NJIT Alum Ryan Brown Kicks Off Super Bowl LV with the CBS Sports Team
If you were one of the 96.4 million viewers of this year’s Super Bowl LV, chances are you were watching the work of NJIT alum Ryan Brown flash across your TV screen all night without realizing it.
Since leaving NJIT with a Communications and Media B.A. degree, Brown ’15 has moved into the position of graphics operator with CBS Sports, heading up the production crew responsible for the flurry of slick fonts, statistics and other graphical information that fans see accompanying nationally televised sporting events from the NFL, NCAA and more.
That includes two Super Bowl appearances since he started in his current role in 2017.
“One of the great things about my time at NJIT and being close to the city was that I was able to take an opportunity with CBS full-time before I even graduated,” said Brown. “Since then, in my career there’s definitely been stressful moments where we are under the gun to deliver content quickly at these big events. But for a diehard sports fan like myself, it doesn’t get much better than what I’m doing now.”
This past Super Bowl Sunday, Brown animated over 100 graphics that aired throughout CBS's pregame, halftime and postgame coverage.
Everything from this year’s pre-game “Countdown to Kickoff” clock, to the timely bullet-point bios that pop up under announcers and star players on screen, the halftime statistical breakdowns detailing such things as the Chief’s penalty miscues, and the inevitable Tom Brady playoff resume graphics after the game — Brown had a hand in all of it from inside CBS’s production truck just outside the stadium.
“A normal game is about one hour of airtime for us, but for the Super Bowl we’re looking at a four-hour pre-game show alone,” said Brown. “The production is on the biggest stage you can think of from a broadcasting point of view, so there’s way more prep work to really dig into storylines and stats for these two teams to make the content and visuals interesting throughout the night.”
What does it take to produce the most-watched sporting event in the country?
For the fans, the big game may last several hours from all the pre-game festivities to finish. For Brown, it started in Tampa eight days before gameday, prepping non-stop from his truck in the CBS Sports Compound.
“That week I was in the production truck for 10 hours a day just preparing hundreds of graphics, most we didn’t even get the chance to use but I needed them just in case,” said Brown. “When we are on air on gameday, I’ll constantly be going through our catalogue of lower-third graphics and fonts and need to call things up rapidly to match video and field shots that are being rolled in from our tape machines.
“I’m always hearing chatter and cues from producers, directors and talent coming in through the headset, and you just never know when you’ll get that shot of Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes walking on the field for the first time, or what certain players might do in the game and who needs to be spotlighted … we have to be ready for anything.”
And it was extra duty for Brown this year. Due to Covid-19 protocols, he was the only graphics operator from his studio crew working on-site, requiring him to work two graphics machines and four output channels — double his normal workload.
“Normally we’d have three machines on site with their own operators. It was an adjustment to have my eyes on top of double the outputs while having to make some quick calls on animating graphics,” Brown said.
Brown didn’t get much rest after Super Bowl Sunday, quickly switching over to cover the NCAA basketball calendar and he says he’s keeping tabs on the Highlander’s season ahead.
His advice to aspiring sports media pros?
“At NJIT, I remember taking professor Funkhouser’s ‘Composing Documents for Print’ course, which first gave me an eye for details like spacing in designing graphics that are digestible. My biggest piece of advice is to pay attention to those types of little things while watching live TV. Don’t just read the graphics on the screen but pay attention to details such as when they are animated in and out. The earlier you can notice these details the better.”
For now, Brown hopes the graphics he produces at his next Super Bowl will be centered around a different star quarterback.
“As a Jets fan, I can’t get away from Brady,” Brown joked. “The last Super Bowl CBS produced was Super Bowl LIV down in Atlanta, and I was making similar content for him back then too.”
