WBD Sports Production Team Embraces Hectic April as NBA, NHL, MLB Schedules Overlap

Coordination with ESPN, NEP, and Game Creek Video soothed the craziness

The team at WBD Sports is accustomed to March Madness. But April Madness? With the start of the MLB season and the NHL Stanley Cup and NBA playoffs in full glory (and toss in some national-team soccer matches as well), the past month was a busy one for the entire WBD Sports team as well as for hundreds of freelancers.

The NBA on TNT crew hosted a four-sport relay course against their NHL and MLB counterparts. The hockey team took home the trophy.

“We always knew this month was coming, and preparing for it was on everyone’s mind,” says Chris Brown, VP, tech operations, WBD Sports. “The good news is, we had a little bit of a dry run last year, but last year was an Olympics year, so the NHL and NBA playoffs differed a little bit. Logistically, that created some breathing room.”

This year, the NHL and NBA playoffs are tightly packed, and, as with every sports event in the post-pandemic era, crew shortages are a concern. But Brown says a core traveling crew that has been part of the NHL and NBA coverage all season made a big difference.

“With the different games,” he explains, “we could rotate those crews and build out individual production teams and tech crews. Hats off to the logistics team and Lee Estroff, director of technical operations, and his team and to Dan Nabors, our director of engineering, for making it all work. It has been a good run.”

A new wrinkle this year was working in Canada as it required some new relationships.

“When you hit those local markets,” says Brown, “tapping into them can be difficult, but it’s manageable. And, with travel costs going up, you do still need to weigh the matchup and the right size production.”

Compounding the challenges were situations when hockey and basketball teams sharing a home were in playoff mode simultaneously. Los Angeles, Denver, Boston, and New York were all front and center in that regard.

“The biggest one was at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, where we had the Clippers, Kings, and then the Lakers on a Saturday, Sunday, and Monday,” he adds. “But we’ve had a long-standing operational relationship with ESPN for their NBA coverage, and we have extended that through to hockey, which has helped us all out.”

On April 18, April Madness was truly crazy for the WBD Sports crew, with two NBA games, an NHL playoff game, and an MLB game on the same day. And the on-air talent even leaned into the craziness, hosting an on-air relay challenge among the on-air teams during the NBA on TNT studio show; the NHL crew took home the championship.

“We were bracing for [April 18] so the transition was not as crazy as it could have been,” says Brown. “It was hectic in that there was a lot happening, but everybody had been planning for it and knew what to do, and we had planned out the control rooms.”

Helping in the efforts was that a new control room, which is still in the final phase of testing, was able to be used as an integration room. That room joined two new control rooms that had come online between the NBA All-Star Break and the start of March Madness.

“We weren’t using it as a full-on production room, instead just using a handful of resources,” Brown adds. “It helped because, otherwise, we would have run out of control rooms and would not have had all of the physical space.”

With the first round of the NBA and NHL playoffs over, that new control room gets back to testing mode. But Brown gives a tip of the hat to the Warner Media Technology and Operations design and engineering group for getting that room and the other control rooms in great shape.

“We were confident that we could bring them online and, because of the repeatability in terms of how the control rooms were engineered, be familiar with all of the equipment,” Brown notes. “By the time we hit the playoffs next year, all of our facilities will be done, and it will be much easier to navigate the playoffs and other events.”

In addition, Brown says none of this would have been possible without the support of WBD Sports’ production and content teams: “Our overall success would not be possible without the buy in and patience from our production and content teams.  This was not a one size fits all exercise, but also required their buy in and support.”

He also gives a shout-out to truck vendors NEP and Game Creek Video, as well as to ESPN’s operations team: “We were able to work out a network of trucks that accommodated ESPN and us. That made everything run very smoothly. We literally had trucks do a hockey game one night and then drive however many miles to do a basketball game two days later.”

With playoffs entering the second round, the number of games may drop, but the importance rises.

“Then,” says Brown, “it’s all eyes on the conference finals. Right now, the team is also doing surveys for the Stanley Cup Finals and the NBA Conference finals. It’s a super-exciting time.”