In Part 2 of my interview with Brad Feldman, the New England Revolution's supervising producer and play-by-play announcer on Comcast SportsNet New England (CSNNE), the veteran broadcaster talks about chemistry in the broadcast booth, his career with the Revolution and new color analyst partner Jeff Causey. Click here for Part 1.
LE: You and Greg Lalas had a rapport in the broadcast booth that made for good entertainment. What made that a good match-up?
Feldman: I think we respected each other’s love and knowledge of the game and intelligence, but we both came at it from different worlds and a very different angle. Temperamentally, we’re different. I’d kid him that he’s a jock pretending to be an intellectual and to him I was an artsy-fartsy film guy pretending to be a jock, but that’s painting to wild extremes. Greg was a very successful player in college and knows the game from the athlete’s side as well as the journalism side and he’s certainly a legitimate journalist and writer in his own right, a guy who’s very literate outside his soccer work. I didn’t have that kind of playing career at all, I didn’t pursue it in that way. I came more from the production and announcing side. What made it good was that we’re different and had different agendas.
He knew how to push my buttons and I knew how to push his buttons. Greg would go to a party in Cambridge and some guy might not know his name, but would say, “You’re one of those guys who gets in arguments during the soccer match, I love that.” Sometimes he’d say something in an aloof way where I’d take umbrage and his girlfriend would text me, “Now you know what I deal with every day.” I think that made for a good rapport, but it’s not anything you can manufacture. Some people didn’t like the conflict. At times I found it very annoying, but I think people felt it made for good chemistry.
LE: Last year you had Jay Heaps as a color analyst and this year you'll have former Reevolution goalkeeper Jeff Causey. What is Causey going to bring special to the broadcast team?
Feldman: Jeff is a bright guy, he’s a guy who’s comfortable in his own skin and a good communicator. I’ve been impressed by his preparation and professionalism already, he’s one of those guys who doesn’t push too hard, but always gets it done. He manages to do a very professional, complete job without straining too much, which is a delicate art whether you’re a professional athlete, a financial services guy or a broadcaster. I think Jeff will know when to be critical. He has a good sense of humor and I was very impressed when he came in to do the test run for us in the offseason, which is one of the reasons we reached out to him for the job. I think he’ll do well.
LE: Does Causey have broadcast experience?
Feldman: Right after he finished playing, for a few years he did a bunch of Revolution radio games with Mike Noonan or Jon Meterperel.
LE: How long has he worked at Citizens Investment Services?
Feldman: He’s been in that business now six or seven years, but as these certain firms go, the business has been bought two or three times. I think it’s changed names, but he’s had the same office and client base, but it hasn’t always been Citizens.
LE: How are you preparing him for the job of color analyst?
Feldman: The team is flying him down to the League broadcasting meetings in Orlando. Every year there’s a two-day seminar for broadcast announcers, producers and directors. They give a lot of video examples and we talk through how to handle situations and there’s a Q&A, give and take, and feedback from people in the business. Also, every season I do a Revolution preseason broadcast summit where we get the announcers, producers and technical people together to talk things through.
[Causey] has been proactive about asking for information, wanted access to the archives for the video analysis service that we have. I wrote him up a primer that I think the color guys should handle even before auditions to give them a guide to take them through the mechanics. It’s about what to say and when to say things. Beyond that, you’ve got to learn on the job. It’s live, so to a degree it’s like playing. Jay Heaps, his first day – he practiced, but the first time he went on the air for a TV show, he said it was faster than MLS, faster than Duke basketball, he didn’t know what hit him. So Causey has to go out there and learn on the job, trial by fire.
LE: You’re worked with the Revolution in broadcasting for 12 years, been the play-by-play guy for eight years and you’re the supervising producer for all Revolution telecasts. How did your career develop?
Feldman: I worked a variety of roles when I first came in as a free lancer in 2001. Adrian Healey was hosting the Internet talk show broadcast five days a week from the old Revolution and Patriots offices in downtown Boston and one day a week he’d have Derek Rae, then Doug Chapman, then me. The Revolution were actually on the leading edge for MLS in terms of digital content.
Then after that they had fill-in opportunities, like musical chairs. Derek Rae would have a conflict, so Jon Meterparel would come up from sideline to fill in on play-by-play with Adrian on color and I would slide in as the sideline guy, which is where I got my first taste of Revolution TV. I probably did 14 or 15 radio games with Butch Sterns. Back then we had separate radio and TV announcing crews and Butch Sterns had a lot of conflicts because of his sports anchoring duties, so that’s when I first starting getting play-by-play work.
The second year I was the color announcer on radio and in 2003, I was the color guy on TV and ended up doing that for two to three years. Then, at the beginning of May 2003, I took on the Revs media relations director job and held that through the 2006 season. While I was doing that, Boston Bureau Productions, owned by the Krafts and later turned into Kraft Sports Productions, had taken over production of the games from Sports Channel New England, and it became clear that as the Patriots programming expanded and Kraft Sports took on most of the production of the Patriots show programming, that there wasn’t really anybody bossing the match for the soccer side. So I continued working on the media relations and communications side.
When Adrian Healey moved to being full time at ESPN international and I moved into the play-by-play chair, I started overseeing the production of the telecast as well. In those days, I was director of communications and soccer broadcasting. I was also doing 40 days of the year for ESPN international and a few matches a season for Fox Soccer Channel, so I was wearing three different hats and even doing some Patriots stuff in those days, so I didn’t see very much of my wife and daughter for a couple years.
Now, as supervising producer working alongside the people at Kraft Sports Productions, I make sure the TV transmission trucks show up on time, the crew is booked, and I run the weekly conference call before a match telecast where we would discuss the content and focus. We have a collaborative approach as the producer and color announcer. [My job] is everything from the high level content stuff, to making sure that the facilities are taken care of, to packing the bag that goes on the team flight, to make sure that we have all the computer disks and videotapes of last week’s highlights and the video that we need for the halftime feature and the opening segment. All that takes planning and anticipation. At various turns I’ve been involved in broadcast rights negotiations. I’ve planned preseason trips, but don’t do that anymore. With the old coaching staff I used to help out a lot with the video scouting side of things.
But now, my job is basically announcing the games and making sure that everything from the budget to the content to the truck, crew and transmission is accounted for and making sure that it all runs smoothly on game day.
Click here to read Part 1 of my interview with Brad Feldman.
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