ESPN Monday Night Football Production Truck: Better Than Any Sports Bar

A look inside Monday Night Football.

During a Monday Night Football game, the ESPN production truck is a frantic place with 10 people monitoring 110 TV screens, which show not only the live feeds of all 31 cameras ESPN uses (with the name of the cameraman under each screen) but also dozens of replays that the producer might decide to show.

When an official ruled a catch at the sideline incomplete in the second quarter of tonight's Vikings-Bears game, producer Jay Rothman immediately yelled instructions about showing the proper replay. "Get the end of the play," Rothman shouted. "We don't need to see the ref." Any time the Vikings faced third down, producers reminded cameramen that if the Vikings had to punt on the next play, they needed to be ready to focus on Devin Hester.

The announcers spend the commercial breaks in communication with the truck. Play-by-play man Mike Tirico knew there was an injury at one point but wasn't sure who was down; he asked and someone in the truck told him it was Bears defensive end Mark Anderson.

The hardest job may be that done by the two ESPN staffers working on the ESPN Deportes Spanish broadcast. They don't have any control over the camera angles they get – and their announcers aren't even in the stadium, instead working from ESPN's headquarters in Bristol.