The 12th Man TV Crew: Creating Amazing Work While Learning ‘The ESPN Way’
No one knows the fate of the 2014 Texas A&M football team, but one thing is for sure: the Aggies’ TV crew is ready for prime time.
Texas A&M’s team behind the team is the 12th Man Productions, a talented group that has been working non-stop for months getting ready for the upcoming season. The 70-plus crew members include 60 student workers who are getting some real-world experience of a lifetime.
The 12th Man studios, built at just under $12 million from donations from the 12th Man Foundation, are located in the southwest corner of Kyle Field in facilities that would make an HBO or Warner Brothers envious.
“We believe the 12th Man Productions will be as good as there is in the Southeastern Conference,” says Jason Cook, senior associate athletics director for external affairs.
“We have done our homework and come up with facilities that are second to none. We have three control rooms, six editing bays, two studios and the best equipment available. This puts us in a leadership position among the other SEC schools and how they operate within the SEC Network and its operating partner, ESPN.
“There is no doubt that our production model is among the best in the SEC.”
It takes a big crew because the just-launched SEC Network has big plans – it will deliver more than 1,000 SEC sporting events during the next year from the league’s 14 member schools.
That will include 45 SEC football games, at least 100 men’s basketball games, 60 women’s basketball games, 75 baseball games and other events 24/7 from the 21 sports involved in SEC competition.
It also means broadcasting from at least 96 different sporting venues that will relay signals to Charlotte, N.C., where the main production facility is located.
To date, the SEC Network will reach about 92 million households around the country, meaning the obvious. “It means Texas A&M will have unprecedented visibility in the school’s 138-year history and the 12th Man will be seen nationally like never before,” Cook explains.
What might make Texas A&M’s production crew unique is the emphasis placed on student workers. From the start, it was agreed by all that students would be the glue that held the entire project together.
“We wanted this to be a place where students could work and learn and get the very best real-world experience possible and this could be a springboard for future career opportunities,” Cook adds.
“We had hundreds of applicants and narrowed the list down to 60 that we hired. They will produce shows of the highest quality, which are required – they have to be the very best.”
That means doing things in what has become known as “the ESPN way.” It’s a phrase that is uttered countless times each day by everyone involved with 12th Man Productions.
“If you had to define the ‘ESPN way,’ it simply means the highest quality and nothing less,” says Andy Richardson, now in his 23rd year of TV work for Texas A&M and director of the 12thMan Productions.
“They (ESPN) demand the very best quality, period. That’s why they are the leaders in sports broadcasting. So we are constantly asking ourselves, ‘is this the best and is this the ESPN way?”
Haley Graves, a junior from New Braunfels, is now in her third year of working for Richardson and she says the experience has been life-changing.
“The students at Texas A&M have an extraordinary chance to be successful because of the SEC Network,” she notes.
“I will give you an example. I was given the challenge of working a new machine to do graphics work called Xpression, which is state-of-the-art and something that very few schools have. I learned Xpression to the best of my ability and because of that, I was able to work two FOX Sports Southwest basketball games and also a baseball game. Later, I worked the very first ESPN student-run broadcast of an Ole Miss series in baseball.
“I will be blessed to have a resume filled with such options upon graduation because of what I learned here as a student worker. The addition of the SEC Network will continue to flood Texas A&M students with real-world opportunities of sports broadcasting.”
Adds Casey Atnip, a senior from Lake Jackson, “I’ve worked as a camera operator and other duties for three years and I can honestly say that I am getting experience that very few students at other schools will ever have, and not just in one field. I’m learning the production roles, the news duties, broadcasting, all sorts of things.
“We’ve learned that ‘the ESPN way’ is almost a code of conduct. If you do things the right way, you will become the best. That’s what is happening here.”
