Bus drives SportsCenter to all sorts of sports

“When Mike McQuade (VP, SportsCenter) returned to SportsCenter, he had the vision to get the show back on the road,” said coordinating producer Jonathan Whyley.

The “SportsCenter on the Road” bus debuted today in Tampa, Fla., with live reports from host Karl Ravech, analyst Curt Schilling and reporter Buster Olney at the New York Yankees Spring Training complex. The bus is dedicated to providing a SportsCenter presence at sports’ biggest events and newsworthy happenings throughout the year.

For more on ESPN’s Spring Training plans, visit ESPN Media Zone.

Whyley said, “It’s more than a satellite bus — it’s a moving studio. We can produce TV on the run. It’s evolved over the years, from doing three-minute talkbacks to three-hour shows.”

A monitor wall and a seating arrangement similar to what they’d have in a production control room is incorporated into the bus’s layout.

Since September, the bus has beenconfigured to make it more comfortable for producers and directors.

“The original goal was to drive to a campus, get a coach on, do a talkback, and away we’d go,” Whyley said of the original DIRECTV bus. “In the second year, we started to grow it from there – providing more hits, doing more and more and doing things outside the bus.”

“The bus can do so much for the company, the idea was to show all it could do, and sell it to other show groups,” said Whyley, who came up with the proposal.