big picture terms. It means who wins and who loses, of course, but it's also all the little details that make That larger story, it's the dramatic personae that coaches on either sideline the owners of the teams,

in the luxury sweets, all the different star players. Once I began to focus as a viewer on the technical aspects of the storytelling. I grew curious about the vast labour force, that's behind the spectacle of televised football. So this sunday. Reed is my recent feature for the magazine about prime time televisions number one show for over a decade and he sees sunday night football twenty twenty two eighty three of the top one hundred most watch television broadcasts of the year were of the year nfl games and the most popular prime time show by far is sunday night football to report this story. I sat in on off season meetings with the makers of Sunday night football. Their meticulous planners, looking ahead,

each individual game on their schedule and plotting various storylines, but the most exciting. If my reporting was when I attended the very first game of the nfl season, spending time on the field in the broadcast booth and in the embassy sports production truck where the producers and directors actually pull off this view, asked symphonic broadcast in front of us was a giant wall of two hundred different video feeds that the producers and directors were facing during the broadcast making split. Second citizens about which images are going to go up, one air as the game is unfolding, they might be giving instructions to instant reap directors or camera operators. Speaking too, various statisticians and researchers or their crucially communicating with the announcers in the booth, the fao,

that their able to assemble this collage of images in real time, whilst simultaneously conducting conversations with the cacophony, voices in their headsets choreograph into show that seamless and exciting it was kind of mine blowing. So here article behind the scenes of the most spectacular show on tv read by robert pet cough are audio producer is jack. This dora, the original music for this episode was written in performed by aaron esposito arrowhead stadium, the home of the kansas city chiefs. The nfl defending champions is very loud place. Players that when the noise reaches top volume, they can feel vibrations in their bones. During a too

thousand and fourteen game. A sound meter captured a decibel reading, equivalent to a jets taking off earning a guinness world record for loudest crowd, roar at a sports stadium. chiefs. Fans know how to weapon eyes: noise quieting to a church like harsh, when the teams, great quarterback Patrick ma homes, calls signals. But then, when opponents have the ball, unleashing a howl that can even drown out the sound of the play, call crackling through the speaker inside the rival quarterbacks helmet, there are others whose work is complicated by the din around eleven, a m on thursday september seventh, Brian miller than audio engineer for NBC sports flagship, and it fell. Telecast sunday night football arrived at arrowhead to prepare for that evenings chiefs. Detroit lions game. It was a big occasion,

the annual season. Opener, the nfl kick off game traditionally hosted by the winner of last season. Superbowl there would be speeches, fireworks, a military fly over the unfurling of a championship banner a crowd of more than seventy three thousand was expected. arrowhead is a pretty rowdy setting mozilla said it can present some problems. Mozilla was especially concerned about his crowd, MIKE's three stereo refunds intended to catch the ambient booze and oz of fans mounted a top. Sixteen foot high painters polls that he and the colleague had secured to the railing separating the seats from the field. These needed to be kept at a distance from ex loading pyrotechnics and angled away from the blair of the stadiums public address system. A perhaps greater hazard was overzealous fans who are prone to shaking

poles or even pulling them down. You'll get people who have been tailgating for five hours. Mozilla said I might have to bribe some people to stay off. Those poles. Mozilla and his microphones were part of a huge deployment of personnel and equipment descending on arrowhead that morning, broadcasting a football game on I've. Television is one of the most complex technical and logistical challenges in entertainment. the task is magnified in the case of Sunday night football, which is known sparing no expense to deliver the most comprehensive coverage and the most arresting spectacles for the kick off game. One of three two thousand twin Three regular season broadcasts by the s, an f team that do not take place on sunday,

NBC sports workforce of two hundred travelled to Kansas city, a convoy of ten trucks made the trip for mobile production units and office truck a generator. Incase power went down a truck for the football night in america, pre game show and three hollers packed with sets cranes and dozens of cameras. There were handheld cameras, where's that sit a top mobile sidelined. Carts, robotic cameras that record beauty shots of the stadium exterior ultra high resolution for K, cameras that yield supersede emotion, replace suspended from a web of fibre optic cables more than one hundred twenty feet in the air. Was sky cam ready to zip line over the field at up to twenty miles per hour? Another camera would arrive later to provide a still loftier vantage point from a fixed wing aircraft. Then There were the microphones there were makes me

did on many of the cameras. There were six parabolic mike's. traction resembling satellite dishes that operators strap on like sandwich boards and slept the sidelines to soak up sounds the nfl is particular about what audio can air no com? the stations on the bench allowed, but for each game, the league mike's up several offensive linemen allowing broadcasters to catch the quarterback grunting his cadence and the crunch pads colliding the snap, the person responsible for the sonic personality of Sunday night football is Wendell Stevens the lead audio engineer that morning stevens was getting ready at his station a one hundred forty four channel mixing console in the shows main production truck. What viewer might assume to be an unmitigated flow of in game. Audio is more

like alive dj mix sculpted spontaneously by stevens who blends sounds from dozens of sources. You dont want this constant, roar and thunder. He said football is a dynamic game terms of sound, he has other rules. One is you mustn't miss the doing the progressive thump when an errand kick strikes the goalposts which resonate like a giant meaning fork. Stevens was in the chair for NBC broadcast of the two thousand eighteen bears eagles wildcard play off game, which ended with a bears field goal attempt that rebounded from the left, upright to the crossbar, an event that entered nfl law as the double doing stevens is core principle is that the voices of the play by play- man mike to rico and the analysed chris Collins worth- must be boosted in the mix, so they dominate even at moments of peak sound and fury. They are the stars of essen

along with the sideline reporter melissa, stark, who interviews, players and coaches and offers scuttle, but during games, but that on air talent is supported by a vast unseen army in the pact broadcast booth and the trucks producers directors. terse graphics, specialists, researchers, statisticians spotters and others by the afternoon. Nearly every member of that team had arrived at arrowhead and was at work in the tv compound just outside the stadium gates, They're in the control room of the a unit truck the coordinating for sir rob highland and the director drew. Essex off stood facing a wall of c d monitors, showing nearly two hundred video feeds. It was three p m. The production team had just finished the facts or facilities,

like a lengthy run through when game elements, are rehearsed and technical effects. They tell us trader used to exploit kate, instant, replace the You overlay de marketing the line to gain our test. It now the time for a meeting with the camera crew camp, operators were given sheets containing head shots of coaching staffs players, families, anyone whose face they might be called on to pick out on the sidelines or in the stands. Isolation plans were distributed, indicating which cameras would follow key players, It's been two hundred seven days since the superbowl highland told the group, our tree has been waiting for tonight. So, let's make sure we capture the scene Let's give america a reason to stick around throughout the night. The word erika is bandied freely it s enough. As a synonym for the shows audience its partly annexed.

russian of the nationalism, entrenched in football culture, the flags and fly overs and patriotic hullabaloo that surrounds the nfl. But it is also a frank acknowledgement of the stature of televised football in american life. Football is by far the most popular thing on tv, last year according to nielsen. Eighty three of the one hundred most viewed telecast were nfl games, including nineteen of the top twenty. Its exaggeration to say that televisions continued existence as a purveyor of pre scheduled linear tv programming is predicated on football year over year, tv usage is crashing, says, anthony croupier, a media rapporteur for the website. Sport echo, but the nfl, trending up to keep growing too in is your ratings by five or six percent, when viewers ship as a whole is down ten percent. That says how spooky

It feels dominance is the crown jewel of tv football is s an f. Last year it registered a twelfth consecutive season as prime times top rated show, at least according to and be sees interpretation of nielsen metrics. Its average viewer ship in two thousand twenty two nineteen point, nine million, including the audience watching on streaming services bested. The top scripted show the west and drama yellowstone by more than eight million. That audience has impressive demographic breadth. One third is black latino or asian. Thirty. Six percent are women at a time when cultural fragmentation and streaming are transforming the very idea of tv s enough. Something like the last consensus choice: the proverbial hearth around which the nation assembles each week

At seven ten p m the kick off game went, live there were performances of lift every voice and sing, and the star spangled banner fireworks explore a b to bomber raced overhead in the booth to rico and collins. Words the scene wondering allowed how the chiefs would fare without two of their stars. The tight end travis kelsey out with a knee injury and the defensive, tackle Chris jones, who was embroiled in a contract dispute. Still the chiefs had MA homes I think america is about to find out how good he really is commons, where it said in the a unit highland Anne S, cough had taken their places in front of that phalanx of screens highland turned to the assistant director, Alex Harbin stock, be great hobby. He spoke into his head set MIKE

the great graphics the teams lined up for the kick off to rico. Fifty six is a suave and eloquent announcer who typically steers clear of cliches and bombast, but the moment called for a touch of grandiloquent deep in the distance, its las vegas intoned, a reference to the site where superbowl fifty eight will take place in February chiefs place kicker, harrison, bucker, boomed, the kick into the end zone in the control room, essex, off drawled request into his headset. Looking for sixteen white. He wanted a shot of the lions, quarterback Jared Gough, who wears the number sixteen a moment later america, or some not insignificant chunk of it. Watched Gough jaw gone to the field, to take the seasons first snap, For two decades we have talked about a new golden age of television, keeping a claim on prestige.

he's streaming and premium cable series, but praise, songs to tell a visual art have largely ignored the most popular and the most richly tel Aviv. will tv of all prestige dramas. Comedies are, in essence cereal, ized movies, but a football telecast belongs to a different category. It is strive against exercise in visual storytelling and hours long motion, picture, collage assembled on the fly pumped up with interstitial music graffiti, with graphics embellished with hokey human interest, segments and narrated, with varying degrees of wit and magniloquence by the featured soloists in the broadcast booth. As a technical it's a mind: blower, a collective improvisation by a team of hundreds pulled off with top craftsmanship under

dishes of extreme pressure. Sunday night football is televisions biggest show, but it might also be the best. The flashiest most exciting most in need give most artful use to which the medium has ever been put. Hey it's anna Martin from the new york times and I'm here to tell you about something for new york times news subscribers and honestly, if you're, a podcast fan you're going to want this, it's an app called the new york times. Audio get the latest dispatch, its tat. I am, and he knew was a really nice perfect, you technique, splash, We're sauce and then a lot of red pepper, flakes contemplate the future. A computer program is passing the for example. We are over here pretending not to be amazed by that it has exclusive

from the new york times it's the headlines, storytelling from cereal production and this american life to a fiasco involving a village, marauding visigoths and some oil sports fan the athletic and those big moment, She puts gmos back narrated articles from the time and beyond. In recent years. The unexpected sounds of ice had periodically gone viral sometimes audio download it now, at n Y times, dot com, slash audio app on April nineteenth four and a half months before the kickoff game. Rob Hyland was in a conference room in Stamford, connecticut, where NBC sports has been headquartered since Two thousand thirteen, the three hundred thousand square foot facility houses, the studios and control rooms, where the network produces coverage of such properties as the olympic games, but in stamford as in NBC universals executive sweets, there isn't

standing that s an f occupies its own echelon is the calling card, show, says, mark lazarus, The NBC universal media group chairman the cherry. On top of the sunday of all the great content, we have universal the exalted status of S. An f was the subject more or less of the conference room gathering. It was the product in philosophy meeting an overview that begins the run up to the season. Highland Anne S, cough were joined by sixteen staff. Members with nine others participating by video also present was a legend fred. Good delhi who helmed s enough from its founding in two thousand six through the two thousand. Twenty one season and is regarded by many as tvs greatest football producer. More recently to delhi has led thursday night football on amazon.

crime video, which is produced mainly by NBC staff, but he maintains an executive producer role at essen. F. The show is one of the only in all of television. That still has the resources to allow you to really think big highland told the group. If you a great idea. You can actually do it on this show on a screen. a slideshow listed goals continue to be the leader in storytelling presentation. Innovation take the view We're somewhere they have never been and could never go identify a make. You laugh make you smile in each episode over the next couple months. Island said we're gonna deconstruct the show and think about how can do everything better. Everything gets reevaluated every single off season. Everything is not just a figure of speech. S end

is defined by an attention to minuti e that extends from the metallic sheen on the kyron to the placement of cameras for capturing quarterback pressures by edge rushers. If you work on this show, you have to be willing to knit pick says: Aaron bull a sideline producer. No detail is too small in the meeting highland laid out eight. So difficult and subtle change to our presentation for the coming year, a tweak to the onscreen placement of the play clock graphic. It will now live right, justified within the capital of the scoreboard,

he discussed the importance of limiting the number of replace during red zone scoring opportunities do not step on live action. The third look at a full back, not catching a pass. We don't need that. He screamed clips from the two thousand twenty two season talking through a muddled sequence, in which s an f failed to cut swiftly to footage of the green bay packers coachman The floor, calling a time out and to rico and collins worth were momentarily baffled by the place stoppage. We need to answer the question: viewer right away. Island said we can't look for the answer. Collectively, with twenty million people, a protectionist and some at the cigarette o praised a moment in the chiefs. Jaguars divisional round play off game when a camera caught a telling view of Patrick MA homes hobbling on a sprained ankle. That's a good note. Island said much of that.

The most effective storytelling is going to be simple, a well composed shot that includes, and athletes foot, we'll tell us our story than some animated graphic with laser beams coming off of it. Island is forty. Eight He is handsome in a vaguely midcentury way like don draper without the dark secrets, as tidy hair and a running backs. Build though when he played football, it williams college in Massachusetts. He was an offensive, linemen in ninety ninety seven, he got a job as a production assistant on NBC, nfl, pre game show. He joined s an f in it abuse season as a replayed director. He held the job for just three years, but working with good ellie was transform. It I've never been in a room where we did forensics on every element of the show. He says the idea was and still is whether it's an average game or a great game. It has to look and feel spare

because it's a sunday night football game that mystique once belonged to a bee sees Monday night football. The poor, time showcase that started in nineteen. Seventy, but by two thousand five nfl executives head, concur That sunday was a better spot for marquis match and BC paid a reported three points billion dollars for a six year contract in may two thousand six dick ever saw the NBC sports chairman completed a raid on Monday night, football hiring its producer and director delhi and s cough and its legendary broadcast tandem. How michaels virtuoso game collar with a wry measures used for every play and plot twist and john madden

who revolutionized sports television by turning exit, Jesus into entertainment, illuminating footballs complexities with folksy verbiage, and tell us traders pen that he wheeled did like an action painter, Hebrus, showered sunday night football with resources telling delhi. Need only worry about producing a great programme. The result was bigger. brighter and more sensational than any previous football telecast each game was high. Like a mini superbowl with a glare and Blair designed to jolt senses the production. I use embraced dignified pomp peter animation, flashing lights, power courts for years, the old In the theme song of Monday night footfall was a version of Hank Williams. Juniors all rudy friends or coming over tonight, a choice that pitched of football telecast as a night of white male bonding and debauchery. This

night football anthem was sung first by pink, then by faith hill and further. Last eleven years by carry underwood artists with huge female fan basis s nf draft, the big game out of the man cave and into the living room. It has proved a block buster It's an unnecessarily lavish show, but that's part of a charm says bill simmons, the sports, pundit, pod, castor and founder of the website. The ring since day, one NBC has made it clear that money doesn't matter to them. On Sunday night, like at all and NBC sports spokesperson, declined to provide specifics, but the outlay is evidently enormous. Nbc now pays about two billion dollars per year for broadcasting rights. The essen f production costs are thought to be

forty million dollars to fifty million dollars annually. Even huge, add revenues. One point three: seven billion dollars in two thousand twenty one to two thousand. Twenty two, according to standard media index, would leave the endeavour, hundreds of millions in the red does the ad revenue cover our rights fee? Lazarus says no, but the value to our company and affiliates and partners is real. That value, it seems fair to suggest lies not just in the shows appeal to advertisers and cable companies, but in NBC old fashioned pride in must see tv in airing the biggest thing in prime time, but s enough. just a testament to excess. From the beginning. It has struck an improbable balance between carnival and seminar.

seeking new ways to make a byzantine game more comprehensible today. That task falls chiefly to collins worth the sixty for europe former cincinnati bangles wide receiver, who took over analysed duties in two thousand nine since then, he has solidified his place as footballs, most sagacious color commentator, rendering judgments in a gravelly base. Baritone that has inspired a cottage industry of impersonators mean culture has seized. On other ticks like the collins worth ism. Now, here's a guy but unlike the folk, luring madden or the hopped up CBS analysed tony romo, who flaunts his smarts by predicting plays before the ball is snapped collins worth isn't, first and foremost a personality. He has the cool questing demeanor of a detective, a guy as collins worth himself might put it, who regards football.

as a grand puzzle that rewards endless inquiry. His investigations and tail fieldwork collins worth fluent kansas city on September. Fourth, three days before the kick off came the following morning, he led an s enough delegation to the chiefs practice facility, where they held private interviews with my homes and others and spent forty five minutes watching the team run through plays they also caught breaking news. Collins worth into rico were on the sidelines chatting with the chiefs general manager. Bread reach when Travis kelsey limped off bone bruise in his right knee the See injury was topic a the next day in a meeting room at a downtown kansas city hotel. This was the coaches film meeting where Collins worth screens, game tape and talks excess and owes, and producers

formulate camera isolation and replay plans around the game. He expects to see how might detroit combat achieves offence without kelsey in two thousand twenty two HU, the lions played man to man, pass coverage at the second highest rate in the nfl, but collins worth explained that they had made a scheme change there would probably be more zone coverage he speculated or perhaps zone match as former homes, in two thousand eighteen. When he became the chiefs starting quarterback, he had played just why game without kelsey. Now the chiefs had to new offensive tackles an maggie receiving core, with no clear star kells his ability to get out on routes. It can't really be replaced. So, where is Patrick? Going with the ball Collins worth's erudition is the fruit of obsessive film study and immersion in stats and data

the majority owner of the sports analytics company p a fifth, but it also reflects a perspective shift he's intuitive to footballs walks. I never watched the ball. He says When he's in the broadcast booth people followed to regos all to learn where the ball went, but his eyes or elsewhere. He scanned the pre. nap formations to make quick reads of the defensive coverage after the snap. He turns to the sky can monitor the view from behind the quarterback to catch the offer it's blind means first step which tells him whether plague is run nor a pass. If it's a run, he'll stick with sky can. If it's a pass, he may switch his attention to the defensive secondary to watch coverage develop when the play over. He says I'm on. button to rob talking to highland in the truck to suggest what replay the show should air every player can take you in a different direction. Islands,

As you can go to a replay to help support what you're announcers are talking about, You can show America a different angle on a play or you can take it. erika in a whole new direction negatively. You can go to reproduced element to showcase something interesting about a specific. At leader coach. You can go to a graphic to help border storyline were to introduce a new story line. It's like John Madame used to say to me a football broadcast is the greatest open book test. There is with nine it's in twenty seven seconds to go in the first quarter of the kick off game. The lions lined up for a punt at their own. Seventeen yard Brian Mozilla. The audio engineer was patrolling the

I'd lines to monitor communications, including the critical link that lets NBC signal league officials when it wants to stop play to go to commercial. In the broadcast compound. The replay director trot Evanna core stood in the sea unit truck facing what looked like a psychedelic video art in elation three giant panels, each holding more than two dozen small screens with feeds from live cameras and replace horses in the a unit as a cough spoke into his headset, giving instruction to the operators of cameras, five and one about coverage of the punt five kicker waste up. One return her waist up near by

carbon stock reminded highland that two rico should drop the name of a sponsor during the roll out to the next commercial going to break after the kick you to mention, but the commercial break would have to wait Dan Campbell, the lions head coach likes to run fake punts over the past two seasons. Detroit successfully converted the trick play on six of seven attempts now just minutes into the new sea The lions tried again. The ball was snapped to the special teams. Captain jailing reeves maiden who barged through a stack of chiefs to gain the first down on nb airwaves too. go let out a cry: Dan Campbell, dice role from inside the twenty. On dr too of the season ten place later Jared Gough completed a nine yard. Touchdown

ass to the receiver? Aman raw saint brown in the truck highland spoke into his headset asking Vana core and his team to feed him shots of saint brown as s enough bumped to commercial with slow motion, images of the catch and the celebration to regos said the fourth down pickup a ninety one, your drive, they kept Patrick ma homes off the field for eight minutes, and the guy who makes the lions often go on raw saint brown first to the end zone this year seven, nothing detroit. the delineation of duties in a sports broadcasting booth hughes to a famous formula, the play by play person handles what the color commentators job is why two rico is one of those eerily gifted announcers, whose what flow whose like water running over rocks in a river bed, is national

be career began in nineteen. Ninety one on s, peons sport centre. He has broadcast countless events from an hiv games to the olympics, as both a studio host. And a booth announcer. He succeeded Al Michael's on Sunday night football in two thousand twenty two and while some complain that today's s, enough booth lacks the swagger of the old Michael's collins worth partnership. There's no gains owing to regos mastery, he sets the tone a relaxed omniscience. The feeling that at every moment, you're being told all you need to know in an optimally, elegant and success way he's a tv, savant highland says. When two rico worked on Football night in america, he was known shadow jelly in the truck during games. He would sit in the tape

room to watch the replay operation, he would lurk in the graphics area. There is no one. I've ever worked with island says that comes close to his ability of the mechanics of television. To regos. Methodology is based on an ominous sounding acronym die document in form and entertain p thrives, especially in the informing department. Each week he spends dozens of ours compiling his boards notes about players: coaches ownership groups, hundreds of people, Who could become the story of the night logged on a microsoft surface that it set his side in the booth. I always start with a backup quarterback. He says as soon as the backup quarterback gets in the game, you can tell if somebody's prepared for the broadcaster, not ideally

informing overlaps with documenting and entertaining in surprising and even poetic ways as half time approach in kansas city, with the score tied at seven, seven s an f return. From commercial, with an aerial shot of arrowhead. Stadium was in its fifty second season, two rico said and its shared its parking lot with kaufman stadium home the kansas city, royals, asthma, homes, barked signals Two rico noted another baseball connection, the quarterback, who is famous for throwing the football using arm angles like a short stop, was drafted by the detroit tigers before committing to football. To place later with thirty seven seconds remaining in the second quarter mile homes, zipped afore yard, pass to the tight end, blake bell, sidearms slang for the dutch down to rico exclaimed. Then he pulled out a final fact. Like my homes, bell was also drafted by the detroit tigers in two thousand ten

This was classic to rico. A stream of improvised narration decorated with details from his boards that unfurled, like us, scripted riff, a touchdown drive with a baseball leitmotif. This suavity is a solvent highland calls to rico the master of sanitation for his talent at cleaning up awkward on air moments, he's also expert at knowing what not. Say a key skill. He shares with most every nfl announcer during the on Sunday night football, a period that corresponds almost exactly to the tenure of the nfl commissioner roger gardelle. The league has achieved unprecedented popularity. While experiencing a breathtaking series of scandals. It has been

used of racism and sexism been scrutinised over the racial disparity between its owners executives and head coaches and its majority black workforce of players in a sailed for inadequate handling of off field violence and abuse charges and settled numerous suits, including the column, capper, nick collusion grievance and a class actions coming from the epidemic of chronic traumatic encephalopathy and other cognitive impairments among former players. These vexation hover over the weekly orgy of televised football conspicuous in their absence. The nfl refers to tv networks as broadcast partners. Phrase. That implies a certain ideological lockstep. That characterisation doesn't sit well at essen. F. We're not a mouthpiece for the nfl highland says to rico views.

problem is one of context. In general. He says the body of a football game is a really poor place to have an intelligent discussion of a significant issue. A better venue he suggests is a pre game or post game show where the care, hashing through of a domestic assault charge or a racial justice. Protest will not be interrupted by a punt return, but a sceptic might point out that those conversations rarely do take place on such shows and while the nfl broadcasters often prefer to distinguish between on and off the field matters, the reality is busier. Last season when, hello bills, safety de more Hamblin went into cardiac arrest after making a hard tackle the near death experience caught. Yes,

and monday night football flat footed. The moment called for a moral vocabulary or at least for journalism, hard questions, but the broadcast mustard, mostly platitudes, For viewers, part of the shock was the jarring tonal shift, as the game was postponed and then cancelled. A disruption of televised footballs usual brisk rhythms, where the frequent carting off of injured players is marked by perfunctory words of concern as play swiftly resumes. In fact, tv football is not the politics free zone imagined by the league and its broadcasters. It is saturated by the nfl own politics, which play down the consequences of footballs. Gladiatorial clashes, while enshrining them as civic rights for decades. The league has weathered itself to patriotism that veers into jingoism, adopting

as its logo, the marshal symbol of a flag, decorated shield, and indeed, using military fanfare that broadcasters air as a matter of course others, range scenes turn up on tv viewers who tuned into the kicker. Game were shown. An arrow heads stadium, ritual the beating of ceremonial war, drum accompanied by fans belting out the chiefs pseudo native american war chant, while performing and gesture known as the tomahawk chop and in you racist spectacle that the esa and F team chose to treat as opening night pageantry. Yet who can doubt that, as to rico and others suggest viewers turn on the game to tune out the world. The pleasure

taken watching the nfl like the multi billion dollar revenues that support it rests on a collective decision to not thing too hard about it all footballs cruelties and inequities. The toll it exacts on bodies and mines. That stuff is easy enough to ignore when a thrilling show is on the flat screen What's crazy. To me is how fool proof. Football is built and says the sport can survive any scandal and, basically anything unseemly. He added people, forget the league for literally anything the arms and harnesses the vast of biology and technology to fight the world's toughest diseases such as cancer, heart disease,

asthma and osteoporosis, to help millions of people globally in a new era of human health engine continues to accelerate the pace of change operating sustainably and drawing upon deep knowledge of science to push beyond. What's known today, happened to a vast library of human genetic data to unearth new insights into treating disease. They are creating new therapies that are more precise and personalized than ever before it sing medicines that can work in new ways such as targeting multiple pathways in the body. At the same time machine learning, an artificial intelligence help make medicines available more quickly and effectively by helping predictive, though be safe and effective also remove barriers that limit equitable access to health care to make their medicines available to more patients around the world, learn more adam, dot com. Half time at arrowhead. The score was fourteen seven chiefs in the broadcast compound S, coffee merle.

from the a unit truck in search of his usual mid game. Sustenance, a peanut butter sandwich, essex off his sixty six tall and imposing with a draw manner full of wisecracks, aimed at colleagues and morden jokes at the expense of his beloved new york jets. He is also by nearly everyone's account the auto tour behind Sunday night football. Esa coughs work has one nineteen emmy awards and he has directed seven superbowl broadcasts, including superbowl, forty, nine, the two thousand fifteen patriots seahawks game that remains the most watched programme in: u S, television, hissed highland, compares the experience of doing a football broadcast with esa cough to dry the ferrari, AL michaels called him. The Steven spielberg of live television, all sports are telegenic, but the marriage of football

tv, was a true love, match its a story that stretches back to televisions, midcentury infancy when the nfl occupied a less lofty tier of the sporting pantheon and was quicker than, for instance, major league baseball to embrace the new medium. The experiment was aided by unlikely visionaries in nineteen sixty five, the father and son team of ed and steve sable small filmmakers from new jersey partnered with the league to found nfl films and in house movie studio their films blend of orchestral swells. ways of god: narration and stately cinematography sloman in shots tracking spiralling passes, ghostly game footage from the frozen tundra Green bays, lambeau field cast the nfl in transcendent terms, crucially, the sable

a status is sized and ennobled footballs. Violence with highlight montages moment of impact that emphasised the brutal beauty of gang tackles and blind side hits depicting the players ability to dispense and endure punishment as masculine virtue. But the affinity between football and tv is not just about violence. It is rooted in the sports gm trees and rhythms in the rectangular gridiron playing field, a clean green backdrop for footballs maze of movement and in the stop start tempo that makes room for the trimmings broadcasters favour. There are other pauses built into the schedule. The nfl operates on a scarce, principal teams play just seventeen times over. In eighteen week period a stakes raised, regimen. That makes every game important. The drama,

heightened on Sunday night when the field is washed in light and everything hash marks: helmets, coaches, sets takes on a cinematic gleam, viewed in high definition. The game is both intimate and enormous cameras pick out, beads of sweat and blades of grass, and they sweep up panoramic troop movements and eruptions of athleticism at essen. F s cough is the person most attuned to the craft, the art of televised football as the half time wound down. He retook his position in the control room facing that big wall of screams, one showed alive shot of fans in detroit, watching the game on a jumbotron at ford field, another held a shower from stamford of terry mc caully of former nfl rep. Ray who serves as the essen F rules analysed, to monitors, nicknamed Elvis and

stella had been used in the first half for a segment featuring the parents of the lions, defensive, end, aden, hutchinson, good where mike's in the stands so NBC could air their reactions. Essex off was seated in front of the two largest screens the programme monitor showing the picture currently on air and the preview image or the image cute to go live next. He had a cup of coffee and a flip card of team. Rosters was spread in front of him as as a cough explains it directing a football game is both diabolically, complex and simple. In it's essence, you must have command of vast amounts of information and comfort with state of the machines. You have to know where each camera is positioned and how to locate its feed. Amid the dizzying grid of monitors every week you have to commit

memory the names and uniform numbers of dozens of players. You must be capable of conducting simultaneous conversations with the dozens of camera operators hooked into your headset and with your colleagues in the truck while listening closely to the live audio going out on air, and you need to do all this while calling a virtually nonstop series of commands to the technical director on your right. Yet the heart of the gig miss straightforward, it storytelling, essex off, says, My job is to make the audio and video match as closely as I can. He clings to pillars of classic narrative cause and effect triumph and defeat it. you be hits the receiver for seventy five yards up. The seem it's probably because he had plenty of time to throw so going to find a shot. That shows you the past protection. You wanna show both sides of an event. I always say that

on a play is no more important than the goat. So right away I'll, be in the ear of my cameramen. Fifty six blue is the goat a word I use a lot is budge. I want to see the bunch because a lot of times the boy age is a more dramatic picture than the celebration. The famous climax of the two thousand fifteen superbowl was a case in point. its startling twist ending brought a new main character surging into the spotlight, the patriots rookie cornerback, malcolm butler, who intercepted seattle, quarterback Russell wilson in the games closing seconds well offering scenes of ecstasy and a bush panorama, a bunch whither super bowl on the line? As Sakharov says, the key figures are going to be isolated for reaction, shots, Bela, chick pete, carol, Brady on the bench, richard sherman

Malcolm butler, probably wasn't I sold, but you'll get shots of him. If the receiver is, I assume and you'll probably get other views on sky can, I know p carroll and coaches are going to be on cameras, five and eleven, nor twenty one and twenty five. I know pete carol in the coach you're going to be on camera five and eleven or twenty one and twenty five. So it becomes just a matter of sequencing the shots. You know the coaches, the stars, its basic, however, diligently the creators of s energy plan I have little idea what kind of show they will be putting on for the chiefs lions game. There were nearly fifty pre edited tape elements and more than one hundred graphics, animations photo bumps. Stats story tells ready to go, but the vague hope was that most

to this material would never make air will always have a million elements in place. Island says the most important thing I think, is the discipline to know when it makes sense to bring those things in and when stay alive in the moment because sometimes sudden of football games, gonna break out, that's what happened at arrowhead all night long, essex, fed cameras returning to kelsey, who was on the sidelines in ST close collins worth, had been right without their talus manic tight end. The chiefs offence was stymied four minutes into the second half my homes fears to pass to the wide receiver could areas tony who bubbled it into the

ass by the lions rookie safety, Brian branch branch dashed fifty yards down the left side line for a pic six touchdown fourteen fourteen the chiefs additive field goal late in the third quarter and another early in the fourth to reclaim the lead twenty fourteen. Now the crowd was unleashing the notorious arrowhead roar at the twelve minute and eleven second mark of the fourth quarter. The lions offence took over at their own twenty five calling to running plays that left them facing a key third down as the screen wiped to a shot of the teams facing off at the line of scrimmage the game clock on envy,

sees airwaves, showed ten minutes and fifty six seconds left in the game, but the play clock that right justified graphic. That highland spoke about months earlier in Stamford, had turned red and ticked. Under five seconds. Jared Gough was curiously clapping his hands trying to get the ball snapped before the clock expired. The arrow had throng was doing its work. Goths signals were swallowed up by the din his teammates couldn't hear him the referees through a delay of game flag. It's gone only get louder to regos said as the referee, john hussy announced the penalty Wendell stevens seated at his console, adjusted the levels on the field. Mike's capturing the raucous, nat sound, essex off me

I made a series of cuts showing in rapid succession, dan Campbell Gough and the chiefs defensive coordinator, Steve Spagnola, a nifty triptych. Two parts budge, one part triumph, but the sequence needed final image, essex off raised his voice and snapped into his headset left five. Both huddles crowd behind indicating that camera five positioned slightly ahead of the ball on a sideline cart should pull back its focus to include the. far side crowd in the framing of its to huddle, shot that image popped up on the preview, monitor, essex, off, issued directions, ready five set five and dissolve five and viewers at home watched the screen fade for close up of spagnola to a wide shot, capturing the teams, breaking the huddle, the fans stands and an illegal scoreboard wrapped around

stadiums, lower bull flickering the phrase get loud, but the lions weren't done they converted a third and twelve and six plays later the running. back David, Montgomery rumbled into the end zone. The extra point gave Detroit a twenty one to twenty lee In the control room, highland stood to esa coughs left years ago, he had a water skiing accident that required emergency hams. surgery. When he returned to work. It was too painful to sit now eat after healing he prefers to stand, he gets a better view of the screens and find it easier to concentrate through the marathon telecast during the commercial break. He spoke to Collins,

on his headset. Did the color man notice the block by the tide and sam, the porter on the lions touchdown run to rico, got on the button? The truck was their alive. Looked at, drew caught me homes. It was really good. Just like shaking his head saying. Let's go, I don't know if that's a good look on supermarket highland had a different idea I want to see detroit. He wanted a shot of lyon spans celebrating at ford field. When they came back on air together, he and s a coffer engaged in a collaboration that invites superlatives and mixed metaphors. When dick ever solved. First saga, deleon essex off at work in a production, look? He said this is like watching the frickin ballet island in essex off, choose football and now

jeez. They like in their roles to those of a coach. You puts a game plan in place and a quarter back who executed other comparisons spring to mind their rather tat back and forth. Highland summoning replace for collins worth tell us. Straightens comp jelly and clear it play it. As a coughs near constant recitation of camera numbers and wipes and dissolves calls to mind a wrappers bars or an auctioneers chant. The effect is enhanced when you realise that this patter represents a gigantic game of the phone. A conversation ricocheting between highland s, cough more than one hundred individuals who are in their ears at any time on the position but followed the lions touchdown the chiefs stalled punting with five minutes seven seconds left, they have a chance take the game right now, collins worth said, but it wasn't to be after one first down

the lions, came up short on their next three plays and Campbell ruled the dice again trying a fourth down. Past was battered away at the line of scrimmage to regos, said the law, and had the ball to the league. Envy p, at the forty five yard line with two minutes and twenty nine seconds to go, the chiefs had a chance to steal a win needing, perhaps twenty yards to move into field goal range and then the door my turn to farce asthma homes is receivers. Let him down and penalties pushed the chiefs backward. A dropped pass a complete and nullified by a holding penalty. Another pass another drop, a near interception of forth and twenty that became forth and twenty Five. When Jawad taylor was flagged for a false start in

troll room, the seek was ruled out in a blizzard of quick cuts, sky camp closeups and split screens as highland anne s. Cough blurted commands with rising urgency. Gimme section on the field to right, tackle for K. Five left eleven right preview effects take effects for the professionals in the a unit, it was merely a heightened version of They had been doing for hours to an untutored lurkers. The whole thing seemed like a friggin ballet or some less dainty choreography, a headlong dance of astounding precision on forth and twenty five. The chiefs went forward again. Mahomet took the snap rolled left and launch throw that arctic cross the line to gain reaching the finger tipps of the receiver sky more who couldn't clasped detroit was getting the ball back

And b c went to commercial with its final act, a slow motion, montage of jubilant lions and doleful chiefs, essex off said, good stuff guys and for the first time since the half began, rose and stretched just over two minutes later, Detroit converted a third and two for a first down barring a catastrophic fumble, the chiefs weren't getting the ball back on the air to rico said the detroit lions are right there in the truck highlands. Pronouncement was circumspect game over. He said one measure of the success of Sunday night. Football is how sunday night football ish. The competing broadcasts are looking,

if you turn into Monday night football or the big sunday late afternoon, games on c b, us and fox. The rhythms and aesthetics of the broadcasts show a clear debt to s enough for the s enough team island says the challenge is to continue to distinguish our adaptation from all others. He and Goodell had talked about this. He said later there's really not a lot that separates the a level shows any more. Everyone is trying to do. The exact same show predators are certainly throwing money at the problem. In addition to the building they pay the nfl for rights. The networks in recent years have shelled out huge, so comes to resign top broadcast booth, talent and lower glare This new announcers in may two thousand twenty two fox sports announced that it had landed tom

brady. As the lead analysed for its nfl broadcasts in a deal said to be the most lucrative in television sports history, they reported three Seventy five million dollars for ten years the broadcasters engaged in his arms race are actually fighting the last war the generations that have come of age with social media may not attach the same mystique or homo to alive event unfolding in real time. Why, by watching the whole game. When you can catch quick, hitting highlights on an app a trend of dis, aggregation and downsizing can be seen across fan culture and sports media fantasy football and prop bedding view games through a splintered lens pricing, individual stats and discreet in game events over with and losses there are alternative. Telecast like yes, peons manning cast, storing, peyton and eli, which re figures

night football. As a chatty hang with the brows and the nfl networks red zone, whose whip around coverage offers viewers multiple games at once in split screen formats, the essen f model. Hearing one floodlit weekly game from opening kick off to final whistle is by definition dowdy, but for the time being, at least its huge then BC tallied an audience of twenty seven point: five million watching the kick off game across broadcast and streaming platforms. It ranked as media most watched prime time show since the last superbowl three nights later, the whole operation had talked to met life stadium in east, rather furred, new jersey for cowboys giants. The shows first, some a broadcast of the year. It was a wash out of forty two, nothing cowboys

out in the driving rain. That found s enough filibustering its way through a dismal second half with segments like a militia stark report about the leg tat two of the cowboys quarterback dac prescott. Yet, according to NBC, the game still earned a viewer ship of twenty two million through the first eleven weeks of the two thousand twenty three season s enough is ever in twenty one point: four million viewers, a seven percent in greece from last year and the shows best performance since two thousand fifteen, but it is not the way of Sunday night football to gloat three days after boys giants. The production team was in stamford in the conference room again doing a post mortem on its first two games. That morning, highland, had sent an email to the staff that included his granular review of the kick off game telecast. He found any areas for improvement, first, four or five

who plays were a little late. Chris was waiting. Awkward silence, player in past Josh Reynolds should have froze bt. Ninety nine, when the EL bees stepped up didn't replace homes scramble for first down before the end of the quarter pie on video needs to be addressed, rocky rice reaction to commercial after the tea was not good. Black virtual line, Scrimmage line for the chiefs looked terrible MIKE was close to getting clipped out of breaks. I want to be a little bit tough and thorough this first. We ireland told the group in the conference room I just really want everyone to think about precision and execution. There is a lot we, can and must do better. I know a man

probably doesn't even notice this stuff, but we notice right.