SPORTS Learning Objective: Recognize  the  unique  require- ments  of  sports  reporting. The sports segment of the nightly news is often the most anticipated segment. This has been proven by countless audience surveys and should be obvious after looking at the demographics of the average military installation. Most military audiences are made up of young  men,  who  are  traditionally  sports  minded. Therefore, it only makes sense to use that demographic fact  to  hook  viewers  into  watching  your  internal communications  program  (the  nightly  news). Since sports is so often the big draw for your nightly newscasts, assigning a reporter to do sports full time is the most effective way to organize the newsroom, if possible.  Even  if  you  only  have  a  three-man  news department, place one the three in charge of all sports stories. A reporter trying to do a sports story cannot possibly understand such things as standings, jargon and team nuances, if sports stories are simply fill-ins when news stories are in short supply. Yes, news will take precedence over sports as far as allotted time during an individual  broadcast,  but  a  news  show  that  consistently covers local sports will attract more of the intended audience  (young  men  and  women)  present  at  most  NBS detachments. Never forget why you are at the NBS detachment  in  the  first  place-to  disseminate  command information to the audience and you cannot do that effectively without first having an audience. To gain and keep an audience, you must give them a reason to tune in and that usually happens by giving them what they want. As you will learn in the next chapter, it is very important for you to read carefully the most current audience  surveys,  especially  since  they  almost  always reveal  requests  for  more  coverage  of  local  sporting events. SHOOTING SPORTS At first glance, shooting sports seems like an easy occupation. All of the action in an average sporting activity should make it easy to get a few good shots. However, it is not what you are trying to accomplish. When you shoot a game, you must keep in mind the story you are shooting will have a beginning, a middle and an ending just like any other story you shoot. Therefore, while you are shooting, think of the editing you will have to do, and shoot in sequences as always. Remember, sports must be more than just scores and standings. It must have broad appeal and to have such appeal, you must ment ion the human factor as the most important in the  sports  stories.  Individual  people  win  the  big  game and the sportscaster should develop the personal angle to show the intensity and emotion of the wins and losses. CATCHING THE PLAY The two main ways to shoot a sporting event with one camera are from up high or down on the field. Shooting from up high makes it easier to follow the action  because  nothing  is  hidden  from  your  view. However,  down  on  the  field  is  where  the  action close-ups come from and the intensity of the sport can be better felt. Taping the big play is always the goal for the sports photographer and the following tips used by various videographers will help your troops accomplish that mission. (For the purposes of this chapter, we used football and baseball as examples, but the techniques are basic enough to conform to virtually any sport.) .  Zoom  in  on  the  key  player,  such  as  the quarterback or the batter, and as he makes his move, zoom back so you can follow the action through the lens. As the action develops, zoom back in either on the ball or the ball carrier and simply follow the action. If you try to “stay tight” and follow the ball, you will most likely lose the ball and miss the action. In baseball, it is almost impossible to seethe ball after it has been hit. You have to zoom out so you can watch the reaction of the batter (notice the direction he is looking) and the other players. This will give you an idea of which way to pan your camera and of when to zoom  in  to  get  a  better  shot  of  the  catch  or dropped  ball. .  Make sure you have a location that enables you to view all the action. Nothing is worse than coming back to the station without the winning home run or final field goal. To get cutaways and reaction  shots,  you  have  to  make  some  good guesses on when a slack time of the game may occur. Perhaps when the poorest hitter comes to plate would be a good time for crowd shots or close-up cutaways of hands rubbing gloves. .  Good locations for baseball are up and behind home plate or just out of bounds by first base. Up and behind home plate will place the action either coming toward you or traveling away from you, instead of across your field of vision. This makes it easier to follow. You can get a lot of closeup infield action by being by first base, and still be relatively safe from most line drives since most 8-36