The secrets behind the rise of Foxs top college football booth

MADISON, Wis.— It’s an idyllic Friday evening in Madison, and Gus Johnson is introducing Joel Klatt like he’s the reigning, defending undisputed champion.

Fox’s top college football broadcast booth — comprised of Johnson, Klatt and sideline reporter Jenny Taft — is at its production meeting ahead of Wisconsin’s showdown with Alabama.The weekly meeting is akin to the walkthrough that football teams go through to prepare for their game.The announcing booth and the overall production, led by Fox lifer Chuck McDonald, who for years worked on the network’s top NFL crews with John Madden and Pat Summerall and later Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, has risen to the upper tier of big-time broadcast crews.The production meeting illustrated why the booth is so upbeat and prepared come kickoff.

Johnson, in his bombastic broadcasting voice, declares that Klatt is the “captain” of this meeting.The roles are reversed from what we see on TV — whereas Johnson is the quarterback of the broadcast and leads the rhythm with play-by-play, Klatt is guiding the meeting like a professor giving a lecture to a small class.He has a laminated sheet of notes on about 75 players but barely glances at it to go in-depth, unit by unit, of starters and reserves who are likely to see playing time, one by one, stating their histories, strengths, weaknesses and future professional prospects.

Klatt has spoken to key players not just about their football but about their hobbies, noting at one point that Wisconsin quarterback Tyler Van Dyke was an avid golfer.The two had plans to play golf for money — “and he has it,” Klatt said.

Throughout the meeting, Johnson would ask Klatt follow-up questions about everything from Xs and Os to narrative elements.Here, he wondered, as the rest of us do, about the general market in NIL — how much are these guys actually getting paid?Klatt said that a “run of the mill” quarterback is earning “mid six figures” while it can reach seven ...