On Saturday, September 24, The Root Sports Pittsburgh truck will pull up near the right field gate of PNC Park at around 10 a.m. and begin setting up for the 7:05 p.m. game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Washington Nationals, per usual.
The producers, directors, crew, engineers, camera people, designers, hosts and everyone else involved will set about the monumental task they have done 141 times already this season – bring the Pirates pre-game, post-game and the game itself to over 3.2 million houses in five states.
It will be like any other work day for them, except for the fact that it isn’t.
Across the state Saturday evening, in Philadelphia, another event will be taking place – The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Mid-Atlantic Chapter Awards – better known as the Regional Emmys. And the same group of talented people bringing viewers Pittsburgh Pirates baseball every night on Root Sports, are nominated for several awards.
“The Emmy is the highest award for our business, and just to be nominated for an Emmy is a great honor,” said Douglas Johnson, VP/Executive Producer at Root Sports Pittsburgh. “It’s something every single person can be very proud of.”
Lucky 13
The 13 nominations garnered by Root Sports Pittsburgh for Pirates and Penguins coverage, a Root Sports record, are especially meaningful given the nature of the competition within Mid-Atlantic region, he said.
“We compete head to head with Philadelphia. Which as you know is a huge TV market and Comcast Philadelphia, they do a lot of great television. So to compete against them and maybe even bring home some hardware is a big honor,” he added.
Root Sports’ Pirates coverage that received nominations for the 2016 awards include three episodes of Inside Pirates Baseball, the Pirates 2015 Year-End Wrap Up video and the September 13, 2015 Pirates versus Milwaukee Brewers game.
Root Sports Pittsburgh has been submitting work to the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Emmys since Johnson joined the organization in 2011. They have received accolades every year they’ve participated.
The Science Behind Submittal
Submissions for nomination consideration are sent in April for the previous season’s work, Johnson said. Throughout both the baseball and hockey seasons producers and directors make notes of special things that take place during games or segments for shows like Inside Pirates Baseball that they feel are standouts. Then, once the seasons are over, they get together to compare notes and select the right pieces to submit.
“When you submit an Emmy there’s a science to it, believe it or not,” he said.
[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”Douglas Johnson” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]The Emmy is the highest award for our business, and just to be nominated for an Emmy is a great honor[/perfectpullquote]The nomination for Sporting Event/Game – Live/Unedited Program/Special/Series for that September Brewers game is especially important, he said because it is essentially a complete overview of all that his team at Root Sports Pittsburgh do throughout the entire season. “I equate it to the Oscars with Picture of the Year,” he said laughing.
And while some regional Emmy competitions allow for the submission of a composite of game coverage, basically enabling a network to create a “best of” reel for a season, the Mid-Atlantic region requires that one game be submitted in its entirety.
So what is the science to picking the one game out of 150 broadcast by Root that exemplifies the talent of his team?
“You always want to make sure that it’s got sort of a powerful open because you want to set that tone for the viewers, you want to grab them in the beginning,” he said. “It’s got to be a game that has a special feel.”
One Game Had It All
The Pirates September 13, 2015 game against the Milwaukee Brewers had all of those elements, and more. It was late in the season and the Pirates were once again chasing a wild card berth. At one point the team was down by four but fought back to push the game into extra innings only to have it won by a walk-off home run by Josh Harrison in the 11th.
And while there are certain games that just have that magic built in, the team at Root Sports makes it their mission to make every game feel like its own event, Johnson said.
“Each individual game is almost like a movie. They have their own storylines and plotlines. There’s a hero, there’s a goat, there’s a villain and everything else. No matter what, even if you’re 20 games up in the standings or 20 games down in the standings, every game has a story,” he said. “And our guys are so good at following that storyline and when they want to – also have some fun with it.”
A 25 year-veteran of sports broadcasting, first with Fox Sports Ohio and now with Root Sports Pittsburgh, Johnson has 20 Emmys of his own, so he knows a little about what it takes to make Emmy-worthy TV.
“I feel that our shows are some of the best in the country and I think it’s a testament to the folks in the truck, that are working it, the technicians, everyone, we take a lot of pride in it,” he said.
“This is their bread and butter.”
Split Squad
In many regional networks, sports coverage is done by the entire staff. But at Root Sports Pittsburgh, their staffs are split between the Pirates and the Penguins.
“We have one production team that handles the Pirates and we have one production team that handles Penguins. With the exception of maybe some vacation fill-in, they don’t cross. So, we’ve got our Pirates guys, who, twelve months a year, all they care about is the Pirates and improving our Pirates coverage and we’ve got a Penguins team and all they care about for twelve months is the Penguins. So it’s total team dedication 100-percent of the time and I think it really shows on the air.”
Aside from that dedication, his teams have the support of parent companies investing in technology that keeps them on the leading edge of their field, he said.
“Root Sports under DIRECTV and now under AT&T have truly emphasized putting back into the broadcasts and making them the best they can be. When you look at our broadcasts, we have two super-mos, we were the first region to have the RF camera (the wireless camera that roams the stadium), we have commercial music usage, we have a lot of things that you don’t see in other regional broadcast and that’s something that Root Sports really hang their hats on,” Johnson added. “I’ve been involved with a few regions throughout my career and I’ve never seen so much emphasis put every year on what can make us better. It’s truly really remarkable.”
And those investments, in teams and technology, pay off. In the past five years, the Pirates have won the Emmy in the game category three times now, the Penguins twice.
Regardless of whether Root Sports Pittsburgh walks away with 13 Emmys or none Saturday night, Johnson said there is much to be proud of by earning the nomination. “A nomination alone is something that everyone should be proud of. It’s a reward for a very nice job done over the course of a long hard season. So to get that recognition is an honor,” he said.
The Root Sport Pittsburgh employees nominated for 2016 Mind-Atlantic Emmys are:
Douglas Johnson, Jack Becker, Rob King, Michael Welsh, Cliff Wynkoop, Ryan Wood, Adam Elmore, Pete Toma, Rebecca Hawranko, Tyler Graham, Jason Steele, Lowell MacDonald, Andy Kosco, Matthew Aaron, Leo McCafferty, Jon Otte, Andrew McIntyre, Padraic Driscoll, Michael Davenport, Cody Shuckhart, Jason Seidling, Jennifer Bullano-Ridgley, Ryan Mill, Sidney Crosby, Meghan McManimon, Mark Cottington, David Distilli, Dan Potash, Bob Errey and Greg Brown.
Full list of categories and nominations
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