![](//www.4rfv.com/images/no_image.jpg)
Broadcast Audio's A2s Are Key in Sports Production Second-tier' workers perform a wide range of rapidly changing functions By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Friday, December 1, 2023 - 10:58 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The core purpose of the broadcast-sports A1 is to mix the game's audio. The mission of the broadcast-sports A2 is, well, almost everything else. Compared with the A1's highly focused primary task, the A2 is the production's sonic polymath, sometimes specializing in one or more of the category's subspecialties - field A2, RF A2, booth A2, truck A2, comms A2 - smaller cogs in a massive machine that cannot run smoothly without any one of them.
A2 is a broad term that covers more jobs than just putting out mics, says ESPN Remote Operations Specialist Kevin Cleary, succinctly summing up a deceptively compact job title. It's also one that's changing.
New Emphasis on Close-Up Sound If you had asked even a year ago how the requirements for A2s are changing, I would've given you a completely different answer than now, says Jason Knapp, who has plied that trade for nearly 14 years after leaving a job at Microsoft, where he worked for a dozen years directly under Bill Gates on coding projects and consumer-product development. He began his audio career as part of a semi-regular crew led by A1 Joe Carpenter on such productions as Fox Sports' Big Noon Kickoff college-football studio show.
What has changed, Knapp says, is the increased emphasis on personal and close-in sound.
Broadcast-sports productions increasingly demand personal, close-up sound.
A year ago, he explains, I would never have imagined we'd be doing player walk-and-talks for CBS Golf using a Bolero system and Bluetooth, which we rolled out in January last year. I've learned so much about Bluetooth [technology], Bluetooth two-way microphone systems, and the 1.9 [GHz] frequency spectrum. I think we've gone from an A2 having to carry just one piece of equipment to [carrying] a ton of stuff these days, along with much more emphasis on IP and digital. There's no more analog infrastructure; it's all Dante and Hydra and fiber.
A2s also have had to learn a lot, much of it on the fly. Much of the learning comes from the professional web that is the freelance technical community created by the system peculiar to U.S. broadcasting: front-line audio workers are largely self-employed. That has created a pragmatic camaraderie that exchanges technical tips and other information.
It's not He's an ESPN guy or he's a Fox guy,' says Knapp. We're part of the same freelance fraternity. We lean on each other for knowledge. A lot of it is trial and error, but it's also sharing information.
Their Own Knowledge Pool That fluidity allows A2s to move fairly seamlessly among sport genres and networks as well. And that, Knapp emphasizes, benefits the entire industry, with a ready pool of knowledgeable and flexible self-starters helping keep costs down.
A2 Matt Leshner: [Managers] take my [tech] suggestions because no one knows the gear better than the person using it.
They also serve as a kind of cadre of sergeants on shows: highly experienced traveling A2s leading platoons of local A2s through productions. A2 Matt Leshner, who began working sports in his native Washington, DC, right out of college and went into audio because fewer people were choosing that path, works closely with A1 Florian Brown on national ESPN shows, such as US Open tennis and Monday Night Football. He manages the other A2s on many of the shows and opines that a mix of traveling and local A2s is a practical strategy for networks.
Having a local [A2] is always critical to knowing the local facilities, explains Leshner, and having a traveling A2 is necessary to knowing the show and the productions' wants and needs. He oversees the audio setup for seven courts, five announce booths, and three studios for ESPN and Gravity Media at the US Open: There's not an effect mic or a talent mic or RF mic there that I haven't touched on the installation, so I can sign it off.
He notes that the corps of A2s that travel with network-level productions, which he estimates at between 20 and 25 nationally, have become more important in the wake of the pandemic and corporate budget cuts. That, in turn, has put more responsibility on the A2.
You could make a good living back in the day just being a field A2, just putting out the effects mics just for football, he says. Nowadays, the networks aren't looking for that. Now they want a person who can do the booth, who can do the field, who can do RF. The days of doing only one thing are gone. If someone calls out sick or if they want to combine two jobs, you just [offer] one skill set as an A2 anymore.
However, the working paradigm that compels flexibility comes without standardized training to help take on multiple disciplines. A2s are on their own for most of that, and the task is getting harder every year as the shift to IP-based signal routing and processing accelerates. A2s look to manufacturers' training to learn new products and skills, a practice that proliferated during COVID. Leshner singles out Pliant Technologies' CrewCom brand for its weekly Zoom tutorials during the pandemic, adding that he wishes more manufacturers would continue to do that.
Specialized Skills The A2's responsibilities will only become larger as the industry evolves. Like Knapp, Leshner cites the demand for athlete audio as an example, such as precisely how the NBA wants its Q5X Player Mics attached to team members' jerseys.
That's considered a high-skill set because the NBA expects it done a certain way to have the least impact to a player, he explains. Last thing you want to do is affect th
More from Sports Video Group
06/09/2024
NFL Kickoff 2024: Coming Off Super Bowl High, CBS Sports Adds 4K Zoom Tech, AI-D...
06/09/2024
SVG Rewind: Freedom Broadcast Studios Remotely Produces Browns-Seahawks Preseaso...
06/09/2024
NFL Kickoff 2024: FOX Sports Precedes Super Bowl LIX Production With Tantalizing...
06/09/2024
Philip Garvin, Mobile TV Group Founder and Live-Production Titan, Dies at 76 Garvin was a leader and pioneer in the regional-sports-production community By Jas...
06/09/2024
Hero Digital Revamps LPGA.com Website; WSC Sports Powers AI-Created Highlights Initiative builds upon SeatGeek and Legends partnerships aimed at expanding expos...
06/09/2024
Quickplay Promotes Prabu Chelladurai, Hires Sean Lynch and Adam Mitchell to Stre...
06/09/2024
RTL Deutschland boosts coverage for second NFL season on RTL, Nitro and RTL By George Bevir
Friday, September 6, 2024 - 10:13
Print This Story
RTL's ...
06/09/2024
NFL Kickoff 2024: CBS Sports Overhauls Studio 43 for NFL Today'; Renames Fa...
05/09/2024
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Cerberus Tech's Chris Clarke on the Emergence of ...
05/09/2024
Production Tech in Laramie: University of Wyoming Leverages Spalk for Virtual & ...
05/09/2024
Sports Podcasts Score Big: Kelce Brothers' Podcast Is Latest in Series of Bi...
05/09/2024
NFL Kickoff 2024: NBC Sports Starts the Party with Thursday Night Opener; Adds P...
04/09/2024
Live From the US Open: Sky Sports UK Delivers HDR to Viewers, Expands Presence A...
04/09/2024
A Catch-Up on MAM: Media Management Workflows for the Modern Age Execs from the PGA Tour, Riot Games, WBD, FOX Sports & NBA take a look at the current state of ...
04/09/2024
SVG Sit-Down: DAZN's Head of Tennis Sarah Milburn on the Importance of a Goo...
03/09/2024
Paris 2024: Inside WBD's Olympics broadcast operation By George Bevir
Friday, August 30, 2024 - 10:24
Print This Story
Studio 1 at WBD House with a vi...
03/09/2024
Bigger, better, more: How IMG is upping production values for its remote EFL cov...
03/09/2024
At Home and on the Road: The Changing Face of Live Game Production at Regional S...
02/09/2024
Live From the US Open: USTA Makes Leap to HDR; Rights Holders Expand Presence Ac...
02/09/2024
NBC Sports Selects EMG/Gravity Media for NFL's First Game from Brazil Fly-away system features Sony cameras, Canon lenses, Grass Valley router and switcher,...
29/08/2024
An IP-Powered Fall Season: University of Minnesota Brings SMPTE 2110 Control Roo...
29/08/2024
College Football Kickoff 2024: CBS Sports Enters Sophomore Season of Big Ten Foo...
29/08/2024
College Football Kickoff 2024: A New Era Dawns at Big Ten Network as the Confere...
29/08/2024
College Football Kickoff 2024: SEC on ABC Poised to Become Marquee Sports TV Pro...
28/08/2024
Paris 2024: Channel 4 opens new fully accessible remote production facility in W...
28/08/2024
Paris 2024: ISB on how it will bring the Paralympic Opening and Closing Ceremoni...
28/08/2024
Paris 2024: How ARD and ZDF connected the dots to bring the Olympics and next th...
28/08/2024
NBC Olympics Calls Team USA House Home for Paris Studio Coverage of Paralympics 1,500 hours of coverage across 22 sports begins today with Opening Ceremony from...
28/08/2024
MAM-as-a-Brain : An Inside Look at NASCAR's New Cognitive Asset Management&...
28/08/2024
NBC Sports, 3Play Media Enhance Digital Accessibility for Paris 2024 By SVG Staff
Wednesday, August 28, 2024 - 9:59 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Stor...
28/08/2024
Paris 2024: International Paralympic Committee set to bring unprecedented global...
28/08/2024
Paris 2024: YouTube and International Paralympic Committee team up to create the...
28/08/2024
ESPN Adds Interactive Where to Watch Feature to ESPN App, ESPN.com By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Wednesday, August 28, 2024 - 12:46 pm
Print This...
27/08/2024
Live from Dublin: First for Ireland as TG4 broadcasts College Football Classic By Fergal Ringrose
Tuesday, August 27, 2024 - 09:04
Print This Story
Kieran...
27/08/2024
Live from Dublin: ESPN moves goal posts for college football season opener By Fergal Ringrose
Tuesday, August 27, 2024 - 08:51
Print This Story
ESPN aired...
27/08/2024
ESPN Content President Burke Magnus Announces Restructuring; Mike McQuade Named ...
27/08/2024
Hoop History: Inside the First Live Broadcast of the Harlem Globetrotters in 40 ...
27/08/2024
ESPN's 2024 College Football Coverage Takes to the Cloud for Super Slo-Mo Re...
26/08/2024
National Tools Go Regional: Inside MLB Local Media's Increased Use of UmpCam Go behind the scenes with MLBs Kendall Burgess and Doug Johnson By Jason Dachm...
26/08/2024
Former NBC Sports Exec Bob Basch , and Father of the Phrase Breakfast at Wimble...
23/08/2024
Sportico Report: Diamond Sports Group Reaches Deals With NBA, NHL By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Friday, August 23, 2024 - 6:31 pm
Print This Stor...
22/08/2024
Microsoft Azure, Generative AI Are Empowering Cloud-Based Live Sports Production By SVG Staff
Thursday, August 22, 2024 - 7:53 am
Print This Story | Subsc...
22/08/2024
Paris 2024: ISB's Ursula Romero on how OBS' quality control teams made t...
22/08/2024
Paris 2024: Creating the Olympic spirit with ISB's production of the shootin...
22/08/2024
Little League World Series: Sports-TV Legacy Carries On With ESPN Bringing Big-G...
21/08/2024
SVG Sit-Down: Perifery's Abhijit Dey on Meeting M&E's Modern-Day Storage...
21/08/2024
Riot Games Media Managers Ericka Duffy and Ian Owen Explore MAM's Role in Re...
21/08/2024
The Only Constant Is Change: How College Athletic Departments Are Transitioning ...
21/08/2024
Live from the Supercup: Softseed demos world first live 360 10K stream By Adrian Pennington
Tuesday, August 20, 2024 - 09:22
Print This Story
German foot...