Radio/TV

Lynch to be first to wear Super Bowl microphone

SAN DIEGO -- For the first time in Super Bowl history, viewers will be taken right into the huddle and onto the field.

ABC sports producer Fred Gaudelli announced Thursday that Buccaneer John Lynch and Raider Jerry Rice would wear microphones during the game Sunday.

ABC did halftime segments this season with player miking, but those were recorded during the week as part of the network's Seven Days to Monday Night series.

Three years ago, ABC miked some players until halftime and then aired the best comments in a three-minute feature.

Gaudelli hopes to collect audio from Lynch and Rice and air it as quickly as possible, in 10-15 second vignettes.

"I'll use it based on how good it is," Gaudelli said. "I hope to use it an awful lot. I hope to give the fans a treat. But it all depends on what you get. There is a certain amount of luck involved."

There would probably be no luck involved had ABC requested the more verbose Warren Sapp or Keyshawn Johnson, but Gaudelli said those two were never an option.

"Warren has never agreed to wear a mic, even for NFL films," Gaudelli said. "He says the way he plays the game is very personal, and he never wants that displayed to the national public, so I knew that. But John Lynch was choice No. 1 for the Bucs, and Rice was No. 1 for the Raiders."

Players wearing microphones is nothing new for sports coverage. But for a Super Bowl, Sunday's effort will be ground breaking. ABC actually miked players for last year's Pro Bowl, often a testing ground -- the Sky-cam as an example -- for new broadcast innovations. The success prompted Gaudelli to ask the NFL if it could do it during the NFL season.

"We planted the seed last year," Gaudelli said. "The NFL blessed it early on this season with the provision the team okayed it and we got players who wanted to do it."

Ironically, analyst John Madden, who guided the Raiders to the Super Bowl XI title, said he would never have allowed such a thing when he was a head coach.

"I would love to say (I would agree), but there's no way I would have allowed it," Madden said. "I just know back when I was coaching, NFL Films always wanted to mic me or mic my players and I never allowed it. I believe it is great for the fans, but I'd be hypocritical if I said yeah, I would have done it."

Madden said the sideline is a sanctuary and should remain so. He has seen other coaches microphoned and wouldn't want to be put in that position. You can still catch memorable clips of former NFL coaches like Hank Stram and Jerry Glanville yakking it up on the sideline, to varying degrees of embarrassment and silliness.

"I thought that there should be some things that shouldn't be public during a game," Madden said. "You do a lot of things and say a lot of things that when they are taken out of context, are stupid. I thought every time I saw one of those guys miked up ... I don't want to be miked saying "What the hell's going on out there," referring to Stram's infamous clip.