Listening

I was very impressed with our home TV crew tonight.
This is my 23rd year of doing Cardinals baseball and I have worked with many of these professionals for much of that time.
I feel that I know the talent of each respective crew member. I have a pretty good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of our crew.
The reason I was impressed tonight had nothing to do with the work ethic of this crew. Their work ethic is impressive each and every telecast.
The overall quality of the crew's work was impressive but this was also not the reason the crew impressed me tonight.
I was impressed with our crew tonight because of how they listened.
The camera operators are listening to me as I cut the game, the announcers as they call the game, and each other as they notice "things" on the field or in the ballpark.
The tape crew is listening to the producer, the director, and the announcers as are the graphics operator and the fox box operator.
Audio is listening to everything.
Video is following the director.
The stage manager is listening to the producer and the announcers.
A crew member who is just average will hear but not listen.
It is what a crew member does after listening that matters.
Television sports is a profession of split second decision making.
It is a profession that relies on REACTION.
The crew has ONE chance to cover a play as good as possible.
A successful telecast is measured by how the crew listens. Listening prepares the crew for upcoming events during the game/telecast.
An example of this occurred in tonight's game/telecast. Early in the game, the announcers were talking about a certain batter and stated that he really went to the opposite field well. During an at-bat later in the game, our robo operator changed his iso to cover a hit to the opposite field with this batter. Indeed, he hit the ball to the opposite field and the replay was telling.
The robo operator listened as did the whole crew.
Television (Tele = audio, vision = video) Sports.
Perhaps this profession should be called Television-Listen Sports.