Legends Behind the Lens: Bill Fitts The sports television production pioneer shaped the industry for more than half a century By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - 12:00 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The story of American sports television is engrained in the history of this nation, rising on the achievements of countless incredible men and women who never once appeared on our screens. During this pause in live sports, SVG is proud to present a celebration of this great industry. Legends Behind the Lens is a look at how we got here seen through the people who willed it to be. Each weekday, we will share with you the story of a person whose impact on the sports-television industry is indelible.
Legends Behind the Lens is presented in association with the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame and the SVG Sports Broadcasting Fund. In these trying times - with so many video-production professionals out of work - we hope that you will consider (if you are able) donating to the Sports Broadcasting Fund. Do so by visiting sportsbroadcastfund.org.
___________________________
By Ken Kerschbaumer
When your broadcasting career includes producing the first Super Bowl, launching The NFL Today for CBS, and then jumping aboard ESPN in its formative years, it's easy to think that ego could take over. But that didn't happen to Bill Fitts, a long-time production professional who credits those around him and takes more pride in their success than his own.
I was very fortunate to have unbelievable acolytes, he says of those he worked with, especially those at ESPN. Their talent is obvious today. We had all-star people coming in to ESPN although we didn't know it at the time. We all had an opportunity to do something that hadn't really been done and to do sports that a lot of networks didn't cover.
Graduating from Swarthmore College in 1953, Fitts began his career at WHUM-TV Reading, PA. He soon went to WCAU-TV Philadelphia (at the time, a CBS station), where he had a chance to wear multiple hats while creating children's programming. Moving to New York City in 1962, he played a key role in national sports programming and was able to draw on his athletic and children's-programming experience.
My background helped a lot, he notes. I lettered in five sports in high school and college, so I could grasp what the core of the sport was. Children's programming is a lot like sports: there is something different every 10 seconds, and reacting to what is happening on the field is what sports TV is all about.
During his career at CBS, Fitts was executive producer on five Super Bowls, including Super Bowl I from the Los Angeles Coliseum. It was there that some of the genius of then-NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle was on display. The field wasn't centered in the stadium, which thus looked half empty from certain camera positions. Rozelle moved fans around to make sure the camera shots had better backdrops full of fans.
Even after the Jets won Super Bowl III, the AFL was still doing very poorly on NBC, and NBC was thinking of dropping football, Fitts recalls of the NFL's early days. Rozelle, in his normal bright thinking, came up with the idea of a doubleheader, where NBC would get a game unopposed. CBS had to agree to that, and it saved NBC, and, gradually, the AFL became a competitor.
Fitts was involved with another important first in sports-TV history: the use of videotape at the 1963 Army-Navy game. Navy quarterback Roger Staubach was a mobile quarterback and would run all over the field, and the production team didn't want to miss any of the action.
Says Fitts, We had a huge tape truck because the machines were enormous.
He was also involved with Countdown to Kickoff, a production with NFL Films that took isolated coverage to a new level by focusing on linebackers and tight ends.
It was another show that was considered impossible when it was first suggested, says Fitts. But it really helped us in terms of how to approach using isolated cameras and also helped our relationship with NFL Films.
And then there was NFL Today, a franchise that Fitts created in 1973. While there, he hired a young Brent Musburger to host and also brought in Phyllis George to give the show a unique dynamic. The show also led to Fitts's being noticed by Chet Simmons, then head of NBC Sports. Simmons hired Fitts to help studio operations.
When ESPN became a reality, Simmons joined as president and soon called Fitts.
By the time ESPN started, says Fitts, there wasn't much in sports that I hadn't done. I was even thinking about moving into news. ESPN was a huge opportunity for me because I knew I would be able to teach as well as do it.
Those early days gave him a chance to both impart wisdom and influence a generation of talent at ESPN (and beyond) and also to enjoy the process of figuring out how to televise sports that might never have been on TV before. It was a network created by risktakers for risktakers.
There were so many creative people at ESPN, Fitts says, adding, The main reason many people don't move forward is fear and not liking to fail. And the same goes for management: they don't want to try new things until they know it will work.
At ESPN, he served as production architect for many of its signature programs, including the NFL Draft, flag-to-flag NASCAR races, Top Rank Boxing, and whip-around coverage of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. He also found John Colby to compose its music themes, including the popular SportsCenter Da-da-da song, and to build a music library.
It is not an understatement to say that Fitts is among the truly influential figures in modern sports TV, says Colby. In addition to his CBS and NBC achievements, he built the production department
Most recent headlines
04/08/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, is excited to announce Santiago Solanas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO)....
03/06/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, a...
28/04/2024
Mediahaus delivers the first SRT live-streaming sports production over 5G with U...
17/04/2024
Opening today, the exploration is aimed at selecting a location that will preser...
17/04/2024
On April 18 and 19, experts from across the audio industry-including artists, pu...
17/04/2024
With its particular combination of talent, ambition, culture, and, of course, wo...
17/04/2024
At Spotify, we want to equip student creators with the tools and resources neede...
17/04/2024
L3Harris Communications Australia Field Service support continues to grow with a...
17/04/2024
An optical technician lays on a diving board suspended between NASAs Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescopes primary and secondary mirrors. The photo is a projected ...
17/04/2024
DENVER Video streaming infrastructure providers Bitmovin has announced that the Graham Media Group has selected Bitmovin Playback to enhance its viewer experien...
17/04/2024
LGBTQIA+ representation in TV content boosts viewership among young (18-34) Americans, according to a new report from Horowitz Research....
17/04/2024
New NVIDIA RTX A400 and A1000 GPUs Enhance AI-Powered Design and Productivity Wo...
17/04/2024
Frezzi Unveils SunLight 2: The Ultimate High-Output Lighting Companion for ENG a...
17/04/2024
Peakto Search for Lightroom - Find at a glance among thousands of photos AND vid...
17/04/2024
Simone Pilon Appointed Executive Director at Berklee Valencia Pilon, who has served as Berklee Valencia's interim executive director since March 2023, has a...
17/04/2024
CBS will re-air Sundays Billy Joel concert telecast this Friday (April 19) after several CBS-affiliated stations abruptly cut part of Sundays telecast of the si...
17/04/2024
Jacqueline Matter has been named co-host of Good Day DC at WTTG Washington. Effective immediately, she co-anchors the 4 a.m. newscast with Stephen Graddick, rep...
17/04/2024
Television usage took its usual March dip, dropping 3% from February, according to Nielsen,...
17/04/2024
BET Media Group, part of Paramount Global, said it and Tyler Perry had reached an agreement extending their content production deal through 2028....
17/04/2024
Warner Bros. Discovery said it named David Porter head of ad sales research, data and insights....
17/04/2024
Lionsgate said it signed a new multi-year employment deal with Lee Hollin, its executive VP, television and head of current programming for Lionsgate Television...
17/04/2024
Federal Communications Commission chair Jessica Rosenworcel sits for an interview at the Paley Museum in New York April 16 at 12:30 p.m. ET. Moderated by Nick T...
17/04/2024
Travis Kelce will host Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?, a spinoff of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, that will stream on Prime Video....
17/04/2024
Amy Alvarez has been named news director at KULX Salt Lake City, the Telemundo station in the market. She comes from KVDA San Antonio, another Telemundo outlet,...
17/04/2024
Frndly TV, the low-priced, family-friendly streaming service, said it launched a channel store where users can sign up for subscription streaming services....
17/04/2024
TV Tech has announced its Best of Show Awards for the 2024 NAB Show, April 14-17 in Las Vegas. The awards are judged by a panel of industry experts on the crite...
17/04/2024
Colorfront has introduced AI vision-analysis tools to assist master QC operations with detecting framing anomalies, dead pixels, bright titles and sparkles
By ...
17/04/2024
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: April 17, 2024
Rory Springthorpe, founder and director at outside broadcasting company Vivid Broadcast, talks to TVBEurope a...
17/04/2024
Riedel Communications today announced its collaboration with Interstellar Technologies, a pioneering space transportation company based in Hokkaido, Japan, to o...
17/04/2024
Riedel Communications announced that Lafayette College, a liberal arts college in eastern Pennsylvania and one of 10 core members in the Patriot League, is usin...
17/04/2024
24i, the video streaming platform expert, today announced that Slovak Telekom and T-Mobile Czech Republic, part of the Deutsche Telekom (DT) Group, have extende...
17/04/2024
OpenDrives, Inc., the global provider of software-defined media workflow solutions and data management capabilities, is honored to announce its inclusion in the...
17/04/2024
Operative is pleased to announce a new and expanded partnership with Goldbach Media, one of the leading media sales organizations in Switzerland. This partnersh...
17/04/2024
Appear, the global leader in live production technology, and Roberts Communications Network (Roberts), the leading worldwide video distribution and wagering dat...
17/04/2024
Appear enables Mobilelinks to meet updated technical requirements.
Appear, the global leader in live production technology, has been selected by Mobilelinks to...
17/04/2024
The expanded solution offers enhanced visibility and automation of production and distribution workflows for live event contribution applications
Appear, the g...
17/04/2024
Econocom, a sustainable digital enterprise and pioneer of the circular economy in Europe, today announced the launch of an ambitious campaign as part of the rol...
17/04/2024
24i, the video streaming platform expert, today announced that its 24i Video Cloud for OTT service providers is powering the new Newsmax+ subscription service, ...
17/04/2024
The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) today announced its newest members: Kakadu Software provider of the world's leading JPEG 2000 development toolk...
17/04/2024
Amagi, the global leader in cloud-based SaaS technology for broadcast and connected TV, and Intertrust, the leading digital rights management (DRM) provider, to...
17/04/2024
Amagi, the global leader in cloud-based SaaS technology for broadcast and connected TV, today announced a collaboration with Argoid AI, a specialist in AI-power...
17/04/2024
Triveni Digital today announced that the company has been awarded Patent Number US 11,924,260 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for pioneering Secure Tel...
17/04/2024
Chyron today announced that it will partner with #GALSNGEAR , a movement to bring parity to women in media and entertainment, at the 2024 NAB Show to host the o...
17/04/2024
The Olympics is the world's biggest sporting event, so doesn't it deserve to be shown on the world's biggest screens? That was the subject of Going...
17/04/2024
NAB Show provides an annual opportunity for broadcasters to gather in person and assess the progress the industry has made in its transition to ATSC 3.0. At thi...
17/04/2024
$225 billion: That's how high U.S. digital advertising revenues were in 2023, according to the newly released IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report: Full...
17/04/2024
Blackmagic Design Announces New Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K
Brie Clayton April 16, 2024
0 Comments
Revolutionary large format digital film camera with RG...
17/04/2024
Sony Electronics Announces a Compact Wide-Angle FE 16-25mm F2.8 G Zoom Lens
Brie Clayton April 16, 2024
0 Comments
A constant F2.8 full-frame E-mount ...
17/04/2024
Ikegami Announces New HDK-X500 3-CMOS HD Camera, OCP-500 Operation Control Panel...
Legends Behind the Lens: Bill Fitts The sports television production pioneer shaped the industry for more than half a century By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
