Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame 2022: Drew Esocoff, the Humble Storyteller By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Tuesday, November 1, 2022 - 3:04 pm
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Leading up to the 2022 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame ceremony on Dec. 13 at the New York Hilton, SVG is profiling the nine inductees in this year's class. For more information, CLICK HERE.
I just don't think they can do it, Dan.
Those were the now infamous last words that NBC Olympics analyst Rowdy Gaines uttered into his headset to his on-air partner Dan Hicks as Frenchman Alain Bernard entered the pool to anchor the men's 4x100m Freestyle Relay at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
A gold medal and a world record seemed all but secured for the dominant French squad when American Jason Lezak dove in seconds later and embarked on what some have called the greatest swimming relay leg of all-time and what is, easily, one of the preeminent U.S. sports-television moments of this century.
It was 46.06 seconds of pure television gold as Lezak closed the gap and 107 million Americans (according to Nielsen Media Research) screamed at their screens back home.
Those viewers may not have known it, but they had just the man for the moment on their side. No, it wasn't Lezak. It wasn't even the legendary Michael Phelps - who, in that relay win, secured the second of what would be eight gold medals at those Beijing Games, a record for most golds won by an athlete at a single Olympics. No, the Monday-morning race in China had placed the moment squarely into Sunday-night primetime. Just the night of the week you'd expect the very best from director Drew Esocoff.
Drew has the one trait every great director embodies: he's always where he should be, when he's supposed to be there, says Fred Gaudelli, a 2020-21 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame inductee and Esocoff's longtime NFL producing partner on both Monday Night Football on ABC and NBC Sunday Night Football. His shots are always the right shots editorially. He's not off looking for the most cinematic shot; he's serving the sports fan and giving them what they need to process what has happened.
Go back and watch the live cut of that relay, which aired live on NBC that August night. The Lezak leg is clean, simple, old-school storytelling. Esocoff makes just four camera cuts the entire leg, refusing to get in the way of the audience's ability to not only enjoy but visually perceive the rapidly shrinking gap between the lead swimmers. Just the pure athletic achievement of the swimmer, the shocked emotion of the on-air talent, and the absolute thrill on the faces of the American teammates following the finish. Minimal high-end technology, no advanced analytics needed. Esocoff didn't even cut to the commonly used underwater camera that followed the swimmers. This was a sports moment speaking for itself.
I sometimes think, when you try to be overly creative in a sporting event, you lose track of what's important, he explains. People are used to watching events a certain way, and I don't want to disorient viewers. I think what has been primarily responsible for my success is that I am a huge sports fan.
It's easy to know what the sports fan wants - and needs - to see in a given moment when you are a rabid one yourself. That raw love of sport and a tremendous skill to remain committed to the story in the highest of high-pressure situations have helped cement Esocoff as one of the all-time greats in the director's chair. A winner of 19 Emmy Awards, his career has included calling the shots on seven Super Bowls, multiple NBA Finals, years of Triple Crown horse races (including Triple Crown winners in 2015 and 2018), and, in what is perhaps his calling card, 23 years (and counting) of directing primetime NFL, including the past 17 on NBC Sunday Night Football.
Drew Esocoff should go down in the annals of broadcasting history as the best sports-television director ever, says Al Michaels, veteran play-by-play man and 2013 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer, who worked with Esocoff for many years on both Monday Night Football and, of course, Sunday Night Football. If he doesn't, it's simply because he never tooted his own horn. All he did was go to work 1,000% prepared, bring his artistry to the table every single time, and gain the love and respect of every person he collaborated with.
Sports television muscled its way into Drew Esocoff's life rather aggressively when he was young. After graduating from Colgate University in 1979 with a degree in political science, he landed a job on Wall Street. He was miserable. It took only nine months to pull the plug and dramatically change the direction of his life. He retreated to his hometown of Elizabeth, NJ, to work at a radio station and even took a parttime job at Sports Phone, the old service where fans could call a dedicated phoneline for up-to-the-minute scores. He also worked weekends as a runner and researcher on college football for ABC.
It was in 1983 when he finally got his first fulltime opportunity in the industry, working on studio shows for ESPN. Taking advantage of available opportunities, he rapidly rose through the ranks and directed episodes of SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight until 1985, when he moved to the live-remote-events division.
I found the second-by-second stuff so much more exciting, Esocoff says of directing live games. If you mess something up, there's no spell-check in live TV. You correct it, and you move on; I think that the second-by-second deal was just more fun for me. I get more of an adrenaline rush that way. It's just a lot of fun.
He directed his first live production at a Top Rank boxing match in Indiana. Soon after, he directed his first live football game: a
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Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame 2022: Drew Esocoff, the Humble Storyteller By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
