Ben Gilbert

It's that you're hanging out with David and I while we talk about business stories.

It's one of the first examples ever of realizing the power of that.

They went from the four cameras that typically would cover a Sunday broadcast to nine cameras and then eventually up to 17 cameras.

They invented the parabolic microphone coverage that you always see on the sideline, those sort of clear plastic microphones that are aimed at gathering the sound from on the field.

They had 40 engineers.

They had 20 production people.

They invented these split screens so you could watch two cameras concurrently cover the game.

They had on-field interviews, shots of cheerleaders to add a little bit of a sex appeal to the game for the first time.

And they also used green screens, which is so funny to watch some of these early... I guess they didn't have room in the booth, according to the Peyton's Places ESPN video that we watched about this, where...

For the three-man booth, they needed more space than they had in the press box.

So they ended up putting them out in the hallway and built a little custom room to do this in, but the background wasn't good.

So they put in a green screen and then they would put another camera in the press box.

And so they would superimpose that the field was right behind them, but it actually wasn't.

And it's so obvious watching it today.

Yes.

And there was one other really, really big innovation.

And this was a thing that would go on to be the predecessor for ESPN as a network, for SportsCenter as a program.

And it would create billions and billions of dollars of enterprise value.

And that is replays.

Right.