NBC takes its Premier League studio coverage to England this weekend

You have probably seen by now that NBC is taking its Premier League studio team across the Atlantic this weekend, for three days of live shows from cities and stadiums across England. I recently caught up with Pierre Moossa, the network's lead soccer producer, to chat about what the undertaking will involve and what it will mean for this weekend's coverage.

I've known Pierre since NBC started airing Premier League games, and I've talked with him a few times. What has always stood out to me about him is that he doesn't over-hype things, and he rarely makes the conversation about himself. He's direct, because you have to be in television, but he's not brash. So he's not going to call what NBC is doing this weekend "historic" or "unprecedented" or anything like that.

And really, the idea of doing this isn't so dramatic anymore. Yes, it's going to be a lot of work - broadcasting from Burnley's Turf Moor on Saturday, Manchester United's Old Trafford on Sunday and Liverpool's Anfield on Monday. But this is the network that has mastered the art and the science of delivering every second of the Olympics on TV and online, no matter where in the world the torch is lit.

It's the network that first brought England's culture into American homes back in 1969, when it began a 42-year run of serving up breakfast at Wimbledon; and it remains the over-the-air home of the French Open. What's a weekend in England's northern industrial heartland compared to all that?

The answer, of course, is that it's a really cool opportunity. If you had the power to set something like this up, you'd surely want to do it too.

Moossa has wanted to take the studio shows to England for a while. Once the network's Premier League broadcast became well-established with American viewers (and at NBC Sports' Stamford, Conn., headquarters), he decided the time was right to put the trip together.

"We looked at the April and May fixtures, and there were a couple of ones we circled," Moossa said. " Then we let the fixtures fall into place, and this weekend jumped out at me for a couple  of reasons."

No kidding. On Saturday, Burnley hosts suddenly-surging Arsenal as the Clarets try to get out of the relegation zone (12:30 p.m., NBC). On Sunday, Old Trafford hosts the Manchester Derby between third-place United and fourth-place City (11 a.m., NBCSN). On Monday, Liverpool hosts Newcastle United two days before the Hillsborough anniversary - always one of the most important landmarks on the English soccer calendar.

And to make things even better, all three venues are a short drive from each other. Manchester is 45 minutes from Burnley and an hour and 15 minutes from Liverpool. That makes the logistical side of things easy.

"I went over to the UK a couple of weeks ago and I did a survey of all three stadiums, met with the heads of stadium operations and the club press officers, and we just spent some time going through what we were trying to accomplish," Moossa said. "They have been generous and hospitable and have taken very good care of us."

You probably know about Old Trafford and Anfield, having seen both venues on TV many times over the years. But do you know about Turf Moor? If you don't, Moossa intends to help you learn this weekend.

"it has got such great character, and the passion of the fans and the town and the location, I really want people in the United States to appreciate what a phenomenal and just really cool stadium it is," Moossa said.

Then he added something that piqued my interest.

"Our coverage isn't about just the big six clubs," he said. "We give all 20 clubs equal coverage. It'd be a shame if we went over there and only did on site studios at the bigger stadiums, and didn't get people to appreciate some of the smaller, special stadiums."

That is not the kind of language you normally associate with the Premier League. My mind immediately flashed back to remarks by Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore at a NBC presentation in 2013, soon after the network officially announced its rights deal.

"Rather than dividing the world evenly, or [having] a draft pick system where the worst teams get the best players, we celebrate the idea that we have super-teams that are huge, and not such big teams, and therefore we actually encourage that stretch," Scudamore said. " We don't mind the fact that this is an escalator, as opposed to a flat situation."

Translation: We're well aware that for the international audience, there's United, Chelsea, City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, and probably in that order. If Everton has some more fans in the U.S. thanks to Tim Howard, that's great, but there's a pretty sizeable drop-off from those clubs to everybody else.

Burnley is definitely part of "everybody else."

(Before any Newcastle United fans out there come at me, yes, I know the club has a huge stadium and domestic fan base, but at this point, they are too.)

NBC's television ratings bear Scudamore's theory out. Matchups with big clubs can draw over a million viewers, but those with lesser clubs can get fairly easily beaten by Major League Soccer games.

Yet as with almost any sport, there are storylines that can make the Burnleys of the world appealing.

"It's not just the same big six teams that have stories and interesting things to be aware of," Moossa said. "There are a lot of clubs in there with a lot of fantastic players, history, and also some really special moments. I think we'd be doing our audience a disservice if we didn't cover all aspects."

Moossa compared Turf Moor to Fenway Park - which is no small thing considering that his family is full of Yankees fans and his wife works for the YES Network.

"When you walk into a place like [Fenway], so rich in history and character, you can't help but smile and say this place is really neat," he said. "When you walk into Turf Moor, it's not brand new and it's not fancy, it doesn't seat the most, but it's got so much character."

Unfortunately, "character" can also be used to cover up for a lack of certain modern amenities. And when you're a television broadcaster, that can matter. The Philadelphia analogy is comparing a basketball game at the Wells Fargo Center to one at the Palestra. The former has modern lights, video screens, and so forth. The latter didn't have any kind of video board from 1927 until 2011, and nobody batted an eye.

The Premier League made sure there would be no problems. Teams that get promoted from the second tier must upgrade their facilities to meet international broadcast requirements.

"I think the challenge is: how do you show off and take advantage of this very privileged location and access," Moossa said. "But technically, it's not a challenge."

Having said that, not everything will be completely easy. NBC isn't taking a very big crew across the Atlantic - just its on-air talent, Moossa, researchers Dan Posner and Michael Carey, and Nick Casanova of the network's programming division. The rest of the production staff will come from people who live in England.

Therein lies the potential problem. Both in front of and behind the camera, the Queen's English and the President's English aren't quite the same.

"There's a lot of terminology that's just slightly different, and when you're working in a live TV atmosphere where you need to make split-second decisions, you don't need to be saying, 'Do this - which I mean is X, Y and Z,' " Moossa said. "You want to make sure everybody clearly knows what's being done. When you're coordinating a show where you have so many people and so many different parts - you're integrating Premier League Productions and IMG [Worldwide, which distributes EPL games internationally]; an on-site pitch-side studio; the gantry [where the game announcers are]; and a Stamford operation [back home in Connecticut] - you need to make sure that all parties know exactly what's being done."

Moossa cited a few examples of concepts that might get lost in translation.

"A TD, a technical director, is called a "vision mixer," and the vision mixer actually cuts the cameras in some cases - the director doesn't call it," he said. "The producer is often in the back deck, and only talks to the talent in commercial breaks, and the director is talking in the talent's ear all the time about when they are going to graphics. The talent always hears what the director says, even if he's having a conversation with someone else."

Even a term as simple as "B-roll" - the file footage of scenes, people and so forth - is called "U-lay" or "underlay" in England.

[To get a better idea of what some of the technical jargon means, read my past behind-the-scenes pieces on ESPN's MLS coverage and NBC's Premier League coverage.]

Playing the role of translator will be Richard Day, a former producer and director at British over-the-air network ITV. Day's most recent work has been with IMG Worldwide and Premier League Productions, the company which assembles the international feeds for Premier League broadcasts. And he spent NBC's first season of broadcasting the Premier League in Stamford, helping the network's crew learn the ropes. So he and Moossa know each other well already.

"It helps to have that bridge, because [Day] knows both what we're saying and the terminology they need to hear," Moossa said. "With Rebecca and everybody else, it's going to be a bit of a hybrid show, so you want to have the right people in place to be able to support the show."

Toward the end of the interview, I asked Moossa what Casanova's role will be with the group. It turns out Casanova is a quite talented photographer, so he'll have a creative role as much as a management role.

But it's impossible to avoid noticing that NBC's big weekend comes just a few months away from when bidding for the next round of U.S. Premier League TV rights is expected to begin. Given NBC's success in building the Premier League's ratings and brand, you can be sure the price for whichever network wins the race will be steep. And you can be sure NBC will face stiff competition, especially if Fox and ESPN team up for a joint bid.

I couldn't help asking Moossa whether Casanova might try to sneak a few words in with Premier League executives to give NBC an early edge.

Alas, Moossa is out of the loop on those discussions.

"I wish I knew," he said. "I wish I was involved, but that's more [NBC Sports Group chairman] Mark Lazarus and [NBC Sports and NBCSN president of programming] Jon Miller. I really don't have any involvement in that process."

So, back to this weekend. It will bring a first for NBC beyond the act of having its studio coverage be on-site. Believe it or not, since the network started broadcasting Premier League games, it has never had all of its on-air talent from both the U.S. and the U.K. together in one place on air.

You know all the names: Rebecca Lowe, Kyle Martino, Robbie Earle, Robbie Mustoe, Arlo White, Graeme Le Saux, Lee Dixon, Steve Bower, Neil Ashton and Tim Howard. You'll see them all at various times on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

The last thing I asked Moossa for was an assessment of Howard's growth as a broadcaster. It's been pretty remarkable to see, not least because Howard is still an active player for Everton and the United States men's national team.

"He has become so much more comfortable in being a broadcaster, comfortable in what he is saying, relaxed on the air," Moossa said. "And in turn, when you're not thinking about the mechanics of being a broadcaster and you're just thinking about what you want to say, it really shows."

You'll see Howard as part of the pitch-side studio crew at Anfield, just under a mile from Howard's office at Goodison Park. You'll see the rest of the crew throughout the weekend, starting with pregame coverage Saturday at 7 a.m. Eastern. The schedule of games, studio shows and commentator assignments is here.

It should be a pretty fun weekend, both for those working on the broadcasts and those watching on TV from afar.