The Prodigal Sport Returns: SlamBall Is Back With ESPN Deal, Technocranes Covering the Court

The Prodigal Sport Returns: SlamBall Is Back With ESPN Deal, Technocranes Covering the Court The hybrid sport looks to blend different broadcast concepts By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor

Friday, July 21, 2023 - 1:11 pm

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SlamBall, the hybrid sport beloved by many a sports-loving millennial, is officially back and bigger than ever. With oversubscribed funding and a TV/streaming deal with ESPN, the basketball/football/hockey crossbreed played on trampolines with a videogame sensibility is set to make its much anticipated return tonight at Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas. And whether you're a long-time fan or a SlamBall newbie, expect the on-air broadcasts to be unlike anything you've seen before.

On the broadcast front, says SlamBall creator/CEO Mason Gordon, we are trying to crib the best elements of many different sports broadcasts: basketball, football, hockey, and others. We want to blend different camera coverages, announcing styles, and [production] concepts into a single big, loud, buzzy package that we think people are going to absolutely love.

To accomplish this, game productions will rely heavily on Technocranes to cover on-court play and try to bring viewers closer to the action.

So What, Exactly, Is SlamBall? Tonight's tipoff games, the first of a 60+-game season played over the next four weeks, marks the culmination of a two-decade odyssey for SlamBall. Gordon invented the sport in the early 2000s with a court made out of spare parts in an East L.A. warehouse. He co-founded the SlamBall League with Mike Tollin in 2002, and two seasons were broadcast on Spike TV. Since then, the league has had various incarnations, including a 2007-08 stint on CSTV and Versus, but this summer's month-long schedule on ESPN is expected to take the sport to new heights.

One of the two Technocrane telescopic camera cranes among the 14 cameras to be deployed for ESPN's SlamBall coverage.

A mix of basketball, football, and hockey, SlamBall is played on a spring-loaded floor featuring four trampolines and surrounded by hockey-style plexiglass boards. Think a full-contact version of 4-on-4 basketball: body checking is allowed, substitutions are made on the fly as in hockey, and there is no out of bounds.

This isn't a derivative sport; it isn't just basketball with a twist, says Gordon. This is a legitimate sport that has its own rhythms, strategies, and concepts. And these guys playing SlamBall are the very best in the world.

SlamBall was inspired by the very earliest days of the UFC, he continues. [The UFC] took all these different pugilistic styles and mixed them together into something that was really compelling. Just like the UFC was able to create a separate vertical from boxing as boxing demographics were aging out, we think that we're creating a compelling true hybrid-sport product that's going to appeal to younger fans.

Each game comprises five-minute quarters. Dunks are worth three points, and layups and short jump shots are worth two. New to the latest incarnation of SlamBall, long jump shots outside the trampoline area are worth three points, and shots from behind the arc count for four points, a reflection of the three-point revolution seen over the past decade in the NBA.

The excitement factor here is sky high, says Gordon. There is a lot of blue sky for SlamBall to grow. The thing I'm most excited about is the incredible vertical canvas this offers for players to express themselves as athletes.

I think the sophistication of the teams' offensive sets is going to surprise people, he continues. There's a whole lot more going on strategically than in the earlier days of SlamBall, when guys were primarily just running up and down the court. I think we're going to have a better mix of action than what you've seen in the past, and it will become a much more tangible sport that the fan base can rally around long-term.

The Closer, the Better': Bringing a New Production Philosophy to SlamBall Live sports production has come a long way since SlamBall was last broadcast on TV, and the coverage will reflect that. A total of 14 cameras will be deployed, headlined by two Technocrane telescopic camera cranes that producer Jeff Curtin believes will bring viewers closer to the action on the court.

Our big-picture philosophy is the closer, the better,' he says. This is a combination of multiple types of sports broadcasts. We are trying to make the camera angles and coverage look and feel much different from a traditional sports broadcast.

Use of a Technocrane is intended to bring viewers closer to the action on the court.

Curtin expects the majority of the game coverage to use the Technocranes, with traditional up-cameras used for wide/beauty shots, closeups, bench shots.

We're going to use the Technocranes to bring the lens and the viewer closer to the field of play and above where you would normally see the hockey plexiglass, he says. We will have the coverage inside the [glass] so the viewers can really be part of that action. Since this sport is so fast, so hard-hitting, and so high-flying, being able to get the viewers down on the court is key. That's why we're looking to get camera angles and replays that allow you to see the elevation that these athletes get to on those amazing dunks.

Curtin and the rest of the production team will oversee the broadcasts from a mobile unit provided by J3 Productions and parked at the Cox Pavilion. Girraphic has been enlisted to create a slick, high-end graphics package and scorebug for the broadcasts. Unlike in the 2000s-era league, real-time in-game player stats will be available via API feeds throughout the broadcasts. The program feed will be transmitted via The Switch to Bristol, CT, for ESPN to di

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2023/07/21/the-prodigal-sport-returns-slam...
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