Broadcasts provide unique challenges for ESPN
There’s no truth to the rumor that Mount Everest was the first mountain Sara Gaiero attempted to climb or advanced calculus was the first class she signed up for in college. However, when it comes to degrees of difficulty, it’s pretty hard to top what the 20-year ESPN employee was faced with in her first go-round as coordinating producer for the WNBA broadcasts.
Despite the global pandemic wreaking havoc in the sports world, ESPN pushed forward with televising the WNBA, including the playoffs that will continue Sunday with the Connecticut Sun and Seattle Storm each having a chance to punch their ticket to the WNBA championship series with a victory.
The decision was made to broadcast the games with Holly Rowe to provide on-site commentary and interviews but the rest of the on-air talent calling the games from a studio at the ESPN Bristol campus.
Camera crews and production staff are in Bradenton, Florida, to provide images of the games, while teams of employees are based in ESPN’s locations in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Bristol. Crews report to work six hours before the opening tip with meetings being set up via video conference call with staff members working at three different locations.
“A little bit of a unique setup” was the understated way Gaiero described what goes into airing the games.
It has provided challenges for not only the technical staff but also the quartet of LaChina Robinson, Rebecca Lobo, Ryan Ruocco and Pam Ward to call the games surrounded by monitors at a studio in Bristol.
“The biggest challenge is missing the energy you would normally have in an arena from the crowd, being there, kind of feeling the intensity from the sideline,” Robinson said. “That has been the biggest difference in the studio, you get into the game and you almost forget where you are but when you think of a studio space, there are probably four of us in the room at any given moment so it doesn’t have that same energy and feel that you would get in an arena setting.”
The announcers who typically would sit on press row with an ideal vantage point to witness what was happening are now about 1,300 miles away. But, aided
by technology and experienced crews accustomed to putting together live sporting events, it has gone smoothly for the most part for those calling the games.
“You have to adjust to the screen,” Robinson said. “The first thing was how close or how far to have the screen to us, at what level did we need game speed to get it at the right eye level. You spend the first couple of games just trying to get them set up right but it’s interesting, we have a view of every camera angle in the arena, shot clock, benches; whatever those cameras are picking up we can see.
“If I didn’t know the players so well, it would be really tough to do this, because again you,re watching from a screen and to see the way somebody shoots or the way they run and distinguish who that player is just based on watching film and knowing their tendencies has really come in handy with us not actually being in the arena, not being close up to all the players.”
The hectic regular-season schedule has given the announcers, production and technical staff the opportunity to get used to the new normal in these surreal times.
“By not being at sites, there are some elements that you lose that your own eyes can pick up, but we’ve been able to provide enough camera sources that they’re looking at that they really do feel like we aren’t missing much,” Gaiero said. “We have Holly Rowe in the bubble so she’s definitely the eyes and ears on site, and she’s so great with how she approaches her job and she has been able to provide that realtime perspective of, ‘Hey, I just saw the coach on the sideline, he’s going crazy calling a timeout.’ Having her inside the arena gives us that perspective from what you pick up with your eyes and ears to fill in the gaps of what we would be losing from a play-by-play or analyst perspective.”
While the announcers are hoping they don’t misidentify a player or miss a call, there are more significant concerns for those working behind the scenes. Heavy afternoon downpours in Florida have been known to knock out the satellite from time to time. When Gaiero was asked what scenario would result in her struggling to sleep at night, she did not hesitate.
“It’s the WNBA Finals, a storm rolls through Florida and takes down all of our satellite transmission [equipment] and we’re left with no way to bring the game to viewers at home” Gaiero said. “... I would say we have a terrific technical team so we’ve been through a number of backup scenarios to the point where I have even challenged our team, ‘What’s the backup to the backup?’ We try to have a couple of options in place should that worst-case scenario happen, but that definitely gives me nightmares.”
If there is a common theme that has helped ESPN navigate the challenge of televising the WNBA games, it is the relationships. While some of the technical and production staff will also work MLB or NBA crews, Gaiero said most of her staff concentrates on the WNBA coverage.
Robinson has worked with her fellow announcers at the WNBA and college levels for years so the chemistry was there before the first game was broadcast in 2020. The relationship with the league has also enabled them to acquire pertinent info from coaches and players that aid in the quality of the broadcast.
“With the relationship with coworkers with Holly, Pam, Rebecca, Ryan, myself, we are [having] text chats about what’s happening in other games,” Robinson said. “We have texts with the coordinator of officials, Sue Blauch, that will help on the officiating side of things, so there are layers of relationships that I think really help us all come together and call the games.”
The players have also provided help in another way.
Three of the top five players in the 2019 WNBA efficiency ratings either opted out of playing or left the bubble during the season, but other players have stepped forward to fill the void and give the announcers compelling stories to tell.
“I’ve been really impressed with the quality of play,” Robinson said. “There were a lot of question marks coming into the season about how good the quality would be for a number of reasons: It’s a shortened training camp, players hadn’t played some of them in four or five months, many of them weren’t able to get treatments that they needed during the lockdown. Players were at various levels of readiness coming into the season, in addition to the players deciding to opt out, including last year’s MVP [Elena Delle Donne], Liz Cambage who was in MVP conversation, so you wondered if there would still be enough star power to sustain.
“There is so much more depth to the star power in this league than you really realized, you kind of had this awakening to this next tier of stars in this league really start to take their place and carry their teams.”