Every year, the NFL holds an offseason broadcasting boot camp. The three-day seminar is sort of a mash-up of a minicamp and a scouting combine for players who want to be sportscasters.
At the NFL Network’s Los Angeles studios, the players are taught the basics of sports media and then are coached and evaluated on a variety of platforms, including calling games on TV and radio.
In April of last year, the McCourty twins, Jason and Devin, were the stars of the camp. Their ability to pick up the concepts and precisely communicate, combined with their stellar reputations, caused their names to move up TV networks’ scouting lists.
One of the executives working the seminar was Fred Gaudelli of NBC and Amazon, who has spent decades producing top NFL prime-time games and was just honored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame as the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award recipient. For a fledgling announcer to receive a stamp of approval from Gaudelli about their NFL broadcasting potential is akin to Bill Parcells taking a liking to the on-field talent of a college outside linebacker.
