Imagine for a moment that you’re a young sports producer, sitting in a truck and having the opportunity to produce a live football game for network television on NBC. Then imagine you’ve got legends in television production like NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol and then-World Wrestling Federation owner Vince McMahon around you. That was Bill Bonnell in 2001, working on the first iteration of the XFL.
“It was a wild ride that season, but it was a lot of fun,” Bonnell recently told me. Bonnell is now with ESPN and he’ll be the lead producer on UFL broadcasts for the network this season. He was also in charge of ESPN’s coverage of XFL games in the COVID-shortened 2020 season. I had the opportunity to speak with him on a number of topics, including what fans can expect from ESPN’s presentation of the UFL this season.
“Technology will be a big part of this,” he said. Bonnell mentioned the kinds of advancements to which we’ve all become accustomed from spring football, including the SkyCam, ample player and coach audio, and the use of the Replay Command Center. The UFL has been trying out MindFly cameras during training camp, attached to the chest of players, which takes the viewer right onto the field and in the middle of the action. Those will be utilized during games as well.
Bonnell said the network operates hand-in-hand with the UFL on technological advancements for the broadcasts. “We work really close with them on coming up with ways to come up with new statistics, ways to do statistics, and the TrueLine and the MindFly cameras and the audio and all that…I would say it’s a very close collaboration with them.”
While the technology piece is a nice way to differentiate the UFL from other football leagues on television, Bonnell pointed out that ultimately, the game is about the players. “I don’t think we can lose sight of humanizing the players,” he said. “Sometimes the technology can overshadow that in productions, and I’m hoping not to do that.”
The emphasis on sports betting throughout games across all genres has increased the last several years, and nowhere has that been more evident than on spring football broadcasts. That won’t change this season. New to the UFL broadcasts this year will be Erin Dolan, an ESPN BET analyst, who will handle much of the in-game sports betting conversation.
Along with Dolan, Bonnell noted his excitement about working with the on-air talent that will be calling UFL games this season. In particular, he cited Joe Tessitore, saying that, “You can’t get a better broadcaster to broadcast the UFL than Joe Tessitore…He makes things exciting and…really take(s) it up to the next level.” Bonnell also singled out Sam Acho (“has one of the most engaging smiles and laughs of any on-air talent I’ve ever met), Jordan Rodgers (“a real up-and-coming analyst for us”) and the ubiquitous to spring football Tom Luginbill (“he’s going to be terrific on the sideline”).
The lead producer of college football on ABC’s Saturday Night Football games, Bonnell said it was important to differentiate between the two products. He pointed to the use of replay as a difference. When there’s a time out, for example, “Our instincts as a producer is to immediately go to a package and/or go to a promo, do something else that’s away from the ball. But if there’s a timeout, what we should be doing in the UFL coverage is listen in to the quarterback walk to the coach and listen to what their conversation is. Like, what’s going on? So it’s a different way of thinking.”
While college football presents certain restraints in how a game can be broadcast, Bonnell is looking forward to the freedom he’ll have in producing UFL games this spring. “In our meeting this morning…we encouraged everybody, any ideas that you have, there’s nothing we can come up with that we can’t try or do. I think it’s going to be nothing but fun and a blank canvas, and whatever we dream up we’re going to try it.”
