Ithaca College alums help football fans tackle the biggest games. Here's how

Week 6 of this year's NFL season is underway, with two New York teams - the Buffalo Bills and the New York Giants - set to face off this weekend for the primetime Sunday game at 8:20pm on NBC and Peacock.

Sunday Night Football has been primetime's number 1 show for 12 consecutive years, feeding nearly 20 million fans crucial information about their favorite players and the latest plays each week, according to data released by Nielsen, and digital data from Adobe Analytics.

Ithicans may be surprised to find out just how big a part their city plays in the makings of the nation's biggest football production, as five Ithaca College alums are behind much of what viewers at home expect from this week's big game.

'I'll never forget the teamwork and comradery.'

When Sunday Night Football Production Assistant Matt Kane remembers his time studying at Ithaca College, he remembers producing Next Player Up for ICTV, and the people he met there.

"In general, it was a blast," Kane said Thursday. "I think when it came to everything from the classes to the extracurricular activities like ICTV and the radio station, and the people I've met, going to Ithaca College was one of the best decisions I made in my life."

Kane creates informational packages about star players and the history of their teams for viewers to digest between plays.

"I’m usually the one reaching out to the teams finding photos and videos we need for the packages," Kane said. "I do stuff that’s pre-prepared in terms of storytelling, on players like Brock Ferti last week for example, or for this week's game potentially like Josh Allen. Different story type ideas, not like the in game X’s and O’s types of packages."

Kane graduated in 2022, and was hired by NBC in May, and said that Ithaca College professors and his time interning for FOX sports in Los Angeles as a part of the ICLA program helped prepare him to work on primetime Sunday games.

"At Ithaca college television, when I came back in the fall of 2022, I was able to produce my own television show with three other people called Next Player Up which is currently nominated for a CBI award for best sportscast," he said. "That experience really helped me because I was able to learn what it was like to be a producer for a television show."

As a sports media major, Kane had classes with Dr. Tim Mirabito, and Dr. Ellen Staurowsky frequently. He said they helped him better understand the sports media industry as a whole, without sugarcoating some of the negative aspects to working in the industry.

"I was very close with my sports media class," he said. "You grow up with them and you guys just stay a team. That’s something I’ll never forget, the teamwork and camaraderie. Everyone’s trying to help each other out, even though, theoretically, you're competing with them."

"So many opportunities..."

Luke Bugoni graduated from Ithaca College in 2021 and now works as a package producer and comprehensive telecommunications operator for NBC's Sunday Night Football.

"My role is kind of split into two parts, the first being the drone producer for the show," he said Thursday. "Each week based on the city we're in, I look up the most scenic spots, then I send them over to our drone operator. I then kind of coordinate the best spots to launch from, what's a great daytime shot, what's a great nighttime shot, depending on the city and time that we’re in."

As for the second part, "The main thing for that is you’re identifying players on the field with arrows and whatnot during replays,” he said. “The idea is to help Chris [Collinsworth] out in identifying players during the game.”

Bugoni grew up in Westchester and said that Ithaca was always on his radar.

"I called [Ithaca] home for almost 5 years," he said. "I played soccer there and absolutely loved it. Some of my best friends in life came from the soccer team as well as ICTV and the radio network WICB. So many opportunities were presented to me thanks to Ithaca College."

Bugoni said Professor Jack Powers of the college's television and radio program, was "awesome" and advised him through his junior and senior years.

"He was overall very helpful and honest with me about how things were," Bugoni said. "He was someone who was very impactful, as well as Peter Johanns, he was my advisor, both him and Jack were very helpful and brought a lot of insight about this business to me."

Bugoni interned with NBC as a digital production assistant for both the Tokyo and Beijing Olympics before he began working with the Sunday Night Football team in May 2022.

'A really good foundation'

Charlie Vanacore is a replay director for the team behind Sunday Night Football, and has been a part of the team since 2006, after graduating from Ithaca College in 2000.

"I communicate with camera operators as well as our replay operators to make sure that before the play happens, all the pertinent players on the field are documented and covered," he said. "Then, when the play is over, depending on the type of play, its about determining what replays we’re going to use to document the play that just happened … and what will be the best angles to document that play before the next play occurs."

Vanacore also spent time volunteering at ICTV, and said that the experience still helps him today when it comes to anticipating what could potentially go wrong during a live production.

"I spent pretty much every fall and spring semester working quite a bit with the Ithaca College TV program," he said. "I worked on news broadcasts, we produced and directed our coverage of Bombers football, Cornell hockey, Cornell basketball and we produced all those events with our truck at Ithaca College."

"We didn’t know we were doing the right thing when we were at Ithaca, but we were doing those types of things," he said. "Learning to mitigate those problems on the air and I think that gave me a really good foundation coming out of school."

Vanacore also said that technology has changed quite a bit since he was recording Ithaca Bombers games on tape in the late 90s.

"We were still doing that in the professional world until the mid 2000’s, even 2008 and 9, we were still using tape machines," he said. "Now everything is recorded to a server. If a big play happened and the wide receiver is [isolated] on a tape machine but the offence was running quickly up to snap the ball, like, do we have time to do that replay or does the replay operator now have to fast forward past the end of that receivers route on the replay machine to get him to record for the next play?"

"Now we don’t have to worry about that," he added. "The play happens, but everything that is still being shot by that camera is being recorded on that replay operators' machine. Going from that analogue, tape-based world, to server-based and digital allows you instant access to every camera angle at a moment's notice."

Vanacore said that recently retired professorGossa Tsegaye, alongside Don Ryan and Slade Kennedy of Ithaca College's communications department allowed him to experiment with equipment and gain the technical backing that his career today is based on.

"I got a lot of what I know from a technology standpoint from working with ICTV, and then learned the philosophical and editorial concepts in the classroom."

Growing up with someone in the industry

Associate Director of Sunday Night Football Alex Haubenstock said he essentially grew up with one of the people he still works with at NBC today, SNF Package producer Andrew Gayo.

"I think it was Fall 2010 in my sophomore year, I was producing Hold That Thought, and I was co-producing with Andrew Gayo," he said. "He was class of 2012, I was class of 2013, and we were co-producing a sports talk show on ICTV, then years later we’re working on Sunday night football together, and work very closely every week together, which is a very cool experience to have."

"Andrew and I are very close in age, got to know each other at Ithaca, and we both ended up in NBC sports," he added. "It’s been really cool to kind of grow up with someone in the industry."

Gayo said he was drawn to Ithaca College because, even as a freshman, he could contribute to local sports coverage.

"When I went to visit originally, I got the sense that students were able to contribute right away to ICTV and WICB the radio station," he said. "When I was in high school, I was fortunate to have television production classes and we had a TV production club, covering school sports events, so when I found out that at Ithaca you can do things right away, I kind of wanted to continue to do that."

Gayo said he wasn’t satisfied with the positions and pay rate available for on-screen reporting, and decided to go into production as a result.

“That’s what attracted me, just getting those reps helped prepare me for my ultimate roll when I first started at NBC as a logger when I graduated 11 years ago,” he said.

Gayo produces' in-game packages to help announcers like Chris Collinsworth digest those lightning-fast plays.

"I had no idea that that job even existed," he said. "When I was younger, I was really still trying to be on air, but It’s when I first got to NBC that I was cutting packages.”

Haubenstock handles the financials and advertising for the Sunday games.

"In game, I’m worried about getting our commercial breaks in, so I decide when we go to break, and I make sure we get out on time and our sponsorship obligations are met," Haubenstock said.

Haubenstock said he started volunteering with ICTV in his sophomore and junior years, where he took inspiration from NBC’s football programming to produce programming for the Cortaca Jug, a yearly football game between Ithaca College and SUNY Cortland's best players, backed by an age-old rivalry.

“For Cortaca, we wanted to do moving headshots, like for lineups," Haubenstock said. "We went to Cortland, set up a shoot with them, set up one with the Ithaca team, and had everyone call out their name and hometown. That’s what I was doing sophomore year and then all of a sudden, I’m on the show that made those things famous.”

This article originally appeared on Ithaca Journal: Sunday Night Football: Ithaca College alums play role in production