Live Drones, Real-Time Graphics Enhance Live Coverage of Bassmaster Elite Series

Host broadcaster JM Associates deploys remote workflows from home facility in Little Rock, AR

In the Upper Midwest, there are few better ways to pass the late-summer days than by a casting a lure out on the lake.

That’s the scene that will be set this weekend on FS1 when the Bassmaster Elite series makes its final stop of the season in La Crosse, WI, for the Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite at Mississippi River (Aug. 26-29). Wall-to-wall coverage will stream at Bassmaster.com, and FS1 will broadcast live coverage with a focus on the tournament leaders on Saturday and Sunday beginning at 8 a.m. ET.

Concluding Bassmaster LIVE’s second season with Fox Sports will be the 2022 Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite at Mississippi River in La Crosse, WI, Aug. 26-29. (All photos: B.A.S.S.)

Nearing the conclusion of the second full season of a distribution partnership with Fox Sports, live coverage of the Bassmaster Elite Series has enjoyed a strong year of production enhancements and total number of live hours broadcast by B.A.S.S. in-house production arm and host broadcaster JM Associates.

Via its at-home production workflow, the Little Rock, AR-based production company has increased its use of live drones and further bolstered its live-graphics package with real-time data to tell a complete and visually appealing story of the sport of top-level bass fishing.

Drones: More Than Just a Pretty Shot

The most eye-catching addition to live fishing coverage over the past several years has been JM Associates’ use of live drone video feeds from Bassmaster Elites.

According to Mike McKinnis, VP, media content, JM Associates, the live drone angles are not merely picturesque; they have become a critical part of the storytelling process, especially for events that can span a vast geographic area. The drone’s sweeping scene-setting shots give the viewer a sense of place and of the positioning of the top anglers in the competition.

“We’re really having success with the drones,” says McKinnis, noting that his team continues to tinker with the newest models of DJI drones, including newer 4K units. “It’ll be a constant battle for us to stay on top of [the tech] and get the shots into our live coverage, but it’s worth it because we want more of it.

“It’s one of the coolest things we do to be able to show off our sport,” he continues. “You can get over the top of [an angler] and show where he is going, what he’s doing, and what he’s looking at. Especially when we are in clear-water lakes, you can really see what’s going on below the surface.”

Pilot/camera operator Wes Miller releases a drone during a Bassmaster Elite live broadcast earlier this year.

McKinnis credits the talent and finesse of drone pilot/camera operator Wes Miller, whom he cites as critical to the overall success of the drone effort. In addition to the scenic establishing shots, Miller has been able to regularly fly more tightly over the competition’s top anglers. It’s a constant conversation with Bassmaster Elite’s top anglers to gauge their comfort level with the type of shots or drone movements that may be attempted during competition.

“We have to be respectful of the angler first,” says McKinnis. “The anglers are different. Some of them don’t mind; you could put it on their hat, and they wouldn’t care. Others are a little more superstitious or worried about scaring the fish; those want us to back it off a little bit, and we’re respectful of that.”

The increased use is partly a result of confidence in the video signal transmitted from the drone and how it integrates into the show’s overall workflow. For about three years now, JM Associates has been using LiveU packs and bonded-cellular technology to make that delivery.

The crew has been using drone footage in its live productions since 2015. Prior to adding LiveU, the process entailed acquiring the footage, rushing it back to the bank of the body of water, and delivering that footage to Little Rock for later use.

“That was hard, cumbersome, and difficult to even get it in the show,” says McKinnis. “We’re really having success this way.”

Out in Front With At-Home Production

To gain a full appreciation of the live production of Bassmaster Elite events is to peek behind the scenes of one of the more comprehensive regularly deployed at-home operations in the sports industry today.

For Bassmaster Elite Series events, JM Associates sends a small team of camera operators and technicians to site and handles the overall production at the company’s production facilities in Little Rock. There, the company produces the event out of a control room in a production truck parked outside the facility.

Elite events can feature nearly 100 competitors, and JM Associates sends 10 camera operators out on boats with 10 of the featured competitors. Bonded-cellular transmission solutions are deployed to get the live video and audio signals from those boats to the control room in Little Rock, where the show is ultimately cut by the producer, director, an A1, and replay operators.

On-air talent commenting on Bassmaster Elite events work from a studio desk at JM Associates’ facility in Little Rock, AR. Here, Bassmaster LIVE co-hosts Mike Suchan (far left) and Mark Zona (far right) speak with legendary angler and TV personality Bill Dance.

Inside the JM Associates building is a 5,000-sq.-ft. sound stage where on-air talent hosts all Bassmaster live programming from a studio desk. At the desk, talent has a view only of the main program feed — a conscious decision by the production team. As McKinnis explains, live bass-fishing coverage closely resembles that of golf. In many cases, multiple replays are stacked to update viewers on the biggest moments currently taking place on the course. The goal is to keep the on-air talent just as surprised as the viewers as the moments transpire on-screen.

Also in the facility is a second control room, which produces both the wall-to-wall live stream of commentator-less coverage to bassmaster.com and the on-air graphics used in the televised broadcast. The latter includes in-depth animations using Google Maps to illustrate when anglers are on the field of competition.

Unlike many sports broadcasters today, JM Associates’ at-home workflows were neither pandemic-driven nor pandemic-accelerated. The company has been deploying the production model since it began live coverage in 2015.

That first year, the company did, in fact, have a full-fledged production truck onsite. However, in a bit of fate, the team’s truck experienced engine issues, leaving McKinnis and his team scrambling to implement transmission plans that would allow the team to bring feeds to the home facility and produce the event from there. Overcoming that obstacle not only produced a better product, in their eyes, but also put the company out in front of what would ultimately become a massive trend in the industry.

“Once we did it [remotely], we never stopped,” laughs McKinnis. “It was just the best thing for us to do. It was a little bit by accident, but I think it would’ve come to this eventually anyway.”

What’s Next? Growing Graphics

After wrapping the Bassmaster Elite Series this weekend, JM Associates will continue to innovate on other outdoor events it covers throughout the year, including the Bassmaster College Series and a smattering of Opens on the schedule.

In the meantime, the wheels are still turning in McKinnis’s head as experimentation goes on behind the scenes to further enhance the viewing experience on Elite events.

Most notably, the digital team at B.A.S.S., led by VP, Digital, Jim Sexton, is working with graphics vendors on deepening the real-time data that can be integrated in its broadcasts. One key goal is to find a way to ingest and display the front-facing sonar unit that anglers use on their boats in competition.

“That would be a really cool storytelling tool,” says McKinnis, noting that this type of data is especially helpful for the type of sport covered. Many viewers not only want to watch the competition but want to implement what they learn into their own recreational activities.

Viewers have already enjoyed a more detailed graphics package of late: B.A.S.S. and JM Associates have developed a workflow that ingests the live competition statistics for immediate use by the broadcast. Official data logged by marshals on the course — number of fish caught, what time they are caught, how large the fish are — is immediately ingested and fed into the bottom-line ticker to provide viewers live results.

Camera operator David Pennington speaks with a Bassmaster Elite angler during an event this year. On a typical broadcast, 10 camera operators follow 10 anglers throughout a weekend-long event.

“I think our scoring is a beast of a program,” says McKinnis. “We have data coming in from over 100 [anglers]. We don’t have cameras on 100 [anglers], but that data from the rest of the field is critical.”

Honoring a Sports-Television Legacy

The continued growth of and JM Associates’ investment in live coverage of not just Bassmaster Elite but fishing competitions and outdoor content in general is a fitting tribute to the legacy of a true sports-television pioneer: Mike’s father, Jerry McKinnis.

An icon of outdoor sports, Jerry McKinnis was responsible for creating one of the longest-running shows in sports-television history: The Fishin’ Hole was carried in syndication in the 1960s before becoming an early piece of programming for the fledgling ESPN. The broadcaster aired more than 300 original episodes of The Fishin’ Hole during a run that spanned 1980-2007.

McKinnis founded JM Associates to support the continued growth of outdoor content in the 1980s and into the ’90s. His vision helped found the FLW Tour, and the company produced coverage of numerous marquee events, such as The Bassmaster Classic, the ESPN Great Outdoor Games (for which the company won an Emmy Award in 2004), and The Spanish Fly With Jose Wejebe.

“It was [Jerry’s] personality, it was his vision, it was his way about him,” Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer and former ESPN executive Steve Anderson said when The Fishin’ Hole’s run on ESPN ended. “I give the credit to Jerry. You could start naming shows that have a real identity, and The Fishin’ Hole was one of them.”

Jerry McKinnis was a part of a group that purchased B.A.S.S. from ESPN in 2010, allowing him to fulfill his deeper vision of taking live outdoor-focused content to even greater heights. It essentially turned JM Associates into a host broadcaster.

Enshrined in multiple Hall of Fames — including the International Game Fish Association Hall of Fame, the National Fishing Hall of Fame, and the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame — Jerry McKinnis died in 2019. His son is proud to say that the work being done by the company that still carries his initials, is continuing to innovate as he would have.

“His spirit is still very strong here in the ‘Fishfactory’ building,” Mike McKinnis says. “If he were still with us, he would be right in the middle of every decision we make. I’m happy and proud to say the culture he created here to innovate is as strong as ever.”

The Bassmaster Elite season concludes Aug. 26-29 with the Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite at Mississippi River. Beginning on Friday, the event at Lake Oahe runs through Monday, with all four days available for streaming on Bassmaster.com and the FOX Sports App. Live coverage will be broadcast on FS1 on Saturday and Sunday beginning at 8 a.m. ET.