Entering the final year of its three-year deal to broadcast the English Premier League, NBC Sports lead soccer producer Pierre Moossa said the network is going to stick with what has made the first two years successful.
“As boring as it sounds, we need to make sure that we’re covering the league properly,” he said. “We want to go back to the basics, not just doing TV stuff for the sake of it.”
The network, which will make all 380 EPL matches available with the season kickoff on Saturday, introduced a host of changes last year, including a tactical camera and other digital and television presentations. While all of those will return, Moossa and his team have aimed to refine what is already there.
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Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho will be the first subject of a new series of sit-down interviews.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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For the past few months, the NBC Sports team reviewed every week of the previous season, looking for ways to improve. Team members began a boot camp last week where they focused on how best to manage highlights and ways to improve their workflows, among other topics.
Moossa noted a few things that the production team is testing with hopes that they’ll make it to air in the months ahead.
One of the biggest projects is using virtual reality inside the studio, or what the EPL calls augmented reality, Moossa said. While some of that technology is as simple as players’ heads turning during a digital lineup presentation or added logos or player data, Moossa said the technology could enable players to appear to be walking out on the studio floor accompanied by bio boxes.
There are two elements that NBC Sports will have from the start of the season, both focused on storylines.
The network plans to feature an information graphic about a minute before kickoff that will update viewers on key storylines that they might have missed if they are just tuning in, such as injury reports or specific player information.
“With soccer and the nature of our show, there are viewers who might only tune in five minutes before, or just get to the pub then,” he said. “We’re aiming to be able to update everyone like that, as well as refresh what’s been discussed on the [pregame] show thus far.”
The other element will be an extension of the network’s download series, which features sit-down interviews with key figures in the league. Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho will be the first personality featured this season, with additional features in the works.
As for two programming elements introduced late in the season last year — an on-site broadcast in England as opposed to Connecticut, and a RedZone-esque breakaway show that features highlights from every match being played — Moossa said that the network has “every intention of doing both again,” but that no specific dates have been set.
“We felt that both were very successful, and were very special, and we don’t want to lose that by overdoing it,” he said.
As for a wraparound show, Moossa said that when reviewing the tapes of the two weeks NBC did it last season — a New Year’s Day show highlighting eight games played concurrently, and a relegation-focused breakaway on three games in May — he preferred the smaller of the two because it was less frenetic, and that the producers are still juggling just how often they should swap between games. There is still discussion on when that show should be featured this season.
NBC and NBC Sports Network combined to average 479,000 viewers a game during the 2014-15 season, up 9 percent from the previous year. However, Moossa said his team is focusing on the task at hand.
“Anybody in television would be lying if they said they didn’t look at ratings, but I always tell my team you can only focus on what you control,” he said. “Still, it’s always good to know that more people are watching.”
