The madness of March is here, and Champ Week Presented by Principal rolls on across ESPN platforms with men’s and women’s action counting down the time until Selection Sunday. The play on the court is only a glimpse of the work that goes into these conference tournament weeks.
Sr. Managing Producer Esther van Huystee explores the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the official Champ Week shoot viewers see throughout the thrilling two-week start to postseason play.
The Champ Week shoot is one you look forward to each year. What makes it so special?
The college basketball creative team is always looking for ways to elevate our presentation, especially for Champ Week. Our team has been industrious about using in-house and creative talent to achieve that goal.
For the last two seasons, the college basketball production team – led by Associate Producer Fidelis Lusompa – has worked with the studio operations team, specifically Sr. Studio Operator Josh Theriault and Studio Operator Lenaya Price, to produce a special Champ Week toolkit.
The teams work together to utilize the big screen in Studio C, along with the high-energy animations courtesy of Supervising Effects Artists Jay Fiedler and Tom Beers from the Creative Services design operations team. In addition to the big screen, the teams also incorporated lots of props to elevate the look. Anything from backboards to pom-poms to confetti cannons were fair game… they even featured “extras” for the shoot – the college basketball team’s own production assistants took to the stage.
Another special aspect of this shoot is the two bedazzled basketballs, decked out with the ESPN and Champ Week logos on them. They’ve truly become the stars of the college basketball Champ Week look. These basketballs also hit the road traveling to a number of the tournaments – they are a big hit with both fans and our commentators!
Each year you look to upgrade this shoot. What can viewers expect to see from the 2025 edition?
With the cooperation of four of our conference partners, we were able to borrow each of their conference championship trophies for a glam shoot. The ACC, American, Big 12 and SEC trophies all came to Bristol the week before game action tipped off.
The directing, production development, creative services concept design and CCU [Creative Content Unit] departments were all involved and luckily, have all previously shot with the Stanley Cup and the College Football Playoff trophy. We pulled out all the stops to make this shoot special – glitzy lighting, turntables, robotic cameras and gold confetti projected on the screen. The trophies were ready for their closeup! Associate Producer Melissa Rule (college basketball creative team) worked with all the departments to capture the amazing, versatile footage.
Where can fans expect to see this specialty footage?
The footage from both shoots have been delivered to all the game crews for live integration. It is being used in high end edits all through Champ Week, so keep your eyes peeled during the hundreds of hours of Champ Week madness to see the hard work come to life!
