{"id":1769,"date":"2023-07-31T15:20:44","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T19:20:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/?post_type=inductees&p=1769"},"modified":"2024-01-10T16:46:00","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T21:46:00","slug":"tom-fletcher","status":"publish","type":"inductees","link":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/inductees\/tom-fletcher\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Fletcher"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer\u00a0Tom Fletcher<\/strong>\u00a0and his father,\u00a0Archie<\/strong>, started Fletcher Chicago in 1987, having a big impact on sports production around the globe was most likely not on the to-do list. But the then-fledgling company made a ton of right moves in those early days, making the right hires (like\u00a0Dan Grainge, Ed Andrzejewski\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Jonathan Stein<\/strong>), building the right relationships with networks and leagues, and understanding how to put new camera systems into new locations to capture sports events in completely new ways.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are many angles of coverage that you are familiar with that, before Fletcher, did not exist. Take the now ubiquitous camera position in NBA and big-time college basketball coverage of \u201cAbove the Rim\u201d (on top of the shot clock) or remote controlled \u201c Slam Cam\u201d (behind the glass). It\u2019s come a long way since those early days in the 1991 NBA Finals with a full sized Hot Head or 1994 NBA All-Star game when the camera was an industrial security camera that required two people (Tom and Dan) to operate it. Fletcher says many camera positions were inspired by the iconic Sports Illustrated still photographers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to create cameras that were more impactful and more necessary in the game,\u201d says Fletcher. \u201cThe shots that really drove us to the next level were putting a remote-controlled camera behind the backboard for NBA on NBC director Andy Rosenberg.\u201d<\/p>\n

Operating the cameras back then was a two-person job, with Grainge handling the pan and tilt while Fletcher operated a separate device that controlled zoom in (one button), zoom out (another button) and focus (two additional buttons).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was designed for security guards not to cover guards,\u201d Fletcher loves to say.\u00a0 The team at Fletcher\u00a0 pushed manufacturers to build small more professional tools.<\/p>\n

And then there is Fletcher\u2019s favorite sport: hockey. Watch any NHL game today and you will see literally decades worth of innovations on-air that were developed by Fletcher Chicago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had the idea for a goal judge camera when they used to have a physical goal judge cage in Los Angeles,\u201d he says. \u201cThey had a still camera located up behind the net above the glass and looking down on the net and the slot area. I asked if we could put a camera there because the technology was still a full-sized hothead. We tested it, and it became a staple shot that they just take on power plays, and just became a go-to angle on all shots. I\u2019m a hockey fan over all the sports, so that\u2019s the one that I\u2019m most passionate about because it helped the sport of hockey translate better to TV.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adds Dan Grainge: \u201cHockey was Tom\u2019s passion and he was always looking for ways to improve the coverage.\u00a0His idea was to find a way to stay inside the glass, so you never lost sight of the puck.\u00a0With that goal in mind, we worked together to develop the Goal Judge and Red Line camera angles and we combined the best quality box camera with the widest lens and the fastest robo on the market. We came up with a new mounting method using speedrail to reduce fan blockage by hiding our mount behind the existing stanchion and, eventually, these angles would become standard and change the way hockey was covered.\u201d<\/p>\n

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman<\/strong>\u00a0says that\u00a0Fletcher\u00a0Cams revolutionized the televising of NHL games\u00a0at about the same time that high definition television was coming into being. \u201cTom\u00a0and his group gave us an opportunity to show views of the game that nobody had ever seen before,\u201d says Bettman. \u201cWhether it was the speed shot or the rocker cam, or overhead from the scoreboard or in net, it enabled our fans to get inside a game that up until then, many people thought was too fast to televise. It was always a priority of our broadcast department to work with\u00a0Fletcher\u00a0because we knew we needed to try new things that we needed to be innovative and we couldn\u2019t afford not to experiment. And again, because the game is so fast, all of these innovations actually made us as good a sport on television as all the other sports, when the conventional wisdom at the time was that was not possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Getting Started<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Fletcher graduated from the University of Illinois in 1985 with an eye on the film industry when an opportunity to start a new business with his father, who was a regional director for the lighting company Strand Chicago, arose.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father had just secured a deal to build a new studio for Oprah Winfrey for WLS Chicago and redo all of their studios dimming and lighting fixtures and things like that,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd one of the companies involved was a company out of San Antonio, Texas called Media Specialties and they asked my father to start a business together and open up a Chicago office. I didn\u2019t want to do sales, but I went down to San Antonio for the for the summer and learned the lighting side of the business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eighteen months later the relationship the team in San Antonio and his father soured and a friend,\u00a0Ginny Hart<\/strong>\u00a0suggested that Tom and his father start their own business.<\/p>\n

\u201cI called my dad and said, \u2018let\u2019s do this together\u2019 and we started an equipment company to sell dimming systems, but we quickly pivoted \u00a0to sell to news\u2019 mini-cam departments. And I liked going into the mini-cam departments because when you\u2019d go in and show them a new piece of equipment, they\u2019d buy enough for whatever number of crews they had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Helping boost sales was the major transition from two-man to one-many crews. And given the weight of cameras back then, close to 30 pounds, helping cut down that weight made the Fletcher team popular in through in the Midwest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI needed my dad\u2019s capital his business savvy, but he needed my hustle and willingness to go out and call on all the broadcasters and come back and say we need to get this item to be able to sell and build,\u201d adds Fletcher. \u201cI\u2019m the idea guy and one of my big skills is watching the trends in the industry and seeing where things are going. When you own a rental business and you invest millions of dollars, especially on the motion picture side, you can\u2019t guess wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grainge says Fletcher was always on top of new innovations.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe knew the latest cameras coming out and had ideas where to put them,\u201d he explains. \u201cThe XC999 and other small box cameras allowed us to put cameras where they had never been before like the slam cam for basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

A big moment for the company arrived in 1989 when Fletcher bought a remote head from\u00a0Laurie Frost<\/strong>, primarily known for being a camera assistant on\u00a0Stanley Kubrick<\/strong>\u00a0films like\u00a0Clockwork Orange<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Barry Lyndon.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cPulling focus is really hard and he was tired of Kubrick putting him on a crane hanging off the edge of a cliff with nothing underneath him, so he built the very first remote head to pull focus remotely,\u201d says Fletcher. \u201cWe bought the head along with a crane to service the motion picture business as\u00a0Backdraft<\/em>\u00a0was going to be shot in Chicago along with a few other big films.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fletcher soon realized that the Hollywood game was a very different animal from news and sports. A conversation about his frustrations with Laurie lead to Laurie casually mentioning that the remote head was used for a boxing event in Royal Albert Hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat just got my brain thinking and I said to my father, \u2018we need to buy this $100,000 piece of equipment,\u201d says Fletcher. \u201cWe took the risk, and we had skin in the game and that skin in the game meant that I had to figure out how to make money with it. So, I turned my focus to sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also established a solid relationship with Laurie who ultimately built a smaller (and less costly) versions of the remote heads such as Rocker, Micro and Mini.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the most gratifying things to me is many people in the industry refer to the remote camera positions as a Fletcher,\u201d says Fletcher. One of the moments when Fletcher realized the company had made it was when Adam Acone<\/strong>, who was at the Nagano Olympics, called him to let him know that even the Japanese would refer to some of the camera positions as \u201cFletcher.\u201d<\/p>\n

In January of 1991 the company made a big leap into the sports market as it provided the Hot Head overhead camera system for the NHL All-Star Game in Chicago with Neil Flagg. Five months later, Fletcher reinstalled at Chicago Stadium for the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the first year of NBC\u2019s contract with the NBA and it had Michael Jordan vs. Magic Johnson, and the world noticed the overhead shot,\u201d says Fletcher. \u201cAnd after we finished the NBA Finals everybody wanted that camera angle, but no one could afford it. Every broadcaster was calling us saying, \u2018How much is it? And at the time, I want to say we it cost around $2,850 a game and no one could afford that for a \u2018gimmick shot\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

That led Fletcher to begin to hunt for a corporate sponsor so that the camera could become something like the Goodyear blimp: pay for the camera and get an on-air promotion. Upper Deck Trading Cards stepped up.<\/p>\n

\u201cUpper Deck got the concept and it was a lot less money than buying ad time or buying signage at the venue,\u201d says Fletcher. \u201cWe put cameras in New York and Los Angeles which were used for both hockey and basketball and in Chicago for the Bulls. Upper Deck loved it, Broadcasters loved it, and the fans loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it wasn\u2019t long before the bottom dropped out of the trading card business and Upper Deck needed to opt out .<\/p>\n

\u201cDan Grainge said \u2018I think we can just make it a regular rental business because everybody wants the shot and we had established it for two years,\u2019\u201d explains Fletcher. \u201cAnd one of the smart things we did during the Upper Deck era we was gave the feed to out-of-town broadcasters, so we had built relationships with everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recalls Grainge: \u201cIn the early years of Fletcher Sports working with Tom was a complimentary partnership.\u00a0He would come up with a new idea where to put a camera and I would find a way to mount it. Archie Fletcher would find a way to pay for it and\u00a0Sally Fletcher<\/strong>\u00a0made sure we had the best HR benefits.\u00a0It was a small company with a real family atmosphere and as time went on ideas started coming directly from producers and directors.\u00a0Cameras and robotics continued to get smaller and better quality and it all made the process a little easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Building Tech Relationships<\/strong><\/h3>\n

When camera manufacturers moved from using tubes to CCD chips it opened a whole new world for those looking to build smaller and smaller cameras. A key development was the \u201cbox camera\u201d and in 1994 Fletcher Chicago and Frost were tapped by\u00a0Manolo\u00a0Romero<\/strong>\u00a0at the FIFA World Cup to create a commentator camera. One of the challenges at an event like a World Cup is that multiple broadcasters are working side by side, making it impossible to have a cameraperson shooting the on-air talent.<\/p>\n

\u201cSitting right here is Brazil, and they\u2019ve got two spots for their two announcers; then 10 feet over are the Spanish broadcasters; and then 10 feet over are the English broadcasters,\u201d says Fletcher. \u201cThe broadcasters wanted to put their personalities on air so we created a remote control camera where you could change the framing just slightly, the camera we used then was a JVC industrial camera with a small plastic-type lens. And we had a hundred of them and that led to manufacturers asking us what features did we need? What kind of power? What kind of lens mount. And at the same time Laurie made a remote head that could hold six pounds, so we worked with Laurie to build Camera Corps. which was eventually sold to Bexel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another big leap was the move into super slo-mo and high-speed cameras. The 2006 MLB All-Star Game, in Pittsburgh, was the backdrop for the deployment of the first ultra-speed camera for baseball.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe used a NAC high-speed camera, and it allowed us to show the baseball getting compressed and no one had ever seen a shot like that,\u201d says Fletcher. \u201cBut that wasn\u2019t the key thing that we did. The key thing that the Fletcher team did was that we turned that replay around in under 30 seconds. At the time Quantel had a similar system that could turn around a replay in European soccer in 15 minutes. In soccer that isn\u2019t a big deal because you don\u2019t analyze things until halftime, but in the U.S., we needed to get it under 30 seconds. And that really launched us into the specialty high-speed camera business.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2018 the Fletcher family sold Fletcher Chicago which is now owned by the NEP Group, the largest production company on the globe. After a little more than 30 years Tom and family handed NEP a company that had grown from a small company to international force that was key for coverage of NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL and other major sporting events around the world, as well as for highly anticipated political and entertainment events such as presidential debates and the Oscars Red Carpet. Today Tom is FUJIFILM Director of Marketing<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the idea guy and one of my big skills is watching the trends in the industry and seeing where things are going,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen you own a rental business and you invest millions of dollars, you can\u2019t guess wrong.\u201d Over the years, we bought all the right gear but more importantly we hired all of the right people to grow a successful business.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1770,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"tags":[61],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductees\/1769"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductees"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/inductees"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}