Chicago Bears' Video Production Facilities at Halas Hall Designed for Versatility

Chicago Bears' Video Production Facilities at Halas Hall Designed for Versatility VP of Content & Innovation Greg Miller offers a peek inside the team's resources By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital

Wednesday, March 6, 2019 - 1:48 pm

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For the Chicago Bears, it all came together. Fast.

First it was a shocking trade for defensive stud Khalil Mack. Then young quarterback Mitch Trubisky began to mature and excel. Suddenly, after four straight losing seasons, one of the NFL's most iconic franchises was back, posting a 12-win campaign. The team's in-house video production department was up to the task.

The Chicago Bears facilities at Halas Hall inlcudes a 2,100-sq-ft video production studio that was first erected during a renovation of the building in 2013.

What stands out [from 2018] was the ability of the staff to be prepared for success, says Greg Miller, VP of Content & Innovation for the Bears. When you go through multiple seasons without much success, it can be easy to hang your heads. You don't get to do a lot of the cool things and it's hard to maximize your content in the way that you want to. But you have to be prepared for when that success does come. I was really proud of everybody, because we were.

The Bears have been at this video production game was quite some time. In fact, they've been doing it longer than most other NFL franchises. Miller has been handling in-house media for the club for more than 15 years and the team has utilized a 2,100-square foot television studio at the team's headquarters in Halas Hall since 2013.

These days, Miller oversees everything under the umbrella of content and production, digital media, and social media. The team is up to 17 fulltimers across all of those divisions, which are headed up by Dan Barile (Director of Content and Production), Matt Koch (Director of Digital Media), and Jen Tulicki (Director of Social Media).

VP of Content & Innovation Greg Miller has worked for the Chicago Bears since 2002.

When it comes to content, Miller takes a pretty practical approach. Content that engages audiences and bringing value to the team's corporate partners takes top priority. From there, the devil is in the (data-filled) details.

Every piece of content is a winner or a loser, says Miller. You want the winners and we have tools to measure that. You know what is winning and what's losing. Quality wins. If it's a compelling piece of content, it's going to do well. To me, you have to customize every piece of content to where it's going. You can't take a video that you put on YouTube and just put it on Instagram. You need to be conscious of the platform and the channel.

As with any professional of collegiate sports program, wins don't automatically guarantee great content. Much of access relies on strong relationship building with the coaching staff, players, and other departments within the organization. Miller's team excelled in that area in 2018. The Bears' relationship with its team and coaching staff really showed its worth in a series called Club Dub, when videographers were able to capture a series of dance parties that took place in the team's locker room following wins. That level of access married with a winning club led to a major increase in engagement in the team's CrowdTangle reports supplied by the league.

Ain't no party like a #ClubDub party.#DaBears | #NFCNorthChamps pic.twitter.com/5AWCTOC1qa

Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) December 17, 2018

In addition, the entire department drew praise from fans and the industry for its Monsters of the Midway campaign that depicted Bears players as Marvel-esque superheroes. Those illustrations appeared in graphics and videos across all of the Bears' content all season long.

We went all in on it, says Miller when asked to explain the campaign's success. Some people will dabble in something like that but we decided to go all in. We knew that we were changing our look for last season but also that we were only one year away from a look for our 100th [anniversary] so this was the time to do it. It was a bridge year.

The Bears' studio is supported by a control room that is anchored by a Sony production switcher. The control room will remain unaltered as Halas Hall goes under some renovations this offseason.

The Bears actually worked with one of their former players, Israel Idonije, on the campaign. The former defensive end owns his own company called Athletic Comics.

2019 will definitely have quite a different feel as the franchise will be celebrating its 100th anniversary. Miller didn't disclose details of what that campaign might look like but did note that it won't just be a sea of sepia tone.

We are looking forward as much as we're looking back with our 100th celebration, says Miller. It's a new era of Bears Football. It's going to have modern look. It's not going to be all just black and white photos.

The distribution game continues to evolve around the industry, as well. According to Miller, the team is exploring the possibility of adding a connected TV app for the 2019 season. There's always something new to account for. In fact, NFL teams were only allowed by the league as recently as two years ago to have their own YouTube channel. Now, according to Miller, its one of the team's most successful platforms.

The Bears video production studio is sponsored by PNC.

It changes every year and it loosens up every year, Miller said on the content that league allows the team to post in real time on game days. It used to be so limited in what highlights you can use. The league has loosened things considerably. So each year you kind of guess what you're going to be doing because you're not sure what&

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2019/03/06/chicago-bears-video-production-...
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