But what if fans had their own scouting reports on more than just the top 10 players? What if someone evaluated the best sleepers, stories, and stars with the depth of an NFL scout using exclusive HD footage and interviews in a language the viewer would understand? Well, we decided someone should, and that someone should be us. We pitched the idea to ON Networks, and they bought it. Like, 51 episodes bought it.

So how did we make a 51 episode show in 3 months with a budget of less than $75k?

The Goal: Make the first great show scouting future NFL players like the pros for the fans. Give them something to use to prepare for the draft, to augment their viewing of it, and to refer back to as players break out in training camp.

The Requirements: Scout hundreds of players in the NFL Draft and select our favorite 50 guys, which should be a mix of big names and sleepers. Use 1080P HD footage and interviews exclusive to our show to evaluate their games and tell their stories. Release all 51 episodes at least a month before the Draft.

The Challenge: Do it all for less than $100,000.

The Roadtrip

If you want exclusive footage of hundreds of college footballers about to go pro, there’s only one place to get it: the all-star games. Unless a player is a surefire top 10 pick, he needs to show scouts what he can do outside of his former college scheme, so he attends one of three events designed to show him off in a week-long set of practices and a weekend exhibition game. Scouts will tell you that the exhibition game is for the players; to learn whether a guy’s got the goods, it’s all about the practices.

The biggest event is the Senior Bowl. Most of the players in attendance have hopes of being a first or second rounder, and the practices are full of intensity as they chase the big signing bonus. The Shrine Game gets the next tier of players, typically 3rd-5th rounders with strong character. A few players from this game also tend to sneak into the top rounds. The final game is Texas Vs. The Nation. Most of the guys in attendance are late-rounders or in danger of not being drafted. That might sound like a low-impact group, but this is where the biggest surprises emerge. In 2008, multiple attendees wound up starting games for their teams as NFL rookies. Draftguys TV had pegged them as future starters before anyone else in the world.

Every year, we have three weeks in January to go from Houston to Mobile to El Paso to get all our footage. With our budget, we can’t afford a big team, so we keep the crew tight:

• Marc Faletti, our shooter/editor/producer.
• Sigmund Bloom, our top football analyst.
• Cecil Lammey, our secret weapon in the interviews.

Only one shooter means we have little margin for error, and every day of practice Marc works every play, running up and down the sidelines to get the action or going into the stands for a scouts-eye view. In the end, we wind up with enough footage to cover over 100 players. Then it’s time to break down their games and select our top guys.

The Editing Days & Nights

We wrap in the final days of January, and all 51 shows must be released by the end of March to give viewers who want to bone up before the draft a chance to sift through everything. This also gives us a chance to launch promotion efforts via beat writers in pro and college towns as well as our radio tour leading up to the Draft at the end of April.

Sigmund usually has a good idea which players stood out to him during the events, but we need hard evidence to back up any claims we make, and that evidence must come in the form of footage. Marc Faletti and Sigmund pour over everything and cull the top guys, making sure we mix in first rounders (like Rey Maualuga, BJ Raji, and Peria Jerry in 2009) with sleepers who will shock the world (like Dwight Lowery and Eric Foster in 2008).

Then we break down every play and look for patterns in their game that will help (or hurt) their chances at the next level. We evaluate which systems favor the player, what roles will suit hims best, his fundamental skillset, his athleticism, his smarts, and his personality. The last part leans heavily on our interviews performed by Cecil Lammey, who has a knack for relaxing players and giving fans access to a side of guys seldom seen. Let’s put it this way: how many other football shows have players volunteering their XBox Live gamertags to the viewers? Exactly.

Once we’ve scripted the full scouting report, we record intros and voiceovers, then dump everything on Marc’s desk again. For approximately six weeks he does nothing but eat, edit, and catch a few Zs. His mixture of dedication, quality, and ingenuity make him the ideal editor for massive web efforts like these — especially when you need them finished in no time flat.

The Release

Everybody loves to show off their work, and throughout February and March we release episodes to the public every weekday. This gives fans at portals like Draft Countdown and Draftguys a chance to consume the product on a steady diet. It also gives episodes a chance to catch on virally and spread around the web.

2009 has been massive for Draftguys TV. As of August, the show has received over 650,000 views, and we collect thousands more every single day. On draft day alone, over 100,000 videos were watched. Several of our players garnered tens of thousands of views as their stock has climbed. Because our football knowledge runs deep, we get out ahead of the players nobody’s talking about, and when one of them shines as we predicted, it adds more views — and more respect — to Draftguys TV.

The Lessons

Web TV production has very little to do with traditional media production other than the quality HD camera and Final Cut Pro. Our teams must be smaller, more nimble, and have a broad skillset.

The time restrictions mean your editors must be more concerned with pacing, punch, and insight than every detail of every frame. The budget restrictions mean “your editors” are really “your editor.”

Everyone involved needs to wear multiple hats and pick up slack for each other without asking permission. Of course, on occasion, it’s appropriate to ask for forgiveness.

Sometimes people look at you funny when you buy a Diet Coke in rural Louisiana.

There is no roadmap for great web TV yet, so don’t be afraid to rewrite the rules to suit your product.

Great motion graphics work wonders for web presentation. If you’re going to splash the cash in one area of an HD web show, make it the graphics.

Web content must be bolder and more insightful than traditional TV. This isn’t a passive audience; for a show to gain traction, viewers must actively engage with it and want to pass it on.

We’re darn good at this.