![\"Mikkelson](\"http:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/IMG_0083-800x535.jpg\")
<\/a> Mikkelson was in at the beginning of MetLife\u2019s golf coverage.<\/div>\n\u201cTelevised golf can\u2019t be fully articulated without an aerial platform 1,000 ft. above the course,\u201d says Wittman, \u201cand Bob has an incredible ability to follow a golf ball and anticipate the next camera cut.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ken Aagaard, then at NBC Sports, hired Mikkelson\u2019s camera system for six golf events in 1985, and, the following year, Mikkelson, with no camera experience at all, shot his first show, the Bob Hope Classic for NBC.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really didn\u2019t realize that I had put together the most capable aerial system anywhere in the broadcast world,\u201d Mikkelson says. \u201cI really didn\u2019t invent anything. I just put pieces together from the military and the commercial broadcast world, and it worked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aagaard and Mikkelson set off on a 30+-year journey that continues to this day.<\/p>\n
\u201cMikkelson singlehandedly changed how we watch golf. Our principal camera coverage is from the blimp,\u201d says Aagaard, noting, \u201cIt is not easy to follow a ball while robotically controlling pan, tilt, and zoom, on a moving platform that is operating at the whim of the wind and making sure your shadow doesn\u2019t fall in your shot or the noise from your airship isn\u2019t disturbing the players.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1987, MetLife started its blimp program, and Mikkelson and his golf coverage served as the foundation for Snoopy\u2019s 29-year run. His work is the standard and a key component of golf coverage today.<\/p>\n
A Changing Broadcast Industry<\/b>
\nHe attributes much of his success to some broader industry trends at that time. The networks were changing how they did business. Many of the original families and owners that had created the broadcasting industry were leaving and turning the industry over to non-broadcast corporations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole DNA of the networks changed, and that allowed outside vendors like myself, or John Porter and Peter Larsson with their in-car cameras, to step in, as the networks no longer wanted to own stuff,\u201d Mikkelson says. \u201cSo a new generation of vendors were not only suppliers but also became the R&D shops for the networks.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the early 1990s, he was the first to fly the new generation of ENG telephoto lenses. The first system he built for these lenses was developed with Versatron, builder of the original cameras for the Predator drone. \u201cThe first one was the Canon J33, followed by Fujinon\u2019s 36X and Canon\u2019s 40X in later systems. That first 14-in. gimbal, with a split optical block, set the basic layout for all the systems that have followed,\u201d says Mikkelson. Follow-on systems from Aerial Motive, Flir Systems, Cineflex, and now GSS also have his fingerprints all over them.<\/p>\n
The Move to Fixed-Wing<\/b>
\nIn 1998, Mikkelson bought his first of three airplanes. \u201cIt was for ESPN\u2019s Sunday Night Football<\/i>. We could go anywhere in the country and had better endurance than a helicopter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Airplanes, for example, capture more-interesting shots above a stadium than a blimp, adding movement that a quick blimp shot lacks. \u201cAnother advantage with airplanes,\u201d he adds, \u201cis [that] the network can get anyone to sponsor the aerials.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics, Mikkelson and his Winged Vision team have provided Goodyear\u2019s non-blimp coverage, helping expand the coverage to areas not easily covered by a blimp.<\/p>\n
He has covered numerous memorable moments. One of the more bizarre occurred more than 20 years ago. Riddick Bowe and Evander Holyfield were fighting for the heavyweight championship at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas when a parachutist crashed into the side of the ring. Mikkelson was above the ring in the blimp and captured the entire event from above.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just there to get beauty shots,\u201d he recalls, \u201cand, honest to God, Fan Man flew into the ring.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for his best golf shows, he cites the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in 2015. \u201cWe had four days of great weather; everyone on the production team and I were on the same page. And, with a thousand bunkers all over the place, the blimp shots were really useful. But year in and year out,\u201d he adds, \u201cit\u2019s Pebble Beach. You can\u2019t take a bad shot there.\u201d<\/p>\n
An Uncanny Ability<\/b>
\nAagaard, now EVP, innovation and new technology, CBS Sports, observes that Mikkelson has the uncanny ability to shoot while also making all editorial decisions of who and what holes to cover.<\/p>\n
\u201cFew people can think and operate in an X, Y, and Z plane,\u201d says Aagaard. \u201cBob can do that while the rest of the alphabet is coming at him full force. He is unique. He has no equal. There is no one like him. He is a great talent.\u201d<\/p>\n
U.S. Open on Fox<\/i> golf director Steve Beim concurs: \u201cWho would think that someone 1,000 ft. in the air could make composition such an integral part of the shot? Bob always knows where the action is, where to position the aircraft, and how to compose the shot to give the viewer at home a unique and perfect perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mikkelson\u2019s credits over the past 30 years include just about every televised sports event: World Cup; Olympics; Monday-, Sunday-, and Thursday-night football; Triple Crown; national championships; U.S. Opens for every sport; and, of course, PGA golf. Add baseball, outdoor hockey, Indy Car, and beauty shots for everything else, and you realize that his work has set the aerial standard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a chance to work with a lot of the iconic sports directors who are in the Broadcasting Hall of Fame, and, for them, it was neat to have a beauty shot that was much more stable,\u201d he recalls. \u201cAnd then the new generation accepted it as normal for play action. That may be the greatest legacy because, when it started, it was the greatest thing people had seen and now it is a bit ho-hum.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, Mikkelson and his Winged Vision team work on close to 175 shows a year, including CBS Thursday Night Football<\/i>, CBS\u2019s SEC Conference coverage, Fox NASCAR, ESPN GameDay<\/i>, college football, and golf tournaments of all sizes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still out there every week and expect to be for years to come,\u201d he says, adding, \u201cWith the great team that I work with, we\u2019ll continue to provide the great pictures viewers enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mikkelson and his wife, Lisa, and their children Julia, Eddie, and Jane live in Maryland, outside Washington. Mikkelson is a 2013 Distinguished Alumnus from Minnesota State University Moorhead and serves on the Board of Trustees of Sandy Spring Friends School in Sandy Spring, MD.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":754,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"tags":[30],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductees\/544"}],"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\/754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}