“It’s all ballgame.”
That’s how TNT’s Craig Barry and his team are treating Monday’s UConn-Michigan NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship game. Barry, TNT Sports’ EVP and chief content officer, noted that during the Final Four there have been a number of TV elements like the Coach K interview, the Fab Five alt-cast and the concert during the bridge show, but now “it’s all about the game tonight.”
With the game being in Indianapolis, there will be a tribute piece to the 1975-76 undefeated Indiana men’s basketball team, but the rest of the broadcast will be focused on what Barry thinks will be a very close game between the Huskies and Wolverines. “In our production meetings, we’re hyper-focused on bringing the absolute best presentation of this game to the fan,” he said.
How the Fab Five alt-cast came to be
While Chris Webber and Jalen Rose both have been working for TNT Sports’ college basketball studio show all season, the idea for the Fab Five alt-cast came from a different source — a young TNT producer. “It took me about two seconds to say yes, and that’s literally how it came to be,” Barry said.
The reunion also wasn’t without other logistical hurdles, and Nate Smeltz, TNT Sports’ SVP/talent relations, global communications, client events and partnerships, coordinated to get everyone together. That included navigating around the schedule of Nets assistant coach Juwan Howard, who had games on Friday and Sunday in Brooklyn. But once that was all worked out, Webber, Rose, Howard, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson were ready to go.
While many alt-casts are in studios with a number of voices, the Fab Five “watch party” format — with Torrence Wilson as producer — was meant to be more casual and conversational and reflect watching the game in the venue. TNT positioned the five former Wolverines, plus host Adam Lefkoe, in the middle of the student section on the Michigan side, but right by the court with a direct view of the floor. Everyone also had live broadcast feeds and replays on monitors.
“Traditional alt-casts work in the boxes around the main broadcast window,” Barry said, name-dropping the “ManningCast” as an example. “But then to be able to have them shoulder-to-shoulder and still have them in the box so they’re interacting real time — you’re seeing the chemistry kind of bubble up. But yet, when you’re watching them on the air, you can focus individually on each of them, and so I thought it made for a really compelling format for the alt-cast.”
Barry praised the chemistry between the former college teammates despite only having appeared publicly together a few times over the last 30 years. “It felt very much like I was on the couch with these guys, listening to them watch this game,” he said.
As for any thought on running it back with the Fab Five for an alt-cast during the championship game, Barry quickly put the kibosh on that.
“First take, best take,” he quipped.