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Character study Hard Knocks: HBO, NFL turn to 'reality TV'
NEW YORK (AP) -- Sports are the ultimate reality TV, as NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol liked to say when he was hyping a certain flop of a football venture. So it was only a matter of time until a major pro league and a network combined to offer their sincerest flattery to television's craze du jour. NFL Films, an arm of the league, ventures out to Westminster, Md., this weekend to tape Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Baltimore Ravens, a six-part series that starts airing at 11 p.m. EDT/PDT Wednesday on HBO. A 16-person crew will film more than 700 hours, with nothing off-limits, apparently -- from practices to meetings to team flights to dorm rooms to players heading out at night for some fun. It comes at a time when everyone in TV-land is falling over each other to "get real," including ESPN, which has a reality game show slated for February.
"The Ravens have a lot of characters -- Tony Siragusa, Shannon Sharpe, Ray Lewis, Brian Billick -- so we have a good foundation to work with," HBO Sports executive producer Rick Bernstein said. "It's what we don't know that's going to happen that's going to create the best television. We'll see how it goes. There have been discussions that if it is successful we'll explore the possibility of doing it again, with the NFL or another league." So HBO is trying to draw viewers by adopting a popular approach. And the NFL is getting yet another promotional outlet (as though the sport with consistently the highest TV ratings needed extra publicity). But what's in it for the Super Bowl-champion Ravens? "I was beginning to formulate how to prepare my guys for the rigors of being the defending champions, for the onslaught of attention," said Billick, the Ravens' head coach. "That's when [NFL Films'] Steve Sabol approached me. What better way to anesthetize my guys and make them realize they're going to be scrutinized? "Let them get used to that in training camp. What a great learning environment for them." Billick, who was once a PR man for the 49ers, agreed to the total access -- with one caveat. "There are a few strategic or tactical things, particularly with personnel, that I have control over," he said. "If there's a comment, maybe, about a player that we don't want other teams to be privy to, we can get that cut out." And though Billick discussed the project with some of his players, touching on "the value of it and the potential pitfalls," he didn't necessarily ask if they thought it was a good idea. "This is not a democracy," Billick said. "I'm going to do what I think is in the best interest of the team." Training camps never have been about freedom or full media access, anyway, lessons Sabol learned long ago. He took an NFL Films camera to a training camp for the first time more than 30 years ago, hoping to capture head coach Allie Sherman and the New York Giants. It wasn't always a perfect work environment. "Allie would stop practice and say, 'I've got thousands of dollars invested in players here. Get off the field! I don't want someone tripping over a camera chord,'" Sabol recounted. "He would come up to me later and apologize. 'The next day, I'd start filming, and he'd stop practice and throw me off the field again."
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