College Football Kickoff 2024: FOX Sports' Big Noon Kickoff Harmonizes Game Production With Roaming Studio Show to Offer Full Coverage on Saturdays By Kristian Hern ndez, Senior Editor Thursday, August 29, 2024 - 1:36 pm
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The era of conference realignment has changed a ton of aspects in college football, but one thing that remains the same is FOX Sports' ability to combine stellar live game production with entertaining studio programming. Big Noon Kickoff, their marquee studio show, will once again hit the road to visit Big Ten campuses, but on the broadcast front, the network's Big Noon Kickoff is seizing on the opportunity to lead every action-packed Saturday in the noon ET window.
From a broadcasting standpoint, conference realignment has some of our weekends starting on Friday night with the Big Ten, says Chuck McDonald, lead producer, FOX Sports. When you add in Big Noon Kickoff on Saturday morning, we'll be setting up the day with a big matchup in the early time slot.
Brady Quinn, Chris Fallica, Matt Leinart, Rob Stone, Urban Meyer, and Mark Ingram II will be onsite for the Big Noon Kickoff studio show.
Can't Wait for the Weekend: Excitement Builds With Conference Realignment, Ideal Time Slot The College Football Playoff may have expanded to 12 teams, but that also means that every single game has massive implications since more programs have an equal shot to qualify. There's a sense of excitement that comes with this prospect, and with the intensity of games ratcheting up every week, there isn't much of a runway for FOX Sports to settle into their slate of top-tier productions.
When you really think about [each week's] ramifications on the expanded playoffs, you realize how many more teams have access to the postseason, says McDonald. There isn't going to be an off week' because teams in the past that weren't relevant after a loss will still have an entire season to compete and fight for the biggest prize.
This theme of getting started right away is reflected in FOX Sports' first three weeks of the 2024 Big Noon Kickoff campaign, which will feature Penn State vs. West Virginia on Saturday, Aug. 31; Texas vs. Michigan on Saturday, Sept. 7; and Alabama vs. Wisconsin on Saturday, Sept. 14. Out of those six teams, four are ranked in the Top 10 with the Longhorns at No. 4, the Crimson Tide at No. 5, the Nittany Lions at No. 8, and the Wolverines at No. 9. If you examine the stakes of these games on their projected championship trajectory and the steep tradition of each program, McDonald believes that this trio of games is an incredible way to start.
In our 14 years of college football, I'm not sure we've ever had this combination of quality competition, iconic sites, and energetic fanbases in the first three weeks to begin a season, he continues.
Along with a more diverse Big Ten with the inclusion of four new programs in No. 3 Oregon, No. 23 USC, UCLA, and Washington, FOX Sports has the chance to set the table for the entire college football landscape. There are many schools in the Big Ten with National Championship aspirations, which also includes No. 2 Ohio State and No. 25 Iowa, but the network will also focus on the powerhouses in other conferences that want to end the season with a piece of hardware in their trophy case.
We've been working within the highest-rated window for three consecutive years and have established Big Noon Kickoff as a premier destination for fans, but we also want to talk about the bigger picture of college football, says McDonald. [Play-by-play announcer] Gus [Johnson] and [analyst] Joel [Klatt] are able to speak on the game and place it within a larger context.
Week-by-Week Changes: Stadium Constraints Dictate Camera Complement, Placement The Big Ten is passionate about college football, but the conferences' 18 universities play in various-sized stadiums. For example, Northwestern's temporary stadium that will sit about 15,000 fans pales in comparison to the massive Michigan Stadium's capacity of 107,601. With this sliding scale of venue sizes, McDonald and his production staff have to adapt to some buildings having the ability to fit a higher number of cameras more than others.
There are places where I can have 30 cameras while others can only hold 15, he adds. Michigan Stadium has its challenges since it doesn't have room for [sideline] carts compared to Ohio Stadium, which is more like an NFL-style venue where we can really put lenses anywhere.
This circumstance means that standard games will leverage 13 and others will reach up to 18, which includes a Steadicam and other devices from the studio show if the venue has enough space. A slate of Game Creek trucks will help the 1080p HDR show up convert to 4K as well as handle upgrades to certain technologies. This includes allowing their line-to-gain and pylon cameras to zoom in without losing image quality, which is a feature seen on the NFL on FOX.
There have been times where we wish we had a higher image quality to see whether or not a knee was down or a ball was out, continues McDonald. Those are the types of plays that flip games, so I think that that's going to make a huge difference.
Moving Forward Together: Game Crew, Big Noon Kickoff Synchronize Workflows for Primetime Matchups Since the COVID-riddled season of 2020, and the lingering effects that bled into subsequent seasons in 2021 and 2022, networks are still aiming to capture the lightening in the bottle of pre-pandemic college football. Now four years on, with students and fans piling into venues and programs gearing up for one of the most enthralling seasons in recent memory, FOX Sports is firing on all cylinders with the help of camaraderie between their game production and s
