As it is every year, it was one of the most anticipated days of the year.
Krzyzewskiville was rocking all day in anticipation of the matchup between No. 1 Duke and No. 13 North Carolina.
In three production trucks located on the concourse of Wallace Wade Stadium, hundreds of people were at work making ESPNU Full Circle-a multi-platform broadcast using multiple ESPN entities-come to life.
As stressful as the maiden voyage of ESPN's all-encompassing broadcast would seem to be to an outsider, it's all part of a day's-or week's-work for an ESPN employee.
"It's what we do," said Barry Sacks, senior coordinating producer. "I'm sure it's hard and I'm sure it's a lot harder looking at it, but we're in a routine. This is week seven."
Sacks, who is in charge of the Gameday pregame and postgame shows, emphasized that everyone who works on the show loves to immerse themselves in college basketball. Without that passion, it would be impossible to work the long hours that they do, he said.
As soon as Rece Davis, Digger Phelps and Jay Bilas step off the set, they are in the production truck, meeting with producers and watching every major game, deciding what should be featured on the rest of the day's shows.
"Digger's in there watching Notre Dame. We were all glued to the end of the GW game," Sacks said. "We're college basketball, Saturday is a college basketball day."
The secret to the ease of the broadcast is the delegation of responsibility. Sacks is responsible for piecing together Gameday and prepping his on-air talent. With or without Full Circle, he and his crew would be running their operation in the same way, Sacks said.
What also helps is the work environment. With tents, chanting students and blue skies in the background, K-ville seemed to be the perfect place to host the show.
"The energy of the crowd is, at the end of the day, going to raise the energy of your show," Sacks said. "There was a good crowd out there. They were loud, the pep band was there and they were good. They had a lot of fun with Jay and Digger."
And the production of the game broadcast works in exactly the same way. Dan Steir, a coordinating producer for ESPN, treats this game like any other. To him, what makes it different is the physical constraints of Cameron Indoor Stadium.
"This is an unbelievable facility, but there are limitations," Steir said. "If this was an NBA arena, we'd have three separate trucks, three separate groups of equipment and there would be much easier broadcasts."
He added that camera location in Duke's famous arena is less than desirable, noting that an NBA game of this magnitude would feature up to 30 cameras whereas this game used 13.
Neither of the producers, however, diminished the pressure added by the importance of this storied rivalry.
"It's definitely not just another game," Sacks said. "Duke-Carolina is certainly special.... We're glad that Carolina lived up to what they hoped they would. We've been talking about the Full Circle thing since well before the season started. One of the first meetings we said, what if Carolina is 2-20? Thankfully, they're not."
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