NEWS
NBC Sports wins Media Eclipse Award for Preakness coverage
Posted: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 2:32 PM
NBC Sports won the Media Eclipse Award for National Television—Live Programming on Tuesday for its coverage of the Preakness Stakes (G1).
The May 17 race took place two weeks after Eight Belles’s fatal breakdown in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1).
NBC Sports opened its two-hour telecast with a roundtable discussion featuring co-host Bob Costas, Eight Belles’s trainer Larry Jones, New York Times columnist Bill Rhoden, Larry Bramlage, D.V.M., of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, and NBC racing analyst and Racing Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens.
The program included interviews with National Thoroughbred Racing Association President Alex Waldrop and Big Brown’s trainer Richard Dutrow Jr.
“We felt that it was important to address the Eight Belles issue and its impact on racing before getting to the story of the Preakness,” said Sam Flood, NBC Sports coordinating producer and producer of the Preakness telecast. “It was essential to cover the story from all angles.
The telecast, hosted by Costas and Tom Hammond, featured 28 cameras covering the race, including an overhead camera that captured Big Brown’s visually impressive stretch run.
The telecast was directed by David Michaels while Dick Ebersol and David Neal served as executive producers. Rob Hyland and Bruce Cornblatt produced the roundtable discussion segment. Handicappers Bob Neumeier and Mike Battaglia, analyst Stevens, and reporters Donna Brothers and Kenny Rice contributed to the race broadcast.
The judges were Fox Sports director Pete Macheska, former CBS News “Sunday Morning” executive producer Bud Lamoreaux, and Lasser Productions director Peter Lasser.
