From Super Bowl to Indy 500, New Orleans Artist Frenchy' Captures Energy of Sports Production on Canvas

From Super Bowl to Indy 500, New Orleans Artist Frenchy' Captures Energy of Sports Production on Canvas Beyond the game, he focuses on the behind-the-scenes action By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director

Monday, June 16, 2025 - 11:51 am

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The art of sports production typically entails camera angles, broadcast graphics, cool super-slo-mo, and immersive audio. But, at the Indy 500 last month, FOX Sports offered another version of the art of sports production: It enlisted New Orleans-based artist Randy Leo Frenchy Frechette to create two paintings of the FOX Sports studio as well as the FOX Sports team on pit road.

Randy Leo Frenchy Frechette captures behind-scenes action at the Indianapolis 500.

I'm really about capturing the guys working behind the scenes, he says. I particularly like painting the sets, lights, the cords, and the cameras. And I'll drop in the broadcasters live while they're on-air and basically document a day in history on canvas. I consider myself more of a documentarian than a live painter. The skills run hand in hand, but I'm trying to create something that isn't a souvenir but is a different way to document the production.

The Indy 500 wasn't the first FOX Sports event that he has painted this year. He was also in New Orleans to document FOX Sports' Super Bowl studio production on Bourbon Street, which was full of the usual colors, festivities, and sea of humanity that defines the locale.

When it comes to geeking out on painting cameras and the behind-the-scenes, says Frenchy, that was probably the coolest thing I've done.

Frenchy's art focuses on the production crew as much as on the athletes.

He has a long history of painting not only the sports events but the production teams as well. In 1996, he caught the Olympic bug while painting at the Atlanta Olympics and went on to work on Salt Lake City and Australia. In Sydney, he also began painting live music, capturing an energy he says is akin to live sports: The live energy is similar between sports and music, but it's more intense in at sporting events.

Frenchy's work in sports took off following a Breast Cancer Fundraiser in New Orleans in 2001. He was hired to paint the color guard at the event, and the painting was auctioned off to New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson. Frenchy had a mutual acquaintance ask Benson if it would be okay to paint Saints games from the sidelines, and Benson agreed, beginning an eight-year relationship in which Frenchy painted NFL games from a safe location nestled along the wall behind the sidelines.

Frenchy at FOX Sports' Bourbon Street location during Super Bowl festivities

If it was a defensive painting, he explains, I would just be throwing paint at the canvas and even get some paint on the astroturf. A painting of an offensive play would give me the chance to draw in some details. But I devise a play in my sketchbooks and then go right there on the sideline and draw it out.

After his work for the Saints ended eight years later, Frenchy was brought into paint ESPN Monday Night Football (among other clients have been the Cleveland Cavaliers, the New York Yankees, and other baseball teams).

I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for former ESPN MNF producer Jay Rothman, a visionary and an incredible human being, adds Frenchy. I started picking up MNF games and traveling around the country, painting the production trucks as well as broadcast booths. My first MNF broadcast was with Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski, and Tony Kornheiser, and that was awesome. Tony would even put my painting behind him while he was doing his other show.

The key to painting live sports events is not to rush, Frenchy explains. You want to put a good foundation down, and then you can build anything on top of it. Sometimes I'll go back to the studio and work on them there, whatever it takes. But the goal is to make a good painting, some good art. [Whether] it can sell, we leave that up to the universe to take care of.

Frenchy and his painting of FOX Sports' Bourbon Street studio

Speaking of the universe, Frenchy's philosophy definitely goes deep. The canvas, he says, is absorbing the molecules of the live event in a molecular entanglement that brings energy to the canvas, paint, and brush.

At Indy, the canvas is marinated in the energy of the Indianapolis 500. When I start dropping in the people that are in the crowd, the painting comes to life.

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2025/06/16/from-super-bowl-to-indy-500-new...
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