ESPN Rides Wave of Women's-Hoops Momentum Into WNBA Draft Production at Brooklyn Academy of Music The broadcaster will deploy two onsite sets, 15 cameras at the historic theater By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Friday, April 12, 2024 - 10:03 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The next chapter in the Caitlin Clark era begins with Monday's WNBA Draft in Brooklyn, and ESPN is marking the occasion with its largest production for the event to date. With fans in the stands for the first time in years and more attention on the Draft than ever before following a historic NCAA Women's Final Four, ESPN has big plans for Monday night's festivities at the historic Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).
We look to ride that momentum [from the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament] straight into Monday night with our WNBA Draft, says Sara Gaiero, VP, production, ESPN. From a coverage perspective, we have a healthy complement that we're bringing to [BAM] to help us document the event in terms of cameras and [production elements]. The hope is that we can capture the beauty of what the theater brings and incorporate that into our overall coverage, because it will be unique and different.
Beginning at 7 p.m. ET, WNBA Countdown will air live from the WNBA Draft for the first time, as will the 6 p.m. SportsCenter, leading up to the Draft tipoff at 7:30 p.m. Host Ryan Ruocco, analysts Rebecca Lobo and Andraya Carter, and reporter Holly Rowe will provide comprehensive coverage throughout the evening, from the arrival of the prospects on the signature WNBA Orange Carpet through the completion of the third round. In addition to covering the stories of the players and teams, ESPN will lean into the Draft's largest onsite audience to date.
We're excited that there will be fans in the theater to partake in all of the night's festivities, says Gaiero. We'll incorporate all of that and weave that in our coverage throughout the night. I think it will be amazing to see what that feel and vibe and energy is like on Monday night.
Getting To Know BAM: ESPN Welcomes the Unfamiliar Venue ESPN production will be housed in Live Media Group MU-12 and MU-15 mobile units, with production offices, storage space, NEP Fletcher robotics, and RF operations in space inside BAM. Because BAM is a theater, not an arena, there is no typical broadcast-truck parking or broadcast infrastructure. To operate out of the unfamiliar venue, ESPN's ops team has been doing site surveys since the WNBA Finals in October and conducting regular planning calls with the venue and the league to determine the best location for parking production trucks.
The venue is beautiful and will make a one-of-a-kind backdrop for such a historic WNBA Draft, says Catherine Chalfant, remote production operations supervisor, ESPN. The beauty of the BAM Theater allows us to do some unique things in terms of camera placement and a WNBA Countdown set separate from the main stage.
In addition, ESPN sought assistance from counterparts at Walt Disney Co. sibling ABC and The Jimmy Kimmel Show - particularly Kimmel Line Producer Matt Musgrave - to get an understanding of how they have produced the show from BAM over the past few years. ESPN Senior Remote Operations Specialist Brian Ristine says Musgrave and his team have been wonderful partners throughout the planning process and ESPN will return the favor by sharing lessons learned during its live show on Monday for future editions of Kimmel at BAM.
Gaiero adds, We've learned a lot just in the last couple years, and we're bringing that experience into this event. We've had collaborative conversations with the league, and that has helped position us to come into this new venue and hit the ground running.
Design for the Draft: ESPN's Onsite Sets, Arsenal of Cameras, Miked Players ESPN has expanded its footprint for the Draft this year to include two sets. The main desk will be built on the main floor of the theater, a few feet from the Draft stage, and will be used throughout the broadcast. New this year is a separate WNBA Countdown set in the theater lobby in front of the orange carpet. Rowe will also have her position to the left of the commissioner's podium, where she will have first access to interview each draftee after their name is called.
We're somewhat limited to what the venue can provide, but we tried to take a look at [how we could grow the production], Gaiero says about the impact of the growing popularity of women's hoops on ESPN's Draft plans. We have a whole different WNBA Countdown setup that's separate from what we will do inside the theater. Inside, we're positioning our cameras to capture the entire vibe of the theater that's different from the venue we were in last year. We'll scale with the venue and with the event.
ESPN will deploy 15 cameras at BAM: two dedicated to WNBA Countdown, three on the main WNBA Draft set, one dedicated to wall-to-wall press-conference coverage, three roaming RF handhelds, two jibs (one with virtual-graphics capability), three Fletcher robotic cameras throughout the theater and on the orange carpet, and a Steadicam that will be deployed, Chalfant says, to help capture the special moments of these young women's realizing that their dreams are becoming a reality and creating that emotional connection for the viewers watching at home.
On the audio side, ESPN has partnered with the league to have four prospects wear mics throughout the night.
Beyond BAM, ESPN's telecast will also have cameras inside five team Draft Rooms: Indiana, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and Washington - each having a First Round pick. Additionally, the broadcaster will have live coverage from Indiana Fever and Los Angeles Sparks official Watch Parties. I
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
ESPN Rides Wave of Women's-Hoops Momentum Into WNBA Draft Production at Brooklyn Academy of Music The broadcaster will deploy two onsite sets, 15 cameras at the historic theater By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. 
