Garden, Hub in the spotlight
As the NCAA tournament descends on Boston this weekend, the city’s rich basketball history won’t be ignored.
For the fifth time in the Garden’s 23-year history, it will host the tournament as Villanova, West Virginia, Texas Tech and Purdue battle for a spot in the Final Four. Even though those schools don’t exactly evoke a connection among locals, those behind the scenes of the production on Turner Sports and CBS are working to ensure local flavor is included.
“It’s not the old Garden, but there is tremendous basketball history in the city of Boston, mostly on the professional side,” said Craig Silver, CBS Sports coordinating producer for these games. “We’ll attempt to give a taste of the history of basketball here at the Garden with the Celtics and all they’ve accomplished. The focus is still obviously on college basketball, but we couldn’t be in Boston without touching on the greatness of what happened in that space.”
The last time Boston hosted the NCAAs in 2012, the Celtics and Bruins’ championship banners were removed from the Garden’s rafters. But this year, the banners are staying up. That’s an important staple of the city’s sports tradition, and it should show through in the broadcasts.
The location is a big part of the tournament experience, Silver said, not only from a viewing perspective but to the players and teams themselves.
“Each site is unique, and you like to sprinkle in the flavor of where you’re covering the games,” he said. “So the games aren’t happening in a vacuum here in Boston. For a lot of these kids, it’s the first time, maybe the only time, they’ll ever get to Boston, and we’ll get some of their perspective of what they have seen on television, whether it be the Patriots or the Bruins or the Celtics or the Red Sox, the marathon. This is one of the great sports cities in America and they have one of the great sporting events in America coming to this city.”
It’s all part of the coverage of the tournament. This marks the eighth year of the partnership between CBS and Turner Sports.
“Our goal is to come into this and say, ‘This is what we did last year. What can we do to improve it?’ ” CBS Sports executive producer Harold Bryant said.
This year, Bryant noted, the approach has targeted access, from “NCAA March Madness Confidential,” a behind-the-scenes look into the tournament teams, to “Fast Break,” an NFL Red Zone-like digital whip-around show that jumps from game to game.
Some of the changes have been subtle, from graphic upgrades to enhanced audio, to others that are more significant. This weekend, Boston will be one of the sites that has “Virtual Reality,” a digital feature that allows viewers to watch games from home on an app and feel like they’re there.
It’s the third straight year that the service is being used, and Boston is one of five sites that has it set up. It’s expanded from five games last year to more than 20 this year.
One story line Silver said they’ll monitor is the Garden, which is sold out for all three games. Even though Boston isn’t rich in college basketball history, it shouldn’t negatively affect the experience. If anything, Silver thinks it will add to the buzz because it’ll be a unique weekend for local fans.
Silver is also curious how much of the fan bases of the schools travel to Boston and which teams the locals latch on to. He’ll want to portray that in the broadcast.
“Will they root against Villanova because they’re the big, bad Wildcats and heavy favorites?” said Silver. “Will they adopt Texas Tech because their history is not nearly as rich as the other schools? That will be one of the interesting things coming into a pro city with teams that are not familiar to the local fan base.”
All the ingredients are there for a truly unique weekend.
“It’s a great, great time of year,” Bryant said. “It’s a fun production. It’s one that we all look forward to all year long.”