Locker room lessons for the Super Bowl
Post categories: 91Èȱ¬ Sport
| 13:58 UK time, Monday, 29 October 2007
Hi everyone, I'm Ron Chakraborty, one of the Assistant Editors in 91Èȱ¬ TV Sport, helping put together everything from Six Nations to Inside Sport to Wimbledon to, well, ...
There are many culture shocks you have to get used to when covering , but nothing can prepare you for the mayhem of an NFL locker room after a match.
After a 10-minute 'cool down' period, the NFL allows the media into the players' dressing rooms.
You can imagine the chaos that ensues, as was the case following the at Wembley.
It's manic enough in the American locker rooms designed with the NFL's 53-man rosters in mind. With Wembley's facilities designed for soccer squads of half the size, things were, well, chummy, to say the least.
It certainly was an extraordinary sight to see the Giants' star quarterback - a man who earns $6m a year - emerging from the showers in just a towel to have 20 microphones thrust in his face.
There's been many comparisons drawn between the NFL and the Premier League in the past few days, but I don't think Wayne Rooney and company are quite ready for that treatment!
It was all a learning experience that came with 91Èȱ¬ television covering American football for the first time as part of a deal that also involves us showing the Super Bowl live in February.
As is often the case with covering American sports, there's a tricky balance to strike between educating new viewers to the sport without patronising the hardcore fans that have been following it for years.
It's particularly true of the NFL as it gained such a popular following in the 1980s. From the amount of Dan Marino shirts around Wembley yesterday, that fanbase is certainly alive and well today.
For yesterday's programme, we decided to do a brief - I'm sure a few diehard fans would have groaned to see another explanation of downs, touchdowns, running and passing, but given the impressive publicity drive that the NFL went on last week, there was inevitably some curious new viewers among the million that tuned in.
We also decided to take the American network commentary from Wembley. Obviously there's a fair bit of assumed knowledge in there which may confuse the novice viewer, but we felt it was part of the NFL coming to town. It's also what the seasoned American football fan has come to expect.
That was for a 50 minute highlights programme though. Things may be different come the three hours of our live Super Bowl coverage. I'd be interested in hearing what viewers would prefer - American network commentary, some of the 91Èȱ¬'s own, or perhaps a mixture of both like Radio 5live's pairing of Arlo White and Greg Brady?
I have to admit I'm already excited about the prospect of covering the Super Bowl. Perhaps we'll be covering the once again, who knows?
One thing's for sure, we'll be preparing for the mother of all media scrums in the locker rooms afterwards.
