Scott Hanson and ESPN’s Drew Gallagher discuss unique ‘mix of both worlds’ ManningCast

Hanson said he’s long enjoyed watching the ManningCast, even though it’s not his primary focus on Monday nights.

“When I’m at home as a fan on Monday night and the ManningCast is on, I use the ManningCast as a side screen. I put my main screen on the Buck-Aikman broadcast.

“But what I like to do is put ManningCast on, and then when I see them get animated about something, I’ll rewind my DVR or scan it back if it’s on ESPN+, and listen to Bill Belichick explain the nuances of long-snapping, or listen in on Will Ferrell’s hilarious USC story. So I kind of watch them simultaneously, the main broadcast of Monday Night Football and the ManningCast on my side TV.”

And he said it was helpful for him to have history with the Mannings, which made this broadcast more comfortable.

“I’ve known Peyton and Eli for 20 years, I covered them as players, I’ve done some corporate events with them, so I thought we had a good rapport on air. I wouldn’t change anything about that. They were even teasing me, at one point they teased me ‘Scott, we haven’t heard from you in a while!’ There were two total touchdowns in the entire game.

“So I had to think on my feet, and what popped into my head was ‘Well, Peyton, well, Eli, touchdown production in the NFL has gone down since you two retired!’ And they got a good laugh out of that, because it wasn’t making fun of an offensively-struggling game, it was more I’m playing the cards I’m dealt and I’ll show you what I’ve got for highlights. So I thought we had a good rapport.”

One other thing Hanson is thrilled with the Mannings for? The popularization of quarter-zip tops as sportscaster attire. Hanson wore one Monday night, and said while that was a definite salute to the Mannings, he also wears quarter-zips for every more-casual broadcast he can.

“It was very intentional. And I’ll tell you this, I was not wearing it just because I was on ManningCast. God bless the Manning brothers, who legitimized the quarter-zip for sportscasters across the world. Because now that they’re okay, anything that gets me out of a suit and tie, I’m all in favor of.

“And once they started doing the quarter-zip thing, I still wear a button-down and a suit on RedZone, but anything else that’s more casual? I went out and bought 10 different quarter-zips in different colors. I’m like ‘This is the greatest thing in the world! You throw a t-shirt underneath and a quarter-zip on top, and it’s not super fancy, but it’s also not too casual. ‘

“The one I wore was very purposeful, because it’s not just an ode to the Mannings, it’s what I like to wear when I’m in a more casual broadcast anyway. And I can thank Peyton and Eli for that, for the quote-unquote permission to wear quarter-zips.”

He said he even brought that up around the ManningCast’s fake octobox.

“They went to a fake octobox with Peyton in every box, and I said ‘Yeah, that’s not the octobox we’re looking for, but I know for a fact that Peyton owns at least eight quarter-zips.’ So they got a laugh out of that.”

Gallagher said that fake octobox worked as part of a way to treat Hanson as a more standard guest during the final portion of the show.

“Certainly during the last portion of the broadcast when we were just on the ESPN+ game, Scott was a little bit more like a traditional guest and we were able to do some fun things with him. Our technical director, Kendra Bowman, had some fun, she built an octobox for Scott to make him feel at home, it had seven Peyton Mannings in it. So that was a good way to have some fun with Scott.”

The Octobox joins Scott Hanson on the ManningCast. #NFL #MNF pic.twitter.com/bk93P3tNAi

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 22, 2024

Gallagher said another innovation they were proud of was showing off Hanson’s home TV setup.

“Our associate director, Jonathan Weaver, came up with a cool camera shot that looked back at Scott’s TV setup. You can see that Scott’s got five TVs in his living room there in addition to the computer monitor and everything that he had set up for our broadcast. It was just a cool look behind the curtain into Scott’s world and how he just immerses himself in football.

“It’s cool when we can provide viewers with that little bit of access. It wasn’t in the studio where Scott does the RedZone broadcasts from, so it was even maybe a little more interesting that he would have five TVs in his living room. It shows what kind of a football junkie Scott is.”

And Gallagher said he was pleased with the balance they struck between the games overall.

“I thought we did a good job giving viewers on ESPN2 enough of a taste of what was going on in the other game without giving them that full-game experience, which really wasn’t possible. It was a good mix of both worlds.”

There are some technical challenges to this kind of multiple remote location approach, especially when it comes to a guest calling highlights where what they’re seeing isn’t necessarily synced timewise with what the hosts and viewers are seeing (thanks to different feed latency in different locations). Hanson said that was the biggest hurdle he faced here.

“One little tricky element was the monitor I was watching, the Eli-Peyton monitor and the game monitor, had a slight stagger to it. I don’t know why, it’s way above my paygrade to be a technical engineer, but when I’m doing a quick highlight…the first highlight, we had a defensive lineman intercept a pass, and he was returning it, and he got the ball punched out by James Conner, the Cardinals’ running back. I’m trying to do that like ‘Boom, boom’ as it happened, but with the delay, it looked a little bit different on camera than I’d intended it to look.”

“If we did it again, I would need to anticipate how the stagger works and try to adjust my broadcasting. But that’s a minor, minor point.”

Gallagher said he thought Hanson handled that very well, though.

“We didn’t notice it from our end, probably because Scott did such a good job of playing through it. We had told him in advance that there could be a little bit of latency and to just describe the action as it happened in the game, not necessarily as he was seeing it on the screen.”

And he said while it’s certainly challenging to try and pull off broadcasts from multiple remote locations, ESPN has a great team with significant experience in that at this point.

“We’ve all sort of become adept at it ever since 2020 and it being more of something that you would see in broadcasts. It’s challenging, but we’ve got the people on our team who are pros at being able to handle it. I think the fact that you don’t see more hiccups with it is a testament to the people we have, that they’re able to iron all that stuff out in advance. It’s a lot harder than it looks, and for the on-air folks too; they have to navigate not stepping on each other, which can and will happen. But sometimes you have to live with that.”

One element that might seem tough from the outside is having an alternate broadcast for two games rather than one. But Gallagher said he doesn’t actually think there’s an extra challenge there, given the Mannings’ love for football action.

“I wouldn’t say it’s really any more difficult, and the reason is that Peyton and Eli are at their best when they have football action going on. They can’t get enough football. So the more games you can throw at them, the more action, they just roll along with it.

“And to their credit, they were prepared to talk those games, and it was a longer night for them. But I think most importantly, none of this would have been possible if they hadn’t bought into it. Because at the end of the day, it’s their broadcast. The show is as successful as their enthusiasm for what we’re doing. So they were all in, and once they were all-in, it all took care of itself.”

Gallagher said he felt this broadcast worked well overall, especially with his team finding the balance of how and when to bring Hanson in.

“It felt about right. It’s not like we really could have done a full 50-50 if we’d wanted to, which was fine. The Ravens-Bucs game was our focus, but we also didn’t want to completely ignore the fact that there was another big game going on at the same time. So I thought we did it well.

“I give a lot of credit to producer Scott Matthews and director Jeff Nelson, they were able to bring Scott in for all the right moments, all the right highlights. It wasn’t just the scoring plays, it was key plays in the game as well.

“And they had a really good feel to it, to not interrupt the Ravens-Bucs action and not interrupt Peyton and Eli when they were in the middle of some point. Peyton and Eli were great, they totally bought into the idea of it. I think they started having a little bit of fun with Scott when he was coming in and out.”

And Hanson said he’d love to return and do something like this again if he gets the call to.

“I had a great time doing it, I hope the audience enjoyed it. And maybe more crossovers in the future, who knows?”