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Recent FS1 Broadcast With Coaches Mic'd Up Gets Positive Reception

FS1 last Friday shook up its audio presentation of the Providence-DePaul men's basketball game by having both coaches wear a live microphone during play. In-game huddles and halftime locker room talks also were shown, enabling the audience to hear game plans, specific play instructions, referee interactions and more on a five-second delay. Joe Davis and Len Elmore served as traditional broadcasters for the game, though they largely took a backseat to a split screen featuring the coaches. The idea originated when Senior Coordinating Producer Steve Scheer came to Fox in ’13 with the goal of presenting a commercial-free game just as a player experiences it. A St. John’s-Seton Hall women’s game in ’16 was aired in such a way on FS2, but he wanted to revive the idea for a men’s game. “The goal from day one was, ‘How do we give fans an experience they haven’t felt before.'" Scheer said. He noted the “tricky part was getting a couple men’s coaches to try it” before DePaul’s Dave Leitao and Providence’s Ed Cooley eventually agreed to the experiment. Cooley circled with Scheer ahead of gameday and ended up wearing the mic during the team’s morning shootaround for familiarity. Scheer said both Cooley and Leitao were “probably a little nervous, but a few minutes into the game forgot they were even wearing it.” Scheer, an admitted basketball junkie, made sure to place emphasis on the mics throughout the broadcast. “We pulled off on everything we normally do. There were no full screen graphics. Very limited stats and replays. And no edits on the team huddles."
CLEANING THINGS UP A BIT: Providence AD Bob Driscoll said he liked the idea of showing fans a “behind-the-scenes look at what coaching is all about.” Driscoll: “I give credit to Fox for wanting to do something that’s never been done before.” One thing potentially posed a problem for the full-access broadcast -- the penchant for coaches’ language to get slightly blue during a game. “The only thing off limits was cursing,” Scheer said. Driscoll added, “Coaches in the heat of battle can say some things you don’t want to get out there, so we were ready to push the button if we needed to.” Perhaps the harshest language was heard during a timeout, when Cooley in a team huddle discussed how to guard DePaul F Max Strus. “C’mon! Small things we talked about. (Gesturing at player). You’ve got McKown, or whatever the hell his name is. Strus? Strus.”
SIGN OF THINGS TO COME? Scheer is the first to admit this style of broadcast is not for all fans, but he stopped short of ruling out whether the innovation could be embraced by mainstream basketball telecasts in the future. He said, “Years ago we never thought we’d mic a coach or go into a huddle or go into a locker room. Maybe 10 years down the road this becomes the norm.” Scheer also noted while he would like to do this again, as of now there are no official plans to do so. As for his personal favorite moment of the broadcast, Scheer said, “When we went off the air and I knew it was successful.”
TWITTER REAX: The N.Y Post’s Zach Braziller: “Really a great idea by Fox and the Big East, no commercials and mic'ing up both coaches." WGN’s Adam Hoge: “Wow. What @FS1 did with the DePaul-Providence game was so cool. No commercials and the coaches were mic’d up the whole time. I could watch any basketball game like that.”

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