By Wendell Barnhouse | wendell@big12sports.com
Big 12 Sports.com Correspondent For the 80,000 or so fans, players, coaches, band members and spirit squads - the Dr Pepper Big 12 Football Championship involves perhaps four or five hours.
To the Big 12 Conference staff, it's the culmination of nearly a year of work.
"What it amounts to is a traveling bowl game," Donnie Duncan said.
Duncan, the Big 12's former senior associate commissioner and current director of the football championship has been there since year one in 1996, when the TWA Dome in St. Louis was the site of the Conference's first championship contest.
Starting from scratch, a newly-formed conference staged its first championship game, ending nearly a year's worth of meticulous planning.
"It was extremely time-consuming and there was a high level of stress," said Duncan, a former football coach at Iowa State and athletic director at Oklahoma. "It was a happy relief. It was like winning a big game. There was also a level of satisfaction because you know it's an event that becomes a great memory for the student-athletes who get a chance to participate."
The 13 Dr Pepper Big 12 Football Championships have been played in five different stadiums and cities. Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium has hosted the most title games (five). No. 14 will be at yet another new venue - the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
But no matter the city or the stadium, each year the Big 12 staff spends countless hours making sure all the details are taken care of. A 38-page championship manual is the playbook and it has been honed and refined so it would be the envy of any coach. But the best-conceived plays still need flawless execution to succeed.
"You can get a thousand things to go right but if something goes wrong, no matter how minor, it can ruin the experience for someone or a lot of people," Duncan said.
Here's a look at some of the behind-the-scenes work that takes place to ensure that the Dr Pepper Big 12 Football Championship is a memorable experience for everyone.
Tickets
One of the more complicated and time-consuming tasks involves tickets. Each year, the process can take up to nine months.
For each championship game, the tickets come first. A timeline is mapped out that details when prices are set and when the tickets are printed.
Several staff members oversee the design and production of the tickets. Before any can be printed, though, the prices must be determined. Each stadium and each host city brings a different pricing structure.
The Conference works with the host to create a price structure that is comparable to other championship years or other college events that the facility may have hosted. The host entity creates a marketing plan to pre-sell tickets to the local market prior to making tickets available to the general public. This allows the game to create a good fan base in each host city.
Design of the school allotment tickets begins in late spring, with a deadline of getting the artwork to the printer by July. All other tickets are printed via the Ticketmaster system.
For instance, in 2008 at Arrowhead Stadium there were four levels of ticket prices. At the Cowboys Stadium this year, there are five ticket prices. Deciding which sections had what prices required months of discussions. In addition, Cowboys Stadium didn't have its first football game until August, which also complicated the process.
The two schools in the game receive up to 12,000 tickets each and distribution of those tickets waits until the schools qualify for the championship game. Those are valuable pieces of card stock and making sure they are securely delivered is crucial. In some instances, a staff member has driven halfway to one of the participating schools to personally hand over the ticket allotment.
The marketing of championship game ticket sales initially is handled by the host organization (in this year's case, the Dallas Cowboys). After the host institution completes its "pre-sale" of game tickets, the Big 12 takes control of tickets available to the general public.
The Conference markets ticket sales through its Web site (Big12Sports.com) as well as through spots on FSN telecasts of Big 12 games. The Big 12 also uses an e-mail blast that reaches over 2,000 recipients, contacts its eight corporate partners and works through the 12 member schools asking them to publicize ticket sales on their radio broadcasts, in-stadium public address announcements and video boards.
Game Officials
It's the Big 12 Championship Game, but it's also an all-star officiating crew. A season-long process that starts to gain steam in November is the selection of the best officials that work Big 12 games. The best referee, umpire, linesman, line judge, side judge, field judge, back judge and replay official are selected.
The job of choosing the officials falls to Big 12 Coordinator of Football Officials Walt Anderson. He evaluates each week during the season and as the year winds down, starts to narrow the candidates. The officiating crew for the championship game is finalized in the week prior, with the approval of Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe and Assistant Commissioner Ed Stewart.
The officials arrive on site two days before the game to start their preparations. They review officiating points of emphasis and discuss any unique aspects regarding the style of play of the two teams in the contest.
The officiating crew is housed at a hotel separate from the teams and the media. On the day of the game, they are transported to and from the stadium. At the venue, the officiating crew has a police/security escort. Typically, they arrive four to five hours before kickoff and do a walk-through on the field, test the communication system with the replay booth and the referee microphone that is hooked up to the public address system.
Timing
The Big 12 Championship game will air on ABC. The network has planned for the kickoff to take place at 7:13 p.m. CT. Hitting that mark requires a minute-by-minute road map for the teams, bands, cheerleaders and the network.
The timing sheet starts 60 minutes before kickoff at which time the stadium clock starts its countdown. ABC can request a maximum five minute "hold" before the game clock starts (if earlier games have run long and could overlap with the start of the Big 12 title contest).
If ABC wishes to use the five-minute hold, it informs the Conference office prior to the countdown of that 60-minute clock. This way, Conference officials can notify both teams and coaches and the players can adjust their ramp up to kickoff.
The typical timing sheet gets busier 30 minutes after the clock begins. At that time, both teams must clear the field to allow the band/cheerleaders from each school seven minutes to perform.
They are followed by the color guard, which is scheduled to be at the 50-yard line three minutes before the top of the hour. The National Anthem is scheduled from 6:58 to 7:00, to avoid the announcers talking at the start of the game. One of the cardinal sins in television is: "Do not come on the air during the national anthem."
Once ABC is live, all that's left is for both teams to take the field. The visiting team gets its cue and takes the field and one minute later the home team gets clearance. Two minutes after the home team is out, the coin flip takes place and another two minutes later, at 7:13 p.m. CT, toe meets leather for the opening kickoff.
In Progress And Postgame
Think of the championship game itself as a wedding with a postgame "reception." To make sure both events come off without a hitch requires what any big wedding has - a rehearsal.
On Friday, the Big 12 staff does two walk-throughs to rehearse and review on-field presentations during the contest and the postgame celebration procedures.
This year's game at Cowboys Stadium presents a challenge of the most cutting edge electronic signage ever available to the Big 12. The stadium's over-the-field video board has become an instant sensation for its size (159 feet by 71 feet) and high definition.
While television viewers of the game see commercials, fans in the stadium can direct their attention to the video board.
Each of the Big 12's eight corporate sponsors is guaranteed one in-game "commercial." Often the corporate partner will create an interactive spot - a helmet shuffle, a car race, a kiss-cam or dance-cam, for example - that captures the fans' attention more than a typical television commercial.
There are 14 scheduled ABC commercial breaks during the game. In addition to the spots for the corporate sponsors, the Conference can use those breaks to celebrate all things Big 12 - football award winners, highlights of the season, flashbacks to previous championship games and much more.
There are two on-field presentations during the first quarter. One honors the Special Olympians of the year (Special Olympics is the Big 12 official charity) and the Big 12 male and female sports persons of the year from the 2008-09 season. At halftime, the Dr Pepper Throw For Scholarship Dough features two contestants competing for $123,000 in scholarship money.
Preparing for the postgame celebration also requires a rehearsal. With the help of the stadium's director of security and director of operations, the postgame drill needs to be completed quickly.
From the time the game ends, the elements for the celebration must be made ready in five minutes or less. Workers using ropes establish a secure perimeter on the field, usually near the winning team's bench. A platform for the trophy presentation must be assembled and those who need to be are admitted inside the secured perimeter. All of that gets a dry run on Friday.
Other pregame aspects for the postgame celebration include designating about half a dozen volunteers to help distribute championship t-shirts and caps to the winning student-athletes, preparing the "Live Your Dreams" music video (highlights of the Big 12 season with championship game highlights that will be added during and immediately after the game) and making sure the championship trophy is in place to be presented to the winning team.
Television Network
The championship game is televised by ABC/ESPN, which is one of the Big 12's television partners. For the network, the game requires its weekly routine similar to a circus coming to town and setting up for one big performance.
Three to four days before the title contest, the rigging starts to enable the Skycam to swoop over the field to provide the kind of shots that are familiar to fans in 2009. The production trucks arrive Friday morning and are parked and powered. The eight fixed cameras are positioned. In addition to the Skycam, four hand-held cameras, two robotic cams and one camera in a blimp over the stadium are utilized for the telecast.
Also on Friday, the announce crew will meet with the coaches, select players and media relations personnel from each team to gather insights and tidbits that can be used during the telecast. Also, any video vignettes that will be used during the game are recorded and edited in the production truck.
In the hours before the game telecast, the camera crew meets to review assignments while graphics are checked for accuracy. The announcers rehearse their live opening and provide on-site pre-game reports that will air on the ABC/ESPN family of networks.
All of this requires more than 100 people - approximately 25 on the production side (including announcers), plus about 75 or so on the technical crew.
Radio Networks
The Big 12's national contract is with ESPN Radio but the agreement allows the Conference to protect its local markets.
For instance, in the case of a championship game between Nebraska and a school from Texas, the ESPN Radio broadcast of the game would be blacked out in those states so that the schools' regular radio networks could carry the game without competition.
The rule also applies to Internet broadcasts and to any agreements the schools have to carry their broadcasts on satellite radio.
Volunteers
Servicing the needs of the hundreds of media - print, television, radio - in attendance in the press box requires numerous volunteers.
Their jobs range from distributing statistics during and after the game, holding microphones during post-game news conferences, gathering quotes and helping to distribute credentials. Volunteers also help with sideline security on the field, making sure photographers don't infringe on the bench areas.
For this year's game in Arlington, employees from Big 12 schools were asked to help. In addition, staff members from the local Dallas-Fort Worth Football Bowl Subdivision schools, such as SMU, TCU and North Texas, were contacted. The Cotton Bowl, one of the Big 12 bowl partners, also has a list of volunteers for its annual game and several of those people will be there to provide valuable assistance.
The Days After
Once the championship trophy has been presented, the interviews concluded and the stadium has emptied, the Big 12 staff turns its attention to bowl assignments that are determined the day after the championship game. And not long after that, planning starts for the 2011 Dr Pepper Football Championship.