Thanks to the immediacy of the internet, fantasy football is all about now-now-now. Information that’s even a few days old will be overrun by all the news, blogs, and analyst sites keeping current with every practice and media session. Maybe that’s why channels like ESPN have thus far eschewed a dedicated television offering to the 30+ million fantasy football addicts who play every year.

There’s a crack in the door, though: keeping up with all the news and text-based information out there can be overwhelming. For fans who are serious about the game but have a life outside it, a single 5 minute fantasy football show that contained everything from waivers to injury updates to predictions for the upcoming games would given them an edge and save them hours per week.

Of course, that show would have to be timely. And it would have to avoid repeating what else is out there. So how does one make a fantasy football show that meets the demands for timeliness from its audience while delivering accurate insights other analysts are missing?

We’ll tell you how we did it for ON Networks over two great seasons.

The Goal: Give fantasy footballers a 5 minute dose of everything needed to run their team each week.

The Requirements: Our analysis must be unique. We must get this information to viewers as soon as possible, especially before their league waiver deadlines. The show has to be fun; football’s exciting, right?

The Challenge: Shoot, edit, render, and deliver a show to ON Networks in 6 hours every Tuesday.

The Run-Up

Football isn’t over until midnight every Monday. Analysis that doesn’t take into account Monday night football will immediately seem stale, especially if there’s a big injury or other surprise, so production had to wait until Tuesday.

Writing, however, could begin on Monday. DirecTV releases 30 minute versions of every game, and along with what we watched on Sundays, analyst/writer/host Sigmund Bloom and shooter/editor/producer/writer Marc Faletti watched every play of every game over 6-8 hours on Mondays. They kept copious notes and afterwards would cull them into the 10-15 most insightful takes of the week. By using only our own observations from actual game tape, we provided plenty of unique analysis to our viewers.

Every Monday night, host Cecil Lammey would fly into Austin from Denver to catch the end of Monday Night Football (he watched the rest on the plane) and prep for the next day’s shoot.

The Shooting

At 9am we arrived at the greenscreen studio. Sig and Cecil were dressed and put into makeup (all done by Marc Faletti and PA Diana Gerson) while reviewing their takes. Each host would cover 5-7 takes of 15-45 seconds each. They were scripted down to the last word and had to be memorized quickly.

By 9:30am we were shooting the first takes, usually putting Cecil through the paces as Sigmund checked for the latest news and injury updates. Anything that popped up would be added to his segments (or replace them). Our lone bit of improv were the intros and outros, because 1) it kept them loose, and 2) it often resulted in something unexpected and funny.

Shooting wrapped by 11. Marc then went to work ingesting the footage and bringing it into After Effects. The entire show is covered in motion graphics from the background to the transitions to the text coming and going from the screen. After applying the proper greenscreen filters, Marc would attach relevant stats/summaries to the virtual info board next to the host on each take and tweak the graphics as needed.

A quick proofread at around 1pm, then it was time to render. That took about 45 minutes — good thing there’s a tasty sandwich shop near the office. Once the render was complete, it was reviewed again. Any mistakes caught were corrected and those segments were re-rendered. Music was added and one last quick render was generated and burned to a DVD for delivery to ON Networks.

By 2pm (and often before), Marc Faletti was personally handing in a disc with the episode that he shot on greenscreen only hours before. And not once in 2008 did we have an informational error in the show.

This meant that by 3-4pm on Tuesday, viewers could watch The Drill and make their moves/claims/trades for the week. And other than injuries occurring in practices later in the week, our show remained spot on up to gametime. Combined with our one-of-a-kind analysis from Sigmund’s football acumen, The 5 Minute Drill truly was the best fantasy football show ever made.

The Lessons

Light your greenscreen the same way every time. It makes its removal so much easier.

Be bold in your takes. Viewers want a firm opinion they can choose to agree or disagree with. Trying to have it both ways protects the analyst at the expense of the audience.

Admit your mistakes. Fantasy football is incredibly fluid and depends on countless factors. If you missed something or couldn’t have foreseen a development, don’t hide from it. Adjust your position. And make it clear that you know you’re making a switch.

If the hosts are having fun, the viewers are having fun. Make the set a great place to hang out, even though you’re under incredible time pressure.

If you’re the only one saying something, say it even louder. When you’re right, people will remember you.

Last year isn’t this year. Don’t let any fantasy analyst tell you otherwise.

Having the guy who wrote it shoot it helps. Having the guy who shot it edit it really helps. Good thing Marc Faletti can do all of the above.