It’s been 137 days since Matt Devlin last got to call a Toronto Raptors game, and during this time, he’s worked diligently to stay in practice.
“Jack opens up the refrigerator door with his right hand as he dives in to take a look at the orange juice, or will it be the water? Is it the OJ? The water? He goes for the orange juice!”
Thankfully for Devlin’s children, they won’t have to endure hearing their old man calling their breakfast routines anymore because starting Friday Devlin and the rest of the Toronto Raptors broadcast crew are back doing what they do best.
“I think everybody’s missed it – missed sports – and [it’ll be] some kind of normal in our lives,” said Leo Rautins, Devlin’s colour man on Sportsnet’s Raptors broadcasts. “So it’s exciting. I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun, I think the ratings are going to be amazing, I think people all over the world are gonna be watching. So I’m excited.”
While it’s just a scrimmage, Friday’s exhibition contest with the Houston Rockets will be the first game the Raptors have played since their Western Conference road trip finale with the Utah Jazz on Mar. 9. And as much focus as there has been on the players and coaching staff getting ready to play again, there’s been an equal amount of effort given by the broadcast crew to prepare for this restart as well.
Here’s a little behind the scenes look at how the broadcast we’ll all be watching is being brought to us.
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Social distanced play-calling
Despite the NBA being in the Walt Disney World bubble, the Raptors broadcast magic will take place in Oakville, Ont.
The crew has set up a broadcast studio for Devlin and his colour partner to work out of while being properly socially-distanced apart. The pair will work off of individual monitors that will pump in the feed of the game from Orlando from a nearby broadcast mobile parked outside of the studio and the game will be called off of what the two gentlemen see on their screens, which may sound strange, but in actuality is how things are normally done even with commentators in the building.
“When we do a regular game a lot of people don’t realize that you watch your monitor almost as much as you watch the game,” Rautins said. “…I want to make sure that I’m talking about what you’re seeing at home. So, if I’m sitting there courtside and I’m watching the game I might see something that you don’t, so I have to make sure that I’m talking about the same thing you’re seeing.
“…So from that standpoint, calling a game from a monitor isn’t that big of an adjustment.”
It also helps that Rautins and Devlin have experience with a similar setup, as well. During the pre-season, when the Raptors were playing in Japan, the pair was set up in the Tim and Sid studio to call those games off monitors, with it all going off without a hitch.
With that said, an exhibition game and a playoff game are two very different things and a big part of the broadcast’s job is to illustrate the mood in the building to the television audience, something that’s now impossible with no fans present at games and the broadcast crew more than 2,050 kilometres away.
But the impact of a clutch shot or a big, momentum-shifting dunk still needs to be felt and conveyed through TV, which is why the role of commentators is that much more important now.
“We can still play off the emotion of what’s going on,” Rautins said. “That’s where we’re going to have to bring the energy in those situations. Getting excited about watching a game or getting excited about a big play, that’s gonna have to be part of something that we have to bring to the broadcast in situations like this.”
So while everything will be a little different, much will remain the same.
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New sights and sounds
The NBA has used Summer League in the past to experiment with its broadcast and now in the highest stakes, the lengthiest Summer League ever prepares to see the fruits of some of that past labour.
“You’re gonna see different [camera] angles that you’ve never seen before,” said Raptors broadcast director Chris Phillips. “You’re going to see, without there being fans there, there’s going to be cameras in places that you wouldn’t typically have.”
Some of these new angles include a camera about free-throw line extended midway up the stands that will give a better perspective to watch the half-court. Another example is a camera on a rail that will be able to move up and down the court and follow players moving up the court more quickly and in a more intimate fashion, adding a little action-movie flare to games.
Directors of local broadcasts like Phillips have a unique challenge of trying to tell the kind of game story they want to tell without having as much control as they’re used to.
Phillips will be at the mercy of the “clean feed” – that the crew is then able to add its creative to give it that distinctive Raptors broadcast look – that ESPN and TNT are providing local broadcasters while live play is going on. He’ll have a bit more freedom during stoppages to use some of these more unique angles that will be used in replays, but when action is going he won’t have as much freedom as he’d probably like.
Where he will have a little more wiggle room is what’s heard on the broadcast.
In addition to the new camera angles, microphones will be closer to the floor than ever before, meaning we might not only be able to hear the sneaker squeaks, but could catch some interesting conversation among players.
Of course, not all conversations are meant for family programming like live sports are supposed to be and as such, NBA games will be broadcast on a seven-second delay to allow crews to cut out what would otherwise be inappropriate.
“With there being no fans and the microphones being so close to the court we’ll have to censor quite a bit out,” Phillips said.
Still, the chance to hear guys communicating on defence or to catch a point guard barking orders and directing traffic as a team gets into a set would make all the additional work required to censor worth it.
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Fan engagement
Perhaps the biggest part of the NBA’s broadcast plan will be how the league plans to engage its strictly-at-home audience.
When NBA commissioner Adam Silver officially announced the league’s restart he held a conference call where he made mention to some interesting ways the NBA was looking to engage its fan base.
“Fans, of course, will not be present, but they remain at the heart of our game, so for these games we need to fundamentally alter the way we engage with them,” Silver said. “While they won’t be physically in the arenas, we play with a deepened communal connection to sports with a more networked and immersive experience, using, for example, unique never-before-seen camera angles and amped audio of players and coaches, personalized alternative streams with statistical overlays, chat functions and social influencers, attachments to your app that lights up the arena in the team’s colors, along with virtual concerts and halftime performances.”
The best example of this that Silver mentioned is the giant screen that virtually displays fans for the “home” team. In a video the Raptors posted, team president Masai Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster previewed the NBA’s main bubble arena, including the gigantic screens that surround the court.
It’s admittedly a bit of an odd sight to see, and even more bizarre is probably the virtual rally cries and chants. This audio, Phillips said, is provided by the NBA to the broadcast and the crew can choose to use it or not.
More interesting than the league’s attempt at virtual fanfare is how the league may look into making its broadcasts more interactive.
Going back to some of the experimentation that the NBA has done with Summer League, there’s a chance more than just new camera angles will be brought over.
“We have been able to push the envelope during Summer League to try and figure out new ways of getting fans, A, closer to the game and, B, finding different ways that people might want to consume the game.”
Examples of this that Phillips cited were using social media influencers to call a game or to have an alternative broadcast with a heavy focus on betting.
This seems to fall in line with Silver’s initial messaging and would all be interesting to see if any of it could work.
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