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If you feel like CBS’ cameras at the Final Four this weekend are showing more tight shots of players’ faces and more emotion throughout the arena, you should know it’s not something you are imagining. You might have read that this Final Four marks Jim Nantz’s last assignment as the lead game-caller of the NCAA Division-I men’s basketball championship. But there was a major production move behind the scenes that will impact the images you see as a viewer.
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The new director of CBS’ Final Four game coverage is Mark Grant, a 41-year sports production veteran who replaces Bob Fishman, a renowned behind-the-scenes staffer who retired from CBS last year after 50 years of employment. Among the iconic NCAA moments that Fishman directed for CBS Sports: Michael Jordan’s title-winning shot in the 1982 NCAA men’s basketball championship game, North Carolina State’s upset of Houston the following year, and Keith Smart’s NCAA buzzer-beater in the 1987 NCAA title game.
The 63-year-old Grant has worked for CBS Sports since 1998 after 11 years at ESPN. He is a longtime director on CBS’ NFL coverage as well the NCAA Tournament and Masters-related assignments. One NCAA game that Grant directed that you might remember: UCLA’s Sweet 16 win over Gonzaga in 2006 after Gonzaga blew a nine-point lead with three minutes remaining. The shot of Adam Morrison crying on the floor, jersey over his head, is one of the tournament’s most indelible images over the last two decades.
“A couple of years ago (2018), I did the Michigan–Houston game and Jordan Poole hit a shot at the buzzer,” Grant said. “It’s easy to show Michigan and the celebration but the money shots were the players for Houston who were on the floor crying after the game. One of our camera guys had a shot where in the foreground he had a Houston player crying and in the background you see the Michigan players celebrating. So in one shot, you saw what the NCAA Tournament was all about. I’ll never forget that shot. That’s what I try to do.”
Grant said his CBS bosses invited him to play in a golf tournament in May 2021 where they sprung the news on him. It came as a big surprise given Grant had not directed the second week of the NCAA basketball tournament for a number of years. When Turner Sports (now Warner Bros. Discovery) partnered with CBS in 2011 to air the tournament, the shared resources meant some Turner production people replaced CBS Sports staffers for the second week so each company could use its people.
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“When I got to CBS 25 years ago, I thought I would have a chance to move up the ladder,” Grant said. “What rung on the ladder, I didn’t know. I never thought that I would be the ‘A’ college basketball director. CBS hired me to direct the NFL and I thought the NFL was going to be where I made my advancement. I never really thought about where basketball could take me because we have a lot of talented people who do basketball and have been doing it for a long time.
“When CBS offered this to me, I asked them if they wanted me to direct the game like Bob Fishman,” Grant continued. “I said if you do, you probably have the wrong person for the job. Bob’s a legend. He’s one of my mentors. But I think our directing styles are a little bit different. I’m probably a little bit more aggressive in capturing the emotion, getting tight shots of the players’ faces. Not just Bob, I’m probably more aggressive than most people. … But that puts me at risk, too. Because if we get that tight shot and we have a camera right in someone’s face, something might happen like a steal or free throw and we could miss it. That’s the risk you take, and that’s a risk that I’m willing to take to capture the emotion.”
Grant will make history at this tournament as the first African-American to direct the men’s Final Four. (CBS believes he is the first African-American to direct a major men’s sports championship on broadcast television.) Three years ago, in Nov. 2020, Grant directed the Chargers-Broncos game on CBS alongside producer Kimani Morales, marking the first time that an NFL telecast was led by an African-American executive producer (Harold Bryant), producer (Morales) and director (Grant). That Grant is part of these firsts is a testament to him but also a massive indictment of the historical lack of diversity in these positions.
“I’m very proud to be the first Black person to direct a (major) championship in any sport if that’s the case,” Grant said. “I’ve worked very hard to get to where I’m at. But at the same time, if my career ended before I got to direct the Final Four, I would have felt like I have opened some doors for people where they can look up and say, ‘I want an opportunity like Mark Grant.’ I’m still the only Black director at CBS. It’s a very, very difficult job to get whatever color you are. It’s one thing to be the first, but you don’t want to be the last. You don’t want to be the only. It’s time for me to not be the only in my field.
“Please understand I’m not criticizing CBS. But it’s going to be great when somebody else comes along to be a director that looks like me. I will be very proud of that day and feel like I paved the way for him or her. … Whenever the time comes, it’s going to be nice to know someone’s following my footsteps.”
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Though they have known each other professionally for some time, Grant had never worked on an assignment with Nantz in college basketball until last month. (Same with analyst Grant Hill.) He had worked with Bill Raftery many times. He also has a ton of experience with Ian Eagle, who will be his lead broadcaster at next year’s Final Four.
“I’m thrilled for Mark to move into the big chair at the Final Four,” Eagle said. “I first worked with him in 1997 at NFL Europe on Fox and we were then assigned to the same NFL on CBS team two years later. First of all, he’s a great teammate, always injecting the crew with positive energy and encouragement. He’s also a terrific listener, following along with whatever discussion we’re having on the air to make sure the pictures match. He’s naturally curious, and I think that’s helped make him an outstanding director. Mark’s a creative thinker, and as he rose through the TV ranks over the last 30-plus years, he recognized this isn’t a paint-by-numbers job. He continues to look outside the box to give the viewer the best experience possible.”
I was curious how Grant defined a successful sports broadcast from the director perspective. His answer was interesting.
“The first thing you have to do is ask yourself, ‘Did we cover all of our bases technically?'” Grant said. “Then you ask yourself, ‘Did I entertain the viewer? Did I make them wish they were at the game? Did I capture the emotion in a game?’ — especially when you do the NCAA Tournament because players could be getting off the court for their last time. ‘Did we capture that anticipation of how people are looking forward to the game?’
“Sometimes the game doesn’t live up to the reputation. I can’t control that. I can only worry about the stuff that I can control. If it’s a 30-point blowout, we could still have a great telecast. At the same token, if somebody hits a shot at the buzzer and the place goes crazy, we can have an awful telecast. I don’t want the quality of play on the court to determine the quality of the production, and that’s my job to try to make that happen.”
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Episode 288 of the Sports Media Podcast features ESPN investigative reporters Nicole Noren and T.J. Quinn. In this podcast, the two reporters discuss their reporting over a four-year period on University of Utah athlete Lauren McCluskey, a 21-year-old heptathlete who was murdered in 2018 by a man she briefly dated; the institutional failure by the university campus police and other institutions; how to report this kind of story and get public records; the resources they were given for the story; using surveillance videos to tell a story; how you navigate getting publicity for this without being exploitive; what has happened since at the University of Utah, and more.
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(Top photo of Mark Grant: Courtesy of CBS)
