Kevin Cleary - ESPN Specialist, The Art Of Serving The Sports Fan

Kevin Cleary joins us in episode 8 to talk about the art of serving the sports fan through invoking the emotion, not only of the competition itself but also the story behind the athletes and sporting events. As a specialist at ESPN, Kevin holds a pivotal role as the technical manager for marquee events such as ESPN Sunday Night Baseball, the College Football Playoff Semi-Finals and National Championship, NFL Draft, and The Heisman Trophy presentation, among others. His unwavering passion and dedication to the world of sports broadcasting shines through in his work. 

Kevin recounts tales from the trenches, where every ratchet of a snowboarder's boots or echo of a 21-gun salute is meticulously captured and broadcasted, painting a vivid emotional canvas for sports fans worldwide. We dissect the beauty of sports broadcasting, from helmet and umpire cams to the intimate audio captures between a catcher and an umpire during a game. Kevin enlightens us on the rigorous preparation his team undergoes for the unpredictability of live sports, always poised and ready for surprises, right from champagne celebrations to ensuring redundancies and backups. There's never a dull moment as Kevin spins tales of the meticulous planning, strategizing, and sheer adrenaline behind every perfectly timed shot and angle.

As we delve into the future of sports broadcasting, Kevin shares his thoughts on the potential of new technology and the psychological aspects of this intense job. There's a delicate balance between innovation and tradition, and our conversation explores this fascinating interplay.

The Loose Connection podcast is Hosted by Chris Leonard & Kyle Chirnside
email us at looseconnectionpod@gmail.com

The Loose Connection podcast is Hosted by Chris Leonard & Kyle Chirnside

email us at looseconnectionpod@gmail.com

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Transcript

Chris Leonard: 0:00

he didn't have enough to get to the finish line and, uh, the pack was catching him. He was way ahead, but the pack was catching him as, uh, he's probably maybe 15 feet from the finish line and he'd almost come to a complete stop. And we were like, oh man, they're gonna, they're gonna catch him. You know, there's he's, he's not gonna, he's not gonna win. And the guy leading the pack in second place saw this, veered over into his lane, rammed him from behind. It was amazing it was it?

Chris Leonard: 0:31

just pushed him over the finish line first. It was, uh, like I said, I get choked up thinking about it. It was the most emotional thing I've ever seen. Really was it was. It was incredible. So that's the competition. You know where you have a motion. Uh, that kind of supersedes any. You know competition. You know he was the guy in second place, saw it purposely turned behind him, hit him from behind to push him over the finish line in front of him is emotional. It was probably the coolest thing I've ever seen in sports so welcome to lose connection.

Kevin Cleary: 1:21

I'm your host. Chris Leonard Kyle is off coaching soccer, playing soccer, roughing soccer, one of those things. Uh, he could be with me this week, but I still decided to have the conversation with Kevin Cleary. Uh, he joins me to talk about the art of serving the sports fan through invoking the emotion of not only the competition but also the story behind the athletes and the sport itself. You know, at ESPN, kevin holds a pivotal role as the technical manager for the marquee events such as ESPN Sunday Night Baseball, the college football playoffs, semi-finals and national championships, the NFL draft and the Heisman Trophy presentation, among others.

Kevin Cleary: 1:59

Kevin Cleary's legacy in the world of sports media is illustrious as it is enduring, making his name synonymous with excellence in the field. Kevin has at least six sports Emmys, among many other awards. He truly has a passion for delivering a audible and visual experience unlike any other in the sporting field. His attention to detail in capturing the moments, or the elements that make up the moments, that fans just wouldn't even recognize that they, they, how they're experienced. You know, they experienced it, but it's. He's able to capture things and see things and and put microphones in places and put cameras in places. Um, that just take you on this journey, both before the game, during the game and after the game. Uh, or whatever the event may be, I find the world of sports broadcasting very fascinating and, uh, I hope you enjoy this conversation with Kevin just as much as I do. Let's dig in now. Kevin, what's the first time you remember watching a sporting event and realizing that there was more to the experience than just the game or sport activity that you were watching?

Chris Leonard: 3:25

so it's. It's funny yes, I, I wouldn't in. In the conversations we we've had about these things, I've, I've looked back at my career and one of the things that I've really tried to focus on throughout my entire career not just in the beginning or even even this year is always the nuanced sound. Uh, that has always been the one thing. You know, obviously, different camera angles bring different, different viewer perspectives, but uh, from me, the emotion and the passion of sports is always told through sound and it's, uh, it's. It's the one little thing that you don't pick up on when you don't hear it, but then you think to yourself there's got to be that noise right. So, for for, uh, and again, the first time, I can't think of what, the what the first moment was, but throughout my career in different different shows the x games, the indy 500, things like that I've always tried to find the nuanced sound, the things that you would expect to hear but don't realize they're not there until you hear them for the first time and you're like oh yeah, how come?

Chris Leonard: 4:37

I never heard that before. So, um, specifically x games, when you, when you're standing, the camera angle is shooting a guy and he's standing at the top of the of the super pipe and they all the snow borders, they all do the same thing they reach down, raise, they get up there and they ratchet those boots really tight so when they get jumping the, the board doesn't come out, while the first time I saw it I was like, wow, I want to hear that, like I want to hear that, that that noise like that guy rat, I want to hear that ratchet on the boot. And so we put special microphones up at the start and and manage the, triangulate, a bunch of stuff. We we got over the pa, which is, uh, you know, one of the challenges of live sporting events. But, yeah, getting those nuanced sounds, little things like that.

Chris Leonard: 5:26

If you ever seen the, the opening of the indy 500, they do a whole big uh pop and circumstance thing and, uh, they do it, you know. They sing, you know jim neighbors has an indiana song that he sings and there's a bunch of other stuff. And then they do a 21 gun salute. And so the first time I was there, I actually was out in the area where they were doing this and I was watching it and all that and I came back and then I watched it back, the live broadcast, and I was like that's what's missing.

Chris Leonard: 5:59

So the following year I had them go out and put foot mics down at the base of the soldier's feet and they're like, oh you trying to hear, they don't march, they don't do any steps, they just stay there. I said, yeah, just just trust me. So they there's. If you ever seen a 21 gun salute there? Seven guys, they fire once, they re-rack, they fire again, they re-rack, they fire the third time. Well, what I was capturing and what people heard for the first time they had never heard before, are the shells. Oh, they're ejecting out of the rifles yeah hitting the ground.

Chris Leonard: 6:36

And so the first time they were here and you know that brass on concrete sound which is very stinking, if you've ever heard it, people are like, wow, I never, I didn't realize that was missing until I heard it the first time. And that's the, that's the differentiator, that's the thing that changes my emotional attachment, because here in the shells hit the ground, kind of reinforce what the what the meaning is behind the 21 gun salute. So it's, it's always been those little nuanced sounds, those little things like that. You know, obviously, you know today as uh, as we just am a wrap it up my last MLB season, you know we've added cameras in places. We had UMP cam which is on the mask of the umpire for four innings a game. That's, that's a new thing that we added.

Chris Leonard: 7:22

This year we we expanded our program where we talk to the players, interview them while they're playing the game. That that has been wildly successful. Uh, mlb is a big proponent. Rob Manford was on first take and talking about how great he thinks that is and how it brings the players closer to the fans and gives the fans something you know to to look at.

Chris Leonard: 7:48

So you know, for me it's, it's always been those little niche things, the little things, not necessarily coverage of the game. Every, every broadcaster does a pretty great job at covering the game. You know if, if you've ever sat in your house and watched the Super Bowl, I can tell you that it's a much better experience than sitting in a stadium trying to watch the Super Bowl, because you get one perspective, whereas you know, if you're watching it from home, you're going to get, you know, 127 cameras or you're going to see, you know same thing with the college football national championship with 120 cameras. So, and we're telling stories and things that you're not going to see or hear if you're you're, you're in the stadium.

Kevin Cleary: 8:29

So no, certainly you've used some language in previous interviews, articles, the sentence serving the sports fan, right, and so I'm curious, and we're talking about crafting the overall narrative of storytelling of this sporting event that's happening, um, how does that change depend on the sport? So you know, because you do everything, from football to NASCAR to X Games to to horse racing um, that fan is different. I mean there may be some crossover, but I mean a horse racing fan, kentucky Derby and and or whatever the other you know, horse races are versus 8500, versus NFL or college football. There's a pretty varying difference, is there? What does it mean to serve the fan, and how do you guys kind of analyze, or you analyze the fans across those different genres of sports?

Chris Leonard: 9:26

yeah, I think, if you think about every sports fan across the board, one of the things they're interested obviously is the competition, right, so we put out cameras, we put out the the different you know elements in order to capture the actual competition the two teams head to head, whether or if it's individuals, like in case of the US Open Tennis. You know we put out cameras to cover the competition. But the storytelling behind the competition is born out of not just what's happening on the pitch, on the field, on the court, it's also how did that player get there? And some, most fans are curious and are interested in in hearing about their favorite or even sometimes least favorite athlete, as as as how they got there and what they're doing to make, you know, to make things different for themselves, you know, trying to give themselves a competitive edge. So we talk about, you know, competitive edge. We talk about some of the things. But but those fans are kind of the same. Now, if I'm a NBA fan and I'm rooting for LeBron James, I probably, at this point, probably know everything. There is no battle, lebron James. You know it's been covered, you know well and good, but but they're still interested in the story. They're still interested in the backstory, they're still interested in what's going on. You know, with that athlete, same as in a horse race, the fans are interested in the bloodline of the horse and the. You know where the horse was trained and who the trainer was and what the success of the stable is. So you know the, the, the longevity in the deep dive that we do.

Chris Leonard: 11:05

And again, it's very specific to individuals, whether it's, you know, on the on the field or not. But sometimes the story is is, it transcends just the individual player and it's about the team. You know there's a, there's a feel good moment for the team that does something. You know, if you've ever seen in in Iowa, they do the Iowa wave. They wave at the kids in the children's hospital, like that's a, that's a storyline. You know, that's the things you know.

Chris Leonard: 11:32

If you're a casual fan, you've never been to a game in a highway, you probably didn't know that happened. And then you know you, you see that happening in the third quarter of the game and you're watching on ESPN and you're like, well, what are they doing? And and you know so we have a story behind that. So you know those. Serving a sports fan doesn't just mean covering the competition. It also means giving them the backstory and and giving them some of the things that they don't necessarily know about their favorite team athlete, you know, horse, whatever, how much of the relationship of the story you're telling or serving the fan is.

Kevin Cleary: 12:07

You know because you work for one network organization, as you know, as opposed to there's. You know three, four other major. You know sporting entities out there that cover the same sport.

Kevin Cleary: 12:18

You know, depending on the same week or whatever, how much of what, the relationship of what you guys are bringing the storytelling and is in cooperation with the entity that runs that sporting organization. And, to take it once that further, even the location you know, like, for instance, you know recently, you know you revolved with the MLB playoffs, you know at least up until at least a wild card round, you know over at the Phillies, uh, and some of the stuff so like down to the granular level of you know MLB, the actual Phillies, uh, what's that relationship of, like you and ESPN versus me, all the networks, or is that just what this is the storytelling that ESPN is going to bring to the game, no matter what you know? Does that make sense, like what's what's?

Chris Leonard: 13:07

the relationship like so. So we were. You know we work together with MLB directly and in specifically the instance there we work directly with MLB. We work directly with the, with the commissioner's office in PR. We work with the broadcasting department there. We work directly with the PR people at the Phillies and at the other team they played I know you're, you're a Phillies fan, right, so so they won that series. So that's that's got to make you that series at once.

Kevin Cleary: 13:38

Yeah, yeah, that's so good, but but no, we work directly with their PR people.

Chris Leonard: 13:44

We work, you know we, and we, we work directly. Sometimes, you know, through PR, our PR department, their PR department, with the athletes, you know, and say, let's we, we want to tell your story, you know, we want to tell the story of your, your upbringing, your coach, your this, your the hurdle you overcame, the hurdle you overcame to become here, or you know to be here, you know, and things like that. So you know, I can't speak to other networks as to how they do their research and how they bring their stuff, but I can tell you that, you know, for us it's always about the competition first, and then the human element to the competition is right next to that, it's right behind that. Because, you know, let's be, let's be honest, we were. If we were watching robots play and it was just, you know, a bunch of robots against another bunch of robots and there was no human element to it. Yeah, I don't think sports would be as exciting, honestly yeah, for certain, um.

Kevin Cleary: 14:40

So let's go back down to the specific you talked about recently in baseball the helmet cams or the ump cams.

Chris Leonard: 14:46

The ump cams yeah.

Kevin Cleary: 14:48

Yeah, what's? How did I mean? How long did it? Let's, we can get a little technical here. How long did it take to a? You know when was the idea thought of the technology to actually get the size of the camera that actually fits? It doesn't interfere to the conversation with the umps, to the conversation with the leagues, like I'm sure that's not a fast process to get that done.

Chris Leonard: 15:08

It's not. I wish it was one of the things that we're challenged with. It's a little different. And MLB, you know, at the NFL, if the commissioner's office says we're doing something, we're doing it, you know the teams, the players, everybody were right on board. You know same pretty much with the NBA, with MLB we've got. We obviously have the, the baseball organization, majorly baseball themselves. Then we have the owners, which are totally separate group, and then we have the players union, which is totally separate group, and then we have the umpires union. So it's, it's not as and I kind of lump the players and the umpires unions together because they seem to act not necessarily always in lockstep, but they seem to have the same when it comes to technology being applied. They have the same kind of. You know, and again, just just like us, we, you know, first and foremost is is safety of the players, safety of the people, safety. You know the humans, right. You know the best camera angle in the world doesn't do us any good if somebody gets hurt where right.

Kevin Cleary: 16:20

So so we have fears with the game, or there's something that happens in the.

Chris Leonard: 16:23

You know. You know again, I don't want to have to, you know, sell my house and move out in the cover or not, like that. That poor guy in Chicago I won't see his name, but no, the reality of it is that that we worked for for years developing, you know, a camera system and then we didn't get a lot of traction and then just in the last year or so, it got revived and MLB came, you know, together with a solution and brought it to all the broadcasters that we were able to, you know, get past, you know, any of the challenges or the questions and got the ump cam. You know they would only wear it for four innings for the game, but we, I think we utilized it. We did a great thing where we mic'd up the catcher for San Diego and we had him mic'd with the ump cam. So we would open the catcher's mic and you would see the ball and you'd hear the mic. So you would actually see a 97 mile an hour forcing fastball come in and spin over and you could see the movement on it and then you'd hear the pop of the glove when it came in. So you know, and then this. You know, obviously, the umps mic so we hear the strike call there as well.

Chris Leonard: 17:37

So you know, little things like that have really changed the perspective that we're enabling our fans to, you know just a little more access, because you know, high, in a way, one of the things that we get told most of the time is I always wanted to know what they're saying. You know, the fans are sitting in the stands and they see a guy sitting on first base and he's talking to the first baseman who's holding them on first, and the runners on first the first baseman are talking. You know, and everyone's like what are they saying? Are they talking about dinner?

Kevin Cleary: 18:13

Are they talking about? You know?

Chris Leonard: 18:15

hey, I saw you bought that new Ford pickup truck, or. I mean, what are they talking about? Like? Are they jabbing each other Like, hey, you know you can't pick me what is going on? And so it's pretty cool. We've gotten a whole lot of really good. I'll go back to the nuanced sound thing. Got some really good nuanced sound out of those things. And then you know, our interviews with the players were great. I hearken back and I can send you the clip of. There's a player just recently we were interviewing it's a short stop for the Dodgers and he's in the middle of answering a question and the ball gets hit to him and he said oh, hold on, guys, I got to make a play real quick and he catches the ball and he throws over and he gets the out at first and we're like this is gold.

Chris Leonard: 19:07

It was so good that the screenshot. A certain NBA player, LeBron James, screenshot it and put it on his Instagram and said hey, this is fire. I may have to do this for a whole quarter next season. Oh, wow, so that that that was how I actually. I flew home from from Dodger Stadium. That that Sunday night I got home Monday morning on a red eye and fell asleep, and that that next day was my birthday and so I woke up to 27 text messages and all these things. See what LeBron James said about your game.

Kevin Cleary: 19:47

Oh my.

Chris Leonard: 19:47

God, I don't even know what you're talking about. It took me a minute to catch up, but it was. It was. It was really cool. But you know that that just lends itself to. Your first question is you know what are we doing to serve the sports fan? You know those, the athletes are fans too. You know that. You know LeBron James is watching baseball, so so it's, it's. It's kind of cool that you know it's not just the people. You'd expect that the people sitting on their couch but you know some of the athletes are are watching what we're doing and saying, hey, you know what that's so cool. I think I should do that.

Kevin Cleary: 20:25

Absolutely. I mean it's you are having, you know, like, like not to describe this way you mean you're having psychological effects on the experience, right. So I mean, do you ever have conversations to that level of like? How does this psychologically affect people? Like, what is the psychological impact of these things? Are those ever part of the conversation or is that just like a back of brain, back of mind type of conversation?

Chris Leonard: 20:49

Yeah, so I don't talk about the psychological effects so much as I do the emotion.

Kevin Cleary: 20:54

Okay.

Chris Leonard: 20:55

And and and I feel like this. Like I said before, I feel like the sound associated with the stuff we're capturing and the camera angles associated with that sound that's what stirs emotion in people. You know it's, it's not the same and you know people say it all the time.

Chris Leonard: 21:13

you know, I go to a bar and everything's on mute and I can't hear what's going on, I'm like, well, it's not, it's half the experience. You know, you don't get the emotion. Now, if your team scores and everybody around you cheers, sure you cheer along with them, right? And that in that cheer, that that camaraderie, that emotion is brought on by the sound. Now you don't hear what the guy on the field is doing, the guy on camera is doing or saying, but but, like I said, we don't talk psychological so much, I don't get that deep into it. But I truly feel that the little sounds or the emotion, right? No?

Kevin Cleary: 21:50

emotion is definitely a better way to think of that. Obviously, the psychological effects, that, of course. But yeah, I hear you, the psychological is definitely. I mean, emotional is definitely a better way. You know, when you're describing that, the first thing comes to mind. It's like okay, in NASCAR, you know the turns if you don't hear that, and then horse, if you don't hear those feet chomping away as they're going around those turns.

Kevin Cleary: 22:12

I mean, it's definitely a different visceral experience whether you do or don't hear those things, and it's more the in the moment, right? So I guess there's a couple of different emotional things, right? So I'm thinking, you know, pregame, pre-race, pre whatever the storyline thing the trainers, the all that that's one emotional aspect, and then the the height, that's the human element. Yeah, right, and then the competition competition. Yeah, it's interesting that the two different rollercoaster emotional rollercoasters, if you will. Yeah, it's interesting.

Chris Leonard: 22:45

Yeah, it's cool. You know, like I said, those it's it's. You know, I did it for eight years. It's really easy to make a. You know, 50 or 48 race cars sound good when they're driving around the track, like it's, you know, as long as you open the fader at the right time, you're. You know they're very loud, they make a lot of noise. But when they pull into the pit and you hear the guy with the with the gun go to change the tire and you hear that that's, that's the sound that we're looking for, those little sounds.

Kevin Cleary: 23:22

So to get a little technical, when, when someone's tracking, let's stay in that NASCAR realm for, for instance, you know, we could you know, without going to each sport and asking how it works, how much of the broadcast mixer versus the TD who's calling the shots or whatever, is there any marrying of camera at this time audio is going to come up, or is that all at the same time, so that, like, how much tracking do two people have to do the same time versus how much can they be, you know, automated?

Chris Leonard: 23:52

100%. So in that that sport specifically and but but you know it also translates over to basketball, to football, to. You know a lot of these shows that have what we call a submixer. There's a subnature that just mixes effects. You know, obviously yours, you run out of faders on our traditional console when you've got all these different music elements and graphic noises and announcers and things like that. And then the submixer carries all those, those natural sounds and those effects noises, but the submixer listens directly to the director, the director who's calling you know, ready to take two, ready for take four, ready six, take six, and they're just tracking, you know.

Kevin Cleary: 24:34

Basically the input that associate to those camera angles and things like that.

Chris Leonard: 24:38

As the director says, take the technical director who switches the show, he will take that camera and as he takes that camera the submix opens the fader the exact same time. So they follow the director's cues in lockstep, one by one, camera by camera. And that goes for in cars, that goes for every, every visual. You see the submixer is following right along with the technical director who's punching. So the audio has to match the video.

Kevin Cleary: 25:08

So your primary audio mixer has, for lack of terms, those effects channels open or relative level as a whole and relying on the submixer to actually be the, in the moment, type of correct thing to follow track. Yeah, that makes correct.

Chris Leonard: 25:26

And we didn't even get to the radio mixer or the radio editor, because each car has an in-car radio and there's a radio mixer that mixes those noise.

Chris Leonard: 25:36

So when you hear a radio chatter, one of the things that we came up with the first, we started NASCAR in 2007,. We did it for eight years and one of the things that we brought to the table in 2007 that was completely new is I brought in two 48 track recorders and we recorded all of the cars, because sometimes conversations happen over the course of many laps, so it doesn't just happen. You know, a guy says, hey, your tire's going down, hey, bring it in, do this, do that, turn this, turn that, push this button, whatever. Sometimes that conversation happens over like a minute and a half, right? So what we do is we record all of that and then edit it down on the fly into a 10 second clip and then we'll say we've got, you know, chris Leonard's radio talking about pit stop, 10 seconds long, and they'll say let's hear from Chris Leonard and his crew chief, and then we'll hear the conversation one, two, three, four, back and forth. Now that conversation happened over three minutes, but we're going to hear it in 10 seconds.

Kevin Cleary: 26:49

That's fascinating, well, you know. So that's the question of you know what are, what are some of the things that are maybe, I don't know overlooked, that like those are things that like the, the, the far audience, the fan you're talking about serving the fan that they don't know that happens, that creates that experience. What are some other magic, if you will, in the broadcasting world that delivers some of those experiences that would be a shock to others, or surprise.

Chris Leonard: 27:25

I can tell you that we've, and I've done this a bunch. You know, people will come through on a tour of the TV truck and I'll have them stand, you know, in the back and stand out of the way and say, you know, just stick here for the open of the show and we'll come up on the air. The AD will count everybody in the director's calling cameras, the producer's calling tape playback devices, which are usually colors you know red, blue, xy, silver, gold. The cameras usually numbered, one, one through. You know 100. The AD is counting in and out of packages and the producer is telling the announcers up in the booth packages over on this word you know, or this sentence you know, and then the announcers know when to pick it up.

Chris Leonard: 28:22

And so well, you know, the open of the show has a lot of those elements. You go down, you show the crowd, you talk to the reporter. Reporter asks the coach something. I'll go back up. They'll show a little piece of a clip of this, this player, that player. They'll show the player warming up. They'll, you know that'll go on. And then you know they'll go to commercial. And I usually turn around to the people and say so what do you think and they're like what the heck was that One guy screaming colors and yelling, like you know?

Chris Leonard: 28:51

and not necessarily screaming, but one guy saying, you know it's like, and everyone's wearing a headset and everyone's talking to different people and there's all these other people that are associated with what's going on and it just seems like complete chaos, like it just seems, you know, kind of how you would feel if you were standing, you know, in Wall Street when they open the market.

Chris Leonard: 29:13

People were all screaming and yelling and you know, doing trades, you know, and they're like this is insane. I had no idea this much went into producing a television show. I never thought that each camera angle had a person right, and then I never thought that all the cameras, when they came back to the truck, they all had to match in color temperature. That was one of the ones that people don't realize is that the video shading department makes sure all the cameras match and the reason for that is if you've ever gone outside when it's bright and going inside when it's dark, your eyes, your pupils, dial in. So if you didn't have the same color temperature on your cameras as you cut through the cameras, people at home, their pupils, would get bigger, get smaller, get bigger, get smaller, get bigger, get smaller, and so 30 minutes into the show they'd have such eye fatigue they wouldn't be able to watch the show.

Kevin Cleary: 30:16

Yeah, the closest taste I've gotten to, maybe a pre-show like not during the game, because I know we've actually had this conversation where the game portion is not scripted, but all the leading up to the commercial breaks.

Kevin Cleary: 30:33

Yeah, I'm not even trying to go on that conspiracy path. I'm just saying the idea of I've mixed in stadium like college football, and it's a completely different style of mixing in that I had a 30-page pamphlet or book basically of all my cues and all my things to hit or whatever, and it's 10 pages could be two minutes worth of content and time, and it's this package, this or whatever.

Chris Leonard: 31:03

Yeah, sound on tape. It's the voiceover. It's the sound on tape. It's the voiceover. It's the sound on tape. It's the voiceover.

Kevin Cleary: 31:10

And you very easily forget that you're even at a sporting event from an operator perspective. Right, you're trying to nail your cue, nail your fader, nail your thing, right? So, by the same token, how hard is it to separate yourself? I'm going to say, like in any level of broadcast, and we do the cameraman, you're the A2, you're the A2, you're the whoever. There is a sporting game going that you probably care about.

Chris Leonard: 31:39

Compared to you doing your job, Funny you should say that, because I don't believe in it. I think I've said this before on one of your interviews I'm not a huge sports fan. It's insane, I know right, it's insane. I go to the biggest sporting events in the world and I don't really care who wins. But true to that. But the good news in there is that I'm not emotional when it comes to winning and losing. So if the team, the red team, loses, it doesn't. There's no, I'm not emotional about it. It's just a bunch of guys doing their job. As far as I'm concerned, right, so I can actually, and as the technical manager and overseeing all of the technical aspects of the show, I'm not emotional when somebody drops a ball, whatever. I'm more concerned with whether or not the camera that's Roman can get to him, or if security needs to be called because fans are going to rush the field at the end.

Kevin Cleary: 32:53

Somebody state beats somebody and so my concern is more for the technical aspects of what's happening not necessarily the motion that the players and the fans are feeling.

Chris Leonard: 33:12

So it's sort of like if you've ever spent any time with surgeons or that they're not very emotional people. They're very even keeled when it comes to that, because I think, with the human element involved, that they can't get caught up in things. They have to just matter of factly do their job, and that's most of the sports pros that I work with. There are some fans of this team, that team, whatever, but the vast majority of us are so focused on doing are being in the moment, up to your point opening the fader, getting the shot or making sure that you've covered all these things that you honestly can't. There's time for that later, if you will. I have time to be worried about whether or not we. I'm more worried about whether I have locker room access before the team gets in there so I can make sure my crew's in there.

Chris Leonard: 34:15

We were in Philadelphia for the wildcard and we got down to where Philly could clinch and I sent the runner out and I said okay, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go out and I want you to buy four sets of ski goggles, four ponchos and half a dozen big fluffy towels and he's like what are you talking about? For what I said, just trust me. And they looked all over and they finally found some ski goggles that are sporting good store somewhere. And they came back and they still couldn't figure it out and I said, okay, well, I need to know who the camera people are and who the audio people are my reporter. So I made sure they all had goggles, because I don't know if you've ever gotten champagne in your eyes, but it's not good, it burns and it's really bad and it makes it really hard to do your job.

Chris Leonard: 35:12

Now, if your job at that point is celebrating your win, then you don't have to worry about champagne in your eyes. But if you're trying to point a camera at an announcer who's trying to get an interview, or if you're an announcer trying to get an interview, it's really hard to not squint or keep one eye closed or whatever if you have champagne. But little things like that actually allow us to be a little removed. And, to your point, we don't really script. Obviously the studio shows are scripted, but the game is kind of. We know where it's going to be played, we know where it's going to happen, but other than that we're not really sure.

Kevin Cleary: 35:58

I imagine it's about being, again, it's the combination of the critical elements of the game, right? I mean you can pick any sport.

Kevin Cleary: 36:08

I mean you know there's going to be a baseball, you know there's going to be a batter, you know there's going to be a pitcher you know they are going to pitch the ball, you know, but it's like okay, well, when they do hit that home run and being able to grab the audience and the reaction of the person who hit the ball and the coat, the bench, like you have, it's having the wherewithal to have all the resources that, when the moment happens, that you have the resources to capture that moment, right. But you, the core of the but I still find it fascinating of someone who doesn't care as much about sports, you're as, not as emphatically, tied to it. Yet your job is to invoke the emotion that comes with the people who are right. So I mean for you, I mean like that is a psychological thing that you are doing If we go back to that side of this right of like, you know.

Kevin Cleary: 36:57

You know you do have to put yourself in the seat of that person and pull that out. So that's that's. I find that a fun or interesting exercise. It seems to me goes with, just like sound design in movies and TV shows. When I start to think about the Foley and things that go into that, you in a sense are creating fully in a different aspect. You're just you're having to pick up the live, live fully, as opposed to recreating fully in post. But the brain cycle that goes to think about all those things is a I find it fascinating.

Chris Leonard: 37:33

So the cool part is and you know, just to dovetail off your point, if I see it on the screen, I want to hear it, right so so if, but if I see the emotion, and you know to your point somebody hits a home run, if it's the Philly sitting at home run, then the opposite camera knows to shoot the Philly bench for the reaction. Right so it's all scripted ahead of time. Who shoots what when this happens, right so, you know. Same thing with. You know, if there's, if there's on a football field, certain cameras have certain coverages and they carry certain, you know, responsibilities. When something happens, you know, one guy goes for the hero, one guy goes for the goat, one guy does the head coach, one guy goes for the other head cut. You know what I mean. So it's, it's, it's, it's all worked out ahead of time.

Chris Leonard: 38:32

Who's shooting what when, inevitably a good play or a bad play, you know, on a, on a, you know a touchdown. We have to show everybody, right, everyone. Because at home you're thinking, oh, I wonder what that, what are? That other coach is thinking right now. Well, let's look at him, let's, let's try and see his emotion like, what's it? What's he got on his face. You know, or you know how does the guy who threw the interception what's what's his reaction, as opposed to the guy that caught the interception or his you know, his his head coach when that happened. So you know it's that's kind of scripted as the. You know what coverage is done, who's covering the hut, but the but for the most part, you know, we know there's gonna be like you said. I know it's gonna be a batter, you know there's gonna be a pitcher could be a pitcher, stool could be a. You know could be the homerun derby. We we really don't have a a handle on who's gonna do what, but we know what we're doing when these different scenarios happen.

Kevin Cleary: 39:33

We all want to pursue some level of perfection, attention to detail, right, but a you know, when things are fast paced and unpredictable, how do you balance perfection, attention to detail, versus you know unpredictable things?

Chris Leonard: 39:50

Well, yeah, live television is it's. It's a lot like hot dogs you love it, but you really don't want to see it being made. No, listen, we, we, we do everything we can to ensure that we don't have any failures. You know broadcast wise, camera wise, power wise. You know we have redundants for our transmission plans. You know we have fiber off the cable. That that that goes out, you know, leaves the stain. We also have big shows. I have a satellite uplink so if we, some guy digs up a call center in in Oklahoma, we don't lose our fiber. And you know we can go to the uplink. So we have the ability to go, you know, to a backup. We put backups up when we can. I'm pausing while you're wrestling with your in-ear.

Kevin Cleary: 40:44

Sorry, I had a technical difficulty there I might. In-ear came up blocked.

Chris Leonard: 40:48

See now, if you had two in-ears. Yeah, I know.

Chris Leonard: 40:52

Sorry you would have had the backup. See what? What I was, what I where I was going with that is is we do everything we can to have backups. You know I I have. We have backup. You know backup cameras. We have backup. You know transmission paths. You know we have fiber and satellite backups, you know, for for different things we have, you know, spares for I mean we have hardwired backups for our RF reporters If something were to happen. We have power backups. You know redundant generators that are running twin packs with a transfer switch we had. You know. I mean some of the new TV trucks that are coming out now are all IP based and the IP based switches Cisco and the like take roughly 20 minutes to come back. So if we lose power to the said mobile unit, you're looking at a 20 minute restart.

Chris Leonard: 41:54

You know, in the, in the case of the national championship, we actually have what we call the end of the world scenario, where we have camera two, which is our high midfield 50 near side. Camera two is either on a piece of SIMT that runs back to the truck or it's got a shed with a UPS backup. It comes back to the truck, to a separate CCU that sits in the belly bay. The CCU was powered by a UPS with battery backup, and then there's a cable that comes off that CCU and runs over to the wall and if the whole world comes to an end, it's all I come. I come right out of that truck, I grab that cable, I plug it right into the wall and camera two is hot to the world. Now, at that point, as we get to that scenario, we're we're a news gathering organization. At that point, because there's a game going on, sure, sure Like no, I mean it, the analogy.

Kevin Cleary: 43:02

I think it's funny. We had talked to somebody recently who makes music videos, you know, and I was kind of like, well, how do you know? You know how many times to record a song and how many angles, to know that you have so many shots and you know he's like, he's like, at the end of the day, it's like you know, you set up some safety net shots, you have some close shots or whatever, and you have enough. So the same, I guess you know, at the end of the day, the answer to all this is like you know, you have a safety net, you can always go wider, right. You know, like, if the close shot that you is shaky or it doesn't work or whatever. So that makes total sense that you have your, your safety nets. For lack of better terms, call them backups, call the safety nets your wide shots. Those are the things that you're going to fall back to, to reestablish until the next thing that you need to improvise, to.

Chris Leonard: 43:44

Yeah, yeah, and you know a lot of it comes with the experience, knowing you know what happens when there's a failure. For one thing, you know there's a lot of moving parts and you know much, much. Like a helicopter, they all have to work for everything to be perfect. You know one thing stops working and then you have to start. You know taking taking your back up out. You know if a camera goes down, I'm 110 more. You know that's not the end of the world. However, I mean, we obviously don't want anything to go down. We've had anything. You know, just just recently we had one of the one of the security officers kicked the power supply in the booth and took down our booth camera and it's like I mean, I get it, you're, you're, you're in the way, but you know, but you didn't hear the UPS making all that noise? Yeah right, you didn't think that was something you should have said. Oh, oh, maybe, maybe that's not a good place to rest my foot, I don't know.

Kevin Cleary: 44:52

Maybe you raise your hand and say something.

Chris Leonard: 44:54

I mean, it was as simple as plugging it back in, but you know, it's still one of those things where you can't you can't prepare for every single thing. You know, the UPS did its job for you know, only for about. You know 13 minutes.

Kevin Cleary: 45:09

But that's a long time, though I mean right?

Chris Leonard: 45:12

No, it's a long time for that noise to be going on with that. Anybody saying anything. But you know I digress.

Kevin Cleary: 45:18

How, how different do the are the trucks per sport, what you're trying to achieve? You know, say, a truck from MLB to you know, ncaa football to you know racing like. Are they different? What, what, what are the what? What would make them different?

Chris Leonard: 45:40

Size and and. And I say size I don't mean this is all. Trucks are 53 foot expandos pretty much. But when I say size I mean capability. You know, a truck that doesn't ask for 100 cameras has to have more CCU buckets, more EVS record channels, more of the ability to, you know, have a larger switcher, have a larger, larger audio console, more DSP in the, in the, in the audio core, a larger comms frame, things like that. So so you know, capacity is probably the only differentiator. Now have we used the, the baseball truck on basketball, absolutely. Or soccer, or the soccer truck on on, you know, I can't say NFL, because NFL has a purpose built mobile. You know, mobile unit, that's four trucks large, it's four trucks to make one. They all plug together Geez, and what?

Kevin Cleary: 46:33

why is that?

Chris Leonard: 46:35

Just size. You know, one one truck just has the EVS playback in it.

Kevin Cleary: 46:40

And what's EVS?

Chris Leonard: 46:42

Is is the record devices, that that every camera that you see is going into a record device or a channel of an EVS record device and it's like a like a Tivo on your on your TV at home. You know it's so it's constantly like a DVR kind of thing, so it's it's recording all the time and then that's where they build the packages for replays. So when you see something happen, and then three seconds later you see it in slow motion and then the guy reaches out and they freeze it Right, you see where his foot stepped in or out, that device is the EVS Gotcha. And then we have specialty versions of which you know dream catchers and what Eberts dream catchers, that that actually can zoom in and show you, like, whether his ankle is twisted or this way or the other way, and and so. But those, those packages that you see instantaneously, the two or three look replays, those are those devices that the producer will will be looking at and a play will happen.

Chris Leonard: 47:50

Say it's a fumble, his EVS, the cameras are all going into record devices. The EVS playback room, the replay room, will sell their look to the producer if they have a good one. So if you're running a device that say it's X and Y. So you have two different machines that you're running at the same time and something happens and your camera guy that's into your X channel is the one who shot that fumble. You would then get on your headset, obviously, and you're talking in real time with the producer and you would sell.

Chris Leonard: 48:25

You say I got a great look on X, great look on X, and the producer can see X, his output right in front of him and he'll he'll roll it forward, he'll see the fumble and the producer will turn to the director and go we're going X to red to Y, real time. So you'll see the replay fumble in X, you'll see the reaction in red and then you'll see it happen in real time coming off of Y and you'll see the fumble happen. You'll hear the noise and then you'll go boom, and then the next plays will happen and whatnot. But yeah, so so just capacity is what makes a truck bigger, you know, or smaller, you know, depending upon what you know. If it's doing sick camera college basketball games, it's not going to do. You know the Indy 500 the next week, you know. It's just. It's just about what the capability of the truck is.

Kevin Cleary: 49:17

That makes sense. What's? What does the term Remy mean?

Chris Leonard: 49:22

Remote integration is the name of is what Remy means. We call it remote integration or, in some games, REM Co, depending upon where the operators are for certain things. What happens is, for for a full, what we call a Remy Pro, if you will. A Remy Pro is the announcers are on site, the production staff, producer director, TD, replay operators for the most part, and graphics people are all back in Bristol, Connecticut, and the individual cameras will all get fed back to Bristol via transmission paths. They'll be timed and then assembled back together in the switcher in Bristol and we don't travel any of those folks to site anymore. They all work out of our facility in Bristol.

Kevin Cleary: 50:20

So I mean that in a sense, as opposed to having to have more or bigger trucks on site, you can reduce some of the onsite and do all the cutting and switching and calling and things like that remotely in the studio. Yeah, correct, was that all rolling pre-pandemic or did the pandemic drive that? Or?

Chris Leonard: 50:41

The pandemic certainly helped exacerbate it and make it much more prolific. We had started doing it pre-pandemic for mostly our smaller, lower tier events but as we found success with it and the ability to have the right people in the right places, like my Sunday Night Baseball show, is a 43 path, remy, wow. So I have 43 transmission paths that leave site every week and go back to Bristol.

Kevin Cleary: 51:10

All right for anyone who doesn't do streaming for a living and anyone who does. That's insane.

Chris Leonard: 51:19

It is, it is.

Kevin Cleary: 51:21

We have a hard enough time on you know I do corporate AV. For those who don't know, we have a hard enough time doing one stream out of a ballroom to you know, a major corporation across the country or something like that, to say you're doing 40, you know hot HD, real. That's insane.

Chris Leonard: 51:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah, 720p. 59.94 paths leaving site back to Bristol. Wow, and then one of the things that I came up with two years ago. We started it where we have what's called a tally matrix. So if you ever look at a camera, when the little red light comes on, yep, all right, everyone knows the red light on the camera means that it's, that's what's on. Well, the switcher is usually what creates that closure to make the little red light come on. So we have boxes in place on site and then a tally matrix in place in Bristol that we connect via secure VPN line and we still get all the same tally lights. When the switcher in Bristol pushes camera one, camera one's light comes on. We had a few extra spigots on our tally boxes, so I came up with this thing where if the TD pushes tally 13, it switches TX path 13 between camera 13 or camera 14.

Chris Leonard: 52:54

So for the bullpen camera specifically. So the bullpen cameras come back on a J2K line, which is a compressed fiber, is a compression algorithm that we use for transmission and the ability to switch the, because we have a finite number of those. There's only so many of those paths leaving at your stadium. Well, we needed a few more, but we didn't have them. So what are we gonna use? So I came up with a plan where you push the tally and it triggers a GPI in the truck router which switches one of the transmission paths, and so he can switch between the home and the visit bullpen by just using a tally light on his switcher. And now what he's doing? He uses an aux to control the tally, the tally matrix, to switch between them. But now he has another button that allows him to change his inbound transmission paths.

Kevin Cleary: 53:54

How much of the technology or the ability and bandwidth and all the connections for you guys to be able to do that stuff is predicated on what the venue has versus infrastructure that you guys are doing.

Chris Leonard: 54:06

Who just wants to take that.

Kevin Cleary: 54:07

You bring it all.

Chris Leonard: 54:08

We bring every single thing. The venue provides sometimes power.

Kevin Cleary: 54:15

We typically don't. But is that all just IP and you just need bandwidth, or are you have Some of it?

Chris Leonard: 54:24

So some of it is the first. Like I said, the first 12 paths are all booked fiber via the switch, and so that is our fiber transport back to Bristol in J2K.

Kevin Cleary: 54:41

The other paths Are you just going to an ISP in broadcasting or you actually have, like fiber point to point connection back to Bristol, fiber point to point connections back to Bristol? Okay, that makes more sense than just getting IP bandwidth. Okay, all right.

Chris Leonard: 54:53

But hang on, but that's only the first 12. Okay, all right. The other 31 are IPMC paths. So they are IP paths that are moxed via a switch that we manage on site and that goes back on one cat five cable, the bandwidth, right back to Bristol. So what-. I know it sounds mind bending, but it's it is.

Kevin Cleary: 55:24

And not to mention you're doing more than one game at a time, right? I mean, like would you do in that or Well, I'm this is for Sunday Night Baseball.

Chris Leonard: 55:33

So we this is the largest Remy that's being done. You know, at the company right now, on a regular weekly basis we do a lot of different games. You know path wise where we utilize. You know IPMC paths and J2K paths and we time them. You know back in Bristol, but the there are multiple Remy's happening at the same time depending upon you know what day of the week is on a Saturday. We, you know there's a, there's a good chance. There are no spare empty Remy rooms during college football season. There's only eight rooms working different, eight different games. Because you know it's it's an. It's no matter to think you can use the same room to do the one o'clock game and the four o'clock game.

Kevin Cleary: 56:17

Sure, yeah, that's fair. All right, one more thing on the technical side of the things and then we'll, maybe, you know, work our way home here. What, what would be the major advantages and disadvantages, loosely on the Remy bottle, versus multiple trucks and more people? I mean, to me, the first thing that comes to mind is there's a cost savings, quite frankly, of people traveled in hotels, all those things, but at the expense of what? Right? So like what? What? Maybe some of the you know advantages and disadvantages that you guys kind of weigh out?

Chris Leonard: 56:51

So we weigh out. You know obviously costs being a big factor these days. You know we certainly save a significant amount of money, about 40% off the cost of a of a typical Sunday baseball doing it the way we're doing with a Remy fashion. One of the downfalls, I'd say, one of the challenges, is for the director. He has to take a beat before he cuts cameras because there is delay, there is it's not a lot.

Chris Leonard: 57:23

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not, it's not like a second, it's less than that, it's sub, you know, it's sub a quarter of a second, but it's still enough to just be, you know, on the edge where you have to really give your. You know you can't be cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. You have to. You know, cut, cut, you have to be very you know.

Chris Leonard: 57:43

So it takes a different cadence than a live if you're on site, you know director show, but but it's, you know, honestly, it's for me I think we've we've slayed the dragon when it comes to you know what we can do as far as remote integrations and and having people in different places doing the same thing. Yeah, the other side is we're very reliant on fiber paths, and you know, and the internet. Well, it's obviously point to point, you know and you know. But we're very reliant on infrastructure for that. So at some point, you know, we could find ourselves in a position where we have, you know, a challenge is, I don't have a director on site, I don't have a TD on site, so that makes sense.

Kevin Cleary: 58:44

So you know, looking ahead and I'm sure there are NDAs involved here that you can't actually expand upon. But that aside, what excites you most about the future technology and its role in sports broadcasting and you know how do you think it will shape the way we experience sports.

Chris Leonard: 59:03

So I think what technology is doing now and obviously AI is still in its infancy, you know, certainly when it comes to broadcasting, I think some of the intuitive stuff that it brings to the table is going to be a big step, you know, towards getting more access.

Chris Leonard: 59:27

And you know the ability to do smaller cameras in more places. And, as we, you know, it's hard to tell where the traditional sports model goes, whether it's, you know, a bunch of people sitting in a room and then different, you know, not even at the stadium anymore, but it's, you know. I see the connectivity being part of, you know, part of the thing that we have to really manage, you know, as far as not getting too far ahead of ourselves, you know, I say a lot of times it's the second mouse that gets the cheese, because obviously the first mouse doesn't do well. So I think we have to take some of the challenges that we face. We can solve a lot of these things with technology, but I don't think we need to rush it. I think we need to be smart in the application. You know, and there's certain you know, just because you can doesn't mean you should, kind of thing.

Kevin Cleary: 1:00:36

Yes.

Chris Leonard: 1:00:37

You know, and I think you know, because I think there's a certain level of coverage that every fan expects and, as things, if you've ever seen a some of these school productions, I can tell you that I don't I think some of them miss the mark, and so you know, whether that impacts a larger show or some of the larger shows, like I do, you know, I think we have to be very diligent and very careful, like we didn't just decide to willy-nilly do a 43 path for Emmy.

Chris Leonard: 1:01:09

We you know this took, you know this took, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know. And I still keep my finger pretty tight on the pulse of it. And so, you know, I think, as we expand some of these properties and, like I said, ai can certainly help, you know, alleviate some of the some of the noise and make things a little bit more homogenous. But I think we have to be careful, you know, in our implementation to make sure we're not going too fast.

Kevin Cleary: 1:01:38

No, that's no. That makes total sense. I'd be curious is there and maybe you don't want to give this away, because you're not trying to give away secrets, but is there something you've wanted to do, maybe for a particular sport? All right, let's put it this way Is there an emotion that you know you're trying to capture or invoke, that you haven't been able to get, that you're trying to achieve?

Chris Leonard: 1:02:03

Oh, that's a good one, I think. You know. Honestly, I think this I would love to hear the folks on a soccer pitch and what their actually you know their interactions are. Soccer is one of those sports where you hear a lot of crowd. You occasionally hear a corner kick. Other than that, it's just dead air. It's just crowd noise.

Kevin Cleary: 1:02:32

It's just no real. The parabolic doesn't work there like it works in the NFL. Why not?

Chris Leonard: 1:02:37

It's so loud the stadium. It did soccer, soccer stadiums. I mean, I was in. I did the El Clasico back in March and in Barcelona and when Barcelona scored, I was in the truck and the truck's outside the state. We weren't even underneath, we were literally on the outside of the stadium. When Barcelona scored to win the game, the truck was shaking like moving, like this it was. There was a little literal earthquake going on. That's how loud it was. It was crazy.

Chris Leonard: 1:03:09

But I think you know, hearing folks on a soccer pitch, you know, is one thing we've not heard. Now, I'll say, during the pandemic we did the MLS's back tournament, which is, I mean, it was, they were back before anybody else was back for sure, and with no fans in the stands and nothing but, you know, quiet out there. We got some great sounds. You know we were able to bury some mics, we were able to do some cool stuff and get some more sound, you know, out of it. But it's still not the same, as I mean I would put a mic on every player out there and just have one dedicated sound mixer, just bury it and then I'd record stuff. I would, you know, if I had access to that. That would be, that would be cool. I mean, that's the one kind of thing you never, you never expect, right, you never hear what anyone says on a soccer pitch.

Kevin Cleary: 1:04:12

No, that's an interesting perspective that would be fun to come to light, especially. I mean the World Cup, in terms of from a world stage perspective, is one of the largest sporting events in the world. So I mean to be able to make an effectual change globally with you know that would be pretty cool, I for sure.

Chris Leonard: 1:04:31

Yeah, no, I mean, listen the guys that do. You know I'm friends with most of the folks in the industry. I think Nuno does a great job capturing and he's been championing Dolby Atmos for years at soccer, for both the Olympics and for, you know, for World Cup. But you know the reality of it is, I think that you know, I don't know that more crowd or more space gives me the sound I'm looking for. I don't, I mean the flyover's cool, I'll be honest. You know we had the Atmos at the national championship and we, you know the flyover sounds cool as hell, but you know it doesn't immerse me like I would hope. And you know, for sports I always thought that the cool sound happens kind of underneath the screen, not above the screen. So if you're looking at a screen and you're watching people play, it feels like me, like the cool sound is kind of below the frame, not necessarily up over top, trying to encapsulate me in some arena-type feeling.

Kevin Cleary: 1:05:51

Wow, that's interesting. If you start to just visually walk through each sport, I can see that and hear that for certain. Everything from tires to hooves to sneakers, to ice, to Football players to. Yeah, that's interesting.

Chris Leonard: 1:06:07

To sneaker squeaks on a basketball court.

Kevin Cleary: 1:06:10

Yeah, what's the most memorable event that you've done that you, I know with other people but you were responsible for, you know, going back to serving the fan and invoking emotion and creating emotion, the biggest effect that you know you had on the most memorable moment like that. What was the mecca, the pinnacle of that from your career to date?

Chris Leonard: 1:06:40

I actually have a couple. It's hard to pick your favorite child right. Sure sure I can say that. You know, obviously a blanket statement. You know that the ability to do interviews with players live during MLB has been a game changer not just for me personally, you know, and championing this cause and kind of pioneering it and kind of watching it make its way to other sports golf's doing it now, tennis is doing it now. You know other sports are picking up on it, so that's kind of a cool thing. You know, as a legacy, that kind of feathered in the cap thing.

Chris Leonard: 1:07:18

But you know, emotion-wise, the Special Olympics are always very, very emotional. I can tell you that we did the Invictus games in I forget what year it was, regardless and just watching those athletes. The Invictus games is Prince Harry's, basically Olympics for wounded military servicemen, okay, and if you get a chance you should look it up. It's really cool. But I could tell you that you know that was emotional and, like I said, I'm not a sports fan really, but I could tell you that the most emotional I've ever gotten in a TV truck was we were doing a wheelchair race and I'll probably screw up which one it was, but it was one of the longer ones and they have different categories, obviously, for people with different limbs that are missing and whatnot.

Chris Leonard: 1:08:21

And so the guy from, I'll say, new Zealand but it could have been a different team, didn't really matter came around the final turn and he was spent. You could just see it, he was. You know, he didn't have enough to get to the finish line and the pack was catching him. He was way ahead but the pack was catching him. He's probably maybe 15 feet from the finish line and he'd almost come to a complete stop. And we were like, oh man, they're gonna catch him. You know he's not gonna win. And the guy leading the pack in second place saw this, veered over into his lane, rammed him from behind, it was amazing it was

Chris Leonard: 1:09:15

just pushed him over the finish line first. It was like I said, I get choked up thinking about it. It was the most emotional thing I've ever seen, really was it was incredible. So that's the competition. You know where you have a motion that kind of supersedes any. You know competition. You know he was probably 15 feet from finishing and he would have been. He would have just come to a stop and they would have gone right by him. And then any other sport that probably would have happened. You know the pack would have gone right by him. And now here not here, not here. Like I said, he the guy in second place saw it purposely turned behind him, hit him from behind to push him over the finish line in front of him. It was like I said, it was emotional. It was probably the coolest thing I've ever seen in sports.

Kevin Cleary: 1:10:15

That's so cool. Yeah, I can only imagine experiencing that. That's awesome.

Chris Leonard: 1:10:22

Well.

Kevin Cleary: 1:10:23

Kevin, I appreciate you. Others, obviously someone. More avenues we could have gone down. You know we didn't even talk immersive and really AI and things like that. So those we'll save that for episode two.

Chris Leonard: 1:10:34

Yeah part two.

Kevin Cleary: 1:10:37

But I appreciate you hanging out.

Chris Leonard: 1:10:40

Oh no, chris, I appreciate you. I think you're obviously you do a great job at this and I enjoy watching your shows and your podcasts, so I'm sure others do as well. I can't imagine that this isn't a big hit with a lot of folks, though I really appreciate you. Having me on this week has been Niset Memory's Chart Player you.