Inside the EA Sports Madden NFL Cast With Producer Steve Greenberg and Director Geoff Butler By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Friday, December 20, 2024 - 3:42 pm
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EA SPORTS Madden NFL Cast, a first-of-its-kind live football experience blending video game elements and live action, will stream live exclusively on Peacock this Saturday, Dec. 21 at 1 p.m. ET for the Houston Texans-Kansas City Chiefs game. SVG had the opportunity to sit down with NBC Sports producer Steve Greenberg and director Geoff Butler, who will be at the front bench for the production, to go over their philosophy for the unique broadcast and what they've learned over the past two weeks of rehearsals.
The stream, a collaboration between NBC Sports, Peacock, the National Football League, EA SPORTS, and Genius Sports, will be an immersive, data-powered live football experience that injects Madden NFL's unique brand elements as animated overlays. Featuring live EA SPORTS Madden NFL 25 graphics, route trees, play cards and player ratings, the Madden NFL Cast will transform football strategy, information and IQ for viewers, enabled by the NFL's Next Gen Stats and GeniusIQ, Genius Sports' next generation data and AI platform. GeniusIQ combines real-time data insights with fully branded animations, delivering an immersive viewing experience.
In this interview, Greenberg and Butler offer their takes on how the Madden NFL Cast will differ from traditional coverage, how the past two weeks of rehearsals went, the unique studio buildout in Stamford for the on-air talent, and how esports/gaming has influenced their approach to the broadcast.
CLICK HERE for SVG's full story on the Madden NFL Cast production.
Aside from the Madden in-game graphics, how will the Madden NFL Cast differ in terms of how you're producing the broadcast? Greenberg: There are definitely a lot of layers to this, which is a fun challenge. In terms of how we're cutting the show, we will stay on the line-cut from the main NBC broadcast for a lot of the time, but we're altering the broadcast pre-snap so we can get that look that has all of the Madden features on it. Prior to every snap, we will be going to the All-22 sideline angle that Genius Sports uses, which will have all the overlays, the buttons, and the X Factor and Superstar icons.
And then we will have decisions to make based on plays that happen in the game. If it's a huge play where we want a bunch of replay looks, chances are we'll probably stay with the main broadcast which will have all the high-frame rate cameras and such. But there will be plenty of other opportunities where we can do our own replays using the traditional Skycam and the High Skycam, which provides that iconic Madden look from the game. When we do our own replays, our analysts can dissect what they just saw using that Madden perspective.
We can also overlay the real Madden playbook over live footage and go through plays and jump into the actual game itself in order to recreate some plays.
What did you take away from the past two weeks of rehearsals?
Butler: I'd say the biggest learning has been with our All-22 game camera that has the Genius overlays. There's a lot more information on that. And so we're always going to get to our game camera earlier than a traditional football broadcast would to give the viewer more time to digest all the information on the screen, but also just to show off the awesome looking Madden graphics that we're putting over a live camera in real time.
Also, in terms of the timing and cadence, I have to be able to cleanly get in and out of a show that's being directed by someone else in a totally different location, so that's a little bit tricky. It's a learning experience, but we had pretty good success with the two trial runs we did, and I'm super excited, looking forward to Saturday.
Can you tell me a bit more about the studio in Stamford that your announcers will be using to call the game?
Greenberg: First and foremost, we're trying to cater our broadcast to gamers, so having these guys in a traditional tiny booth just didn't feel authentic to that audience. We wanted a more casual layout and feel where we could break down the fourth wall that the traditional broadcast won't let you see. We want it to look a little bit messy and take people behind the curtain. So you're going to see a couple research people on either side of Paul Burmeister helping him with spotting and research, and Henry Leverett is going to have controls in front of him where he is going to be recreating plays.
Greenberg: Second, we wanted it to feel kind of like a living room or gaming area, so we revamped the entire studio to make that happen. We rolled in this massive Sony monitor, which Kurt, Chad, Paul, and Henry will be watching the game through. And we have the ability to turn it into seven different boxes. The main box will obviously be the broadcast that everyone at home is seeing, but we can also give these guys other looks from the traditional Skycam or High Sky camera. We will also have the Madden playbook in one of the boxes so Kurt can easily access it and rifle through plays on a big play. We want to know what he'd be thinking if he was in the game calling the plays. And then we'll also have a box with the Madden videogame itself in case they want to jump in there and try and recreate a play. Gamers are used to seeing multiple screens at once, so when we were designing the studio space, we wanted it to feel interactive and feel like a lot's going on.
Butler: I'll also be using that space a lot coming in and out of commercials and between plays. We want our set to be another character in the broadcast, so you're going to see it a lot.
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Inside the EA Sports Madden NFL Cast With Producer Steve Greenberg and Director Geoff Butler By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. 
