Live from CMU: MAC's deal with ESPN gives students national experience, exposure

She and other crew members of the Chippewa Sports Network unload camera equipment at each of the seven camera locations used during basketball broadcasts.

They prepare to stream a men's basketball game against Ball State live on ESPN3 at 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 13. 

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When the Mid-American Conference and ESPN agreed to a 13-year deal in 2014, it gave students at Central Michigan University an opportunity to broadcast Division I sporting events to a national audience.

CSN student crews have produced nearly 30 ESPN3 broadcasts this winter-sports season, but they have been live broadcasting CMU sporting events on CSN — the multimedia wing of CMU Athletics Department's news website CMUChippewas.com — long before the contract was signed in 2014. 

Gerber said the crew members come early and work hard, but the job has become easier with repetition.

The broadcasting and journalism double major is one of two female members on the crew, which intimidated her originally, but that too has become easier with time.

“It’s really cool (now) that I can come in and do all these things and the guys (crew members) will be asking me ‘Hey, how do I do this?'” Gerber said. “Now, I’m in the office so much. It’s become second nature knowing how to set up the camera and how things go.”

In addition to being more lucrative for the conference, MAC Commissioner Dr. Jon Steinbrecher said the contract also significantly increased the conference's presence on ESPN3, a live multi-screen sports network that delivers thousands of sports events online at ESPN.go.com and on the WatchESPN app. It reaches more than 93 million homes, phones, tablets, computers and other devices.

"A part of (the deal with ESPN) is projecting forward and looking at where technology is going," Steinbrecher said. "It was an opportunity to really expand our ability to bring Mid-American Conference events to our fans anywhere around the world."

Steinbrecher would not disclose what the deal with ESPN is worth or how much CMU receives, but said it is "not even in the same area code," as the MAC's previous 8-year, $1.4 million per year ESPN deal. ESPN's Brett McMurphy reported the deal is worth more than $100 million — $8 million a season which is roughly $670,000 per school, per season if it were to be evenly distributed.

Athletics Director Dave Heeke said the department received a conference payout for 2014-15 of $1.3 million. This encompasses many different elements including television rights, College Football Playoff share, NCAA payments and more. Heeke said a portion of the payout was $91,000 for upgrading CSN's broadcasting equipment. 

Heeke said he was instructed by the MAC to direct questions about the contract to the conference office. That office declined comment for this story.

"We are very appreciative that we received these resources from ESPN and the MAC, so we can provide this exceptional experience for our student staff," Heeke said in an email. "This offers first-hand experience with an ESPN live production for our students which makes them very marketable as they enter the job search process."

Director of Game Day Productions Todd Edwards said because CSN already produced multi-camera broadcasts, CMU was one of the first three conference members to begin broadcasting on ESPN3. Buffalo and Northern Illinois also started producing ESPN3 broadcasts last year.

"Central was an institution that was in pretty good shape from the physical elements of the things they needed, as well as have great interest in being on the front side of this," Steinbrecher said.

The contract gives some freedom on what sports schools choose to broadcast on ESPN3. Not all universities use student crews, but Steinbrecher said one of the goals is to give students professional broadcasting experience while nationally promoting MAC schools.

"Imagine for our students, when they (graduate) they're going to be able to put on their resumes they've worked on ESPN productions," Steinbrecher said.

Edwards, a 2009 graduate with a bachelor of arts in broadcasting, said the addition of ESPN3 broadcasts has helped CSN grow to a 29-member staff — the largest Edwards has had at CSN.

"Some (students) work around 20 hours a week and some might only work 20 hours every few months. It varies greatly," Edwards said. "You can learn a lot (at CSN). We take a lot of pride in helping students at the university develop themselves and their skills, so they can go out and get jobs later."

CSN creates video content for YouTube, Facebook, highlight packages, and streams home men's and women's basketball, wrestling, volleyball and gymnastics events on ESPN3, unless a game is picked up by a regional network such as American Sports Network. ESPN owns the rights to every MAC football, basketball and olympic sporting event.

Assistant Athletics Director of Communication Rob Wyman said the network runs on a $10,000 operating budget and $35,000 employee wages budget. Additionally as part of the contract, ESPN gave CSN several pieces of equipment necessary for a professional-grade self-production, such as a Hitachi camera, switchboards and computer programming.

Live from CMU

Central Michigan Life shadowed the CSN crew during the men's basketball game against Ball State on Feb. 13 at McGuirk Arena to observe the production of a CMU sporting event for ESPN3. 

1 p.m. - Inside the control room — which is lined with television and computer monitors and switchboards — junior Anthony DiCarlo’s face is focused on a monitor.

He’s busy building graphics on Microsoft Expression, which will be displayed and used as talking points for Assistant Director of Multimedia Services Adam Jaksa and senior Matt Kearney, who are calling play-by-play during the broadcast.

DiCarlo said Expression is linked to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, where he inputs information that shows up on the audiences’ screens — like the scoreboard, for example.

“This took a lot of time (to learn),” DiCarlo said. “You have all these different kinds of graphics. It’s a very tedious job.”

3 p.m. - An hour and a half before game time, all 15 crew members are present and Edwards has returned from a midday nap. He arrived at McGuirk at 9:30 a.m. to begin preparations.

3:15 p.m. - Edwards begins an all-crew meeting to go over the plan for the production.

He informs the crew that Emmy-Award winning producer for Fox Sports Detroit and CMU Alumnus Jason Dizik will direct the show. 

Dizik said the production is a scaled-down version of a professional sports broadcast, but is still great experience — experience that wasn't offered while he attended CMU.

"A standard production truck is 53 feet, so you've got all that crammed into this room," Dizik said. "You got a switcher, you're doing replays, but instead of three people on the graphics bench, you have one. Instead of four replay operators and eight output channel, you have one person and one output channel. You're still learning all the basics. There's not going to be a shock when you get out of school."

3:30 p.m. - Senior broadcasting major Omar Arredendo calls ESPN to run through camera checks and other last minute tests.

Once the meeting is over, crew members adjourn to their assigned stations, get settled and strapped into their camera harnesses. They make checks on their equipment before final camera checks with ESPN in little more than half an hour.

With all six camera operators in place, the two teams warm up and fans file into the arena. Back in the control room junior Justin Steward informs Edwards the custom-controls button on the Microsoft Expression graphics computer isn't working.

Steward said instead of being able to push the button, which was built into the computer program to cut out several steps, he now has to do the steps manually.

"The only consistent thing is inconsistency," Edwards said. "Almost every game, there is some small troubleshooting. It's just too much technology and honestly some things can go unchecked. The show has to go on regardless. We just deal with it."

4:26 p.m. - Arredondo is back on the phone with ESPN and begins to relay the countdown to Dizik, who simultaneously relays the countdown into the headsets of color commentators Jaksa and Kearney, who sitting courtside to call play-by-play.

It's Kearney's third time calling a game for ESPN3. He said he takes pride in being a jack-of-all-trades, appearing on the radio, producing and doing other behind-the-scene work.

"Obviously, myself as an undergraduate student to have the opportunity to be on-air on ESPN on a national platform is a really outstanding opportunity," Kearney said. "I definitely cherish every chance I get."

4:27 p.m. - Arredondo and Dizik finish the countdown, senior EJ Houston plays the opening shot of the outside of McGuirk Arena while Jaksa welcomes the audience to Mount Pleasant — almost exactly at the scheduled start time.

Edwards said the beginning is usually the most stressful part of the broadcast.

Meanwhile, Dizik is in almost constant conversation with the crew members inside the control room and on the court over the headset.

"Hot on one. Ready on two? OK, take two. Ready on four? Hot on two and OK, take four," Dizik said. As he directed, DiCarlo pressed the buttons on the switchboard to change camera shots and the camera operators constantly stayed filming — a digital assembly line producing a sports game.

One problem, Dizik said, the crew is less familiar with his use of directing terms. For example, the CSN crew refers to the two camera operators under each basket on the baseline by the color of the sideline — the maroon camera or the gold camera.

Down on the gold baseline, sophomore Duncan McKee spends the second half as a utility, making sure players don't trip over the camera's cords as his fellow cameraman films the game. McKee said he was ran into twice while he filmed the first half of the game.

"My first thought is, I don't want to mess up the game. I don't want to trip any of the players," he said. "If they get hurt, it's my fault and I look like an idiot. The second thing I'm worried about is the camera, because it is super expensive and I guess third is my health. Luckily, it doesn't happen super often."

On the maroon baseline, junior Demetrios Sanders is more concerned about the action of the game obstructing his shot, than being run over by players.

"It sounds like a simple job of just following people around, but it's a lot more difficult than it looks," Sanders said. "It makes you nervous they're giving out so many directions at once. The simplest mistake can ruin an entire broadcast."

Sanders admitted he has messed up, but said it happens and is something to learn from.

Despite a close game, the crew keeps focused and unbiased. Edwards said CSN produces an unbiased broadcasts to remain professional. Many of the crew members said they were not even aware of the score, because "you're just in a zone," as Sanders said.

Central Michigan lost to the Cardinals 75-63.

6:19 p.m. - Jaksa and Kearney have signed off from the broadcast and the crew begins to breakdown the seven cameras and weaves through exiting fans to get back to the control room. Houston is getting a head start on the graphics for the video board inside McGuirk Arena for the next game.

Dizik, a board member in the College of Communications and Fine Arts said he is used to having 90 seconds during commercial breaks, "those minute breaks come quick," and thought the crew did nicely. He said, putting on 16 to 18 home events for one sport alone per season is great exposure to new broadcast experiences.

"It's great to build the CMU brand," Dizik said. "Any student interested in broadcasting needs to do this. It's an opportunity we didn't have and they're going to be much better for it when they leave here."

Dizik said CMU has an extensive network of alumni in broadcasting throughout Michigan — close to a dozen CMU alumni at Fox Sports Detroit alone. He said all the names such as Terry Foster, Matt Shepherd and Mickey York were all involved in student-ran productions.

"All the people I'm talking about, at least when I was here, worked with public television, MHTV, athletics (while at CMU) and this is why (ESPN3 and CSN) are such a great opportunity for these kids," Dizik said.