New Orleans – The story of Super Bowl Lix is in the cards.
And for letters, think of a large sheet of heavy stock paper loaded with information (names of players, numbers, statistics and, sometimes, trivia scored, always within reach of the stations calling the game.
They are called “boards” and generally create them from scratch the game broadcasters by game and color analysts in the days before a game, a meticulously organized study sheet that provides a commentator with detailed information in a hurry.
Fox is transmitting Sunday's game between the Chiefs of Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City, and although the network will offer all conceivable camera angles, not one of the more than 100 million viewers will have a clear view of the boards used in the cabin By Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady.
Exactly how those boards are seen is not clear because Fox did not make Sunday advertisers available for the times.
But it is likely that their boards will be similar to those of other advertisers of the Super Bowl, which depend on the sheets as more safety network than the script.
The game announcer for game Kevin Burkhardt, on the left, and the color commentator Tom Brady will be at the stand for Fox by calling the Super Bowl Lix on Sunday.
(Stephen Maturen / Getty images)
“None of that reads,” said Jim Nantz, the legendary man game per game, Jim Nantz, who has worked seven Super Bowls, including the most recent in New Orleans when Baltimore beat San Francisco. “Don't read your transmission. They are small reminders.
“During a commercial, I will return and look only to see if there is something that can guide me towards a story if this next series of works takes me there, there, Oh yes, I want to put this. “
Like his play calls, Nantz is immersed in nostalgia. Then, at home in Pebble Beach, he maintains the boards of all soccer and basketball games he has called, all perfectly organized despite the fact that some could have ring stains in the form of a ring or perhaps a Ketchup stain of his Hot Dog of part -time. He has called 502 NFL games, including the AFC championship last month between Kansas City and Buffalo.
“It's like having a role in each term, every task that accumulates from first to twelfth grade and at the university,” he said. “I have them all in order, their own battery based on each year. They look fresh and crispy, a mint condition as it would gather them a few hours before. ”
Some tables are more orderly than others. Troy Aikman's lyrics, for example, is so precise that it almost seems calligraphy. And the Dick Vermeil tables? They were suitable for framing.
“If there was a Miguel Ángel de Boardos, it was Dick,” said Fred Gaudelli, producer of “Sunday Night Football.” “They were like works of art.”
Vermeil's boards were as colorful as a Bourbon Street King cake. First, they presented the colors of the team, so the Eagles would be green, then the statistics of last season were in red, the statistics of this season were in black and blue for the race statistics. Academic statistics were written in purple, and the state of injuries was pink. Filling a board would take a whole day.
While Nantz built each table from scratch at the beginning of a week, Vermeil would use small pieces of white tape to cover obsolete statistics and write about that to update them. In addition, I would have a smaller board for each team in the league, say one for the Eagles, one for the chiefs, then join those two halves when those teams were played. It was efficiency for him.
“I think many people still use them, because I gave them to anyone who once asked for them,” said Ver me. “I print them at about 100 at the same time.”
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The NFL announcer, Joe Buck, shows his “board” transmitted from the Super Bowl XLV (45).
Joe Buck's first Bowl board was written in Azul, as in blue language. He wrote a more raw version of “Forget It” throughout the first just to remember himself that he did not get too serious and that it was only a game, even if the whole country was tuned.
“I started to accelerate a little with my personal reminders just because it would inevitably end up giving someone's board,” Buck said, now playing man for “Monday Night Football.” “If it's a school auction, I don't want to”[forget] It is' written there. “
Mike NBC Tyric no longer uses paper for its tables, but is based on a digital tablet that allows you to move to any information you need. He also has an backup tablet, in case one darkens.
But when I was using paper, I wrote the information and would go to a nearby copy shop to print your boards on the card stock. If I worked in an outdoor press box and there was a threat of rain, it would take the additional step that the tabs Laminen.
Once, his adorned spreadsheet caused the curiosity of a person who was asked to print it.
“He looked at me and said:” Are you a kind of high -end player or something? “Asked the guy who worked at the copier.” I said: 'No, I'm just a nerd. I like to follow the game closely. After they saw me five or six times, they discovered that I should have had something to do with transmission “.
No one has more experience calling ball games than Michaels – Do you believe in spherical? – But it does not build your own boards. It is based on “Malibu” Kelly Hayes, who has been his observer for each football match since 1978.
Al Michaels walks in the field before a game between Washington and Chicago Bears commanders in October 2023.
(Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)
(An observer uses a different board from the speakers and acts as another set of eyes, standing next to the person in the air and, in a given play, taking advantage of the names to identify, say, the planned receiver, a defender who He knocked down the ball and the defensive end by pressing the field marshal).
“I have access to other forms of information that will come to me, whether talking to our research team, I can come and go with them in the middle of a game, and I also have another printed material I can get if I need,” said Michaels , a fixed element for four decades on Sundays, Monday and Thursday night.
“Then, on the board, they are essential. Where a boy went to school. What year is in the League. Height and weight, and perhaps a certain point out in your career. You cannot put too much there, because for the most part, for Kelly, he is pointing out who made the Tackle, who created a loose ball, the boys who enter and leave the game. … We have advanced it to the essential. There is not much time to look at it and read much of the information there. “
Curt Menefee, host of Fox Studio, had a rudimentary method in its early days as game announcer for NFL Europe.
“I introduced myself in Amsterdam, and literally had a brown paper bag that had torn in half and opened and simply wrote names and numbers about it,” he said. “[Color analyst] Brian Baldinger said: “You know that this is how it works, right?” It was a process, but I started from scratch. “
The former NFL runner, Daryl Johnston, a Fox color analyst knows how to build a good board.
But once … Looking to grope!
“I was playing a game of the giants and we stayed at the W in Hoboken,” he said. “We went down to breakfast and put my table to the left side and left it. I got up, paid the bill, left, got into the car and drove to the stadium. He had to make a runner all the way back, crossing the fingers that was there.
“I left them at home once and I had to have my wife Fedex.”
For some, that's the nightmare thing.
“I keep my boards very carefully,” Nantz said. “It's like, my phone, my wallet, my rolex watch and my football boards. They are under full protection. And not necessarily in that order. “
