DEEP DIVEspotlight DIVE
back. We’ve seen, “Hey, let’s try this, let’s try that,” over the years, and nothing really stuck. Even on Sunday night, we tried a couple of things, but you have to start out with a highlevel production with terrific announcers, and the audience will come because it’s the National Football League. On creating the graphics package for TNF: Stacy: We worked with NBC Sports Group and drive|studio to build this graphics package from scratch, and we are happy with the way that turned out. I’m especially proud of the scorebug, which I think really pops. We’re also leaning heavily into AR graphics, and that is going to be a big part of the broadcast. We’ve got some great opening title sequences and animations that are going to add a dramatic element to every game. We wanted to think big about every single element of the production because, at the end of the day, you want fans to walk away from Thursday night and say, “Wow! that was a really fun
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SPORTS PRODUCTION 2023 YEARBOOK
Top: Amazon Prime Video took the TNF Tonight pregame show on the road to every game of its inaugural season. Bottom: Game Creek Video rolled out Prime One and Prime Two this season.
night of football.” Obviously, it all starts with the game, but we want the entire experience to feel like something special, and that includes the graphics and [supporting elements]. On how historic the Prime One mobile units are: Palmer: The scale and magnitude of this project is pretty much unprecedented. And we were trying to get it done on a very aggressive timeline as well as dealing with unprecedented supplychain issues. It’s definitely the wildest build I’ve ever been a part of. We were building a plane while it was already in the air, and we were trying to build it for opening week. That couldn’t have been done without the hard work of our team and our amazing partners. On Prime Video’s alternativepresentation streams for TNF games: Stacy: One of the biggest things we want do is grow the game and broaden the tent of who watches it. We are providing alternate streams like TNF With Dude Perfect and lots more to come. While a lot of kids may not want to watch a full game, they’ll watch a game with Dude Perfect just to hang out with those guys for a few hours. That is where we are taking some big swings [in order to] establish who we are and what Thursday Night Football on Prime Video feels like.
