HBO - Inside the Super Bowl (January 1982)

Every year as the video crews prepare for the Super Bowl (often in delightful warm-weather destinations) – we look back at Super Bowl XVI and a much different climate. For some reason, the NFL awarded the 1982 game to Pontiac, Michigan – in JANUARY. Had they never been there?

We arrived before the big event to tape “Inside the NFL”, HBO’s premiere sports program with former players Len Dawson and Nick Buoniconti. What we found was a wind chill below zero that required us to run power lines from our hotel rooms just to keep the production van from freezing overnight.

The next morning when we pulled up to the Pontiac Silverdome we found that CBS had created an astonishing heated tent city outside the stadium, wrapping all of their remote game trucks and the areas between them in plastic to keep the crews and equipment functioning. (Remember – never let your producer suffer – cold, hunger, thirst – any discomfort.)