"If the production crew of a televised football game is like a symphony orchestra, Bob Fishman is its conductor. He sits front and center in the dark trailer, insulated from the sunshine and the roar of the crowd, taking the fragments of sounds and moving images and assembling the broadcast on the fly, mediating the real event into the digital one. He scans the dizzying bank of screens to select the next shot, and the next, and the next, layering in replays, graphics, and sound, barking his orders via headset to his crew, plugging into a rhythm that echoes the pulse of the game. "
. . . I really should not have read that ESPN story.
Really.
I did say it was a sad story...
RE: Hardest job in football ...
Did you see the college game ESPN did a few years ago where they had the regular broadcast on one channel and the view from the director's chair (with the game on split screen) on another channel? Changed my view of a game broadcast, especially the selection of replays, completely. That guy had a total knowledge of what was going on, seemingly more than even the coaches, including play calling tendencies.