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Mark Grant was the first Black director to direct a major sports championship on Monday night when CBS broadcasts the NCAA Final Four title game.
Mark Grant was considering retirement two years ago after a long career as a director at CBS and ESPN. Those plans changed though when CBS Sports executives offered him the chance to be the lead director for college basketball and the NCAA Tournament.
Grant will be the director for Monday night’s national championship game between San Diego State and UConn, and it’s believed he will be the first Black director for a championship game in any sport.
“I know what this means to people who look like me, and I don’t take that lightly at all,” Grant said. “When you think about it, there haven’t been many opportunities. I hope this will open doors and give some opportunities to other people. We have a lot of talented Black people doing sports, I hope that they can look at me and say, ‘Well, if he can do it, then so can I.’ It just takes a lot of work, a lot of preparation and luck. You’ve got to be in the right place at the right time. ”
Grant replaced Bob Fishman, who retired last year after doing 39 Final Fours at CBS.
After 11 years at ESPN, Grant joined CBS in 1998. He has worked on the first two weekends at previous NCAA Tournaments as well as directing NFL, college football and golf coverage for the network.
In 2020, Grant directed the game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Denver Broncos alongside producer Kimani Morales and executive producer Harold Bryant — making it the first time an NFL game was led by a Black director, producer and executive director.
Grant, a five-time Sports Emmy winner, also helped lead CBS’ “8:46” campaign, which featured stories from the network’s Black voices after George Floyd’s death while in police custody.
Grant said the biggest difference between his style and Fishman’s is that Grant likes to cut in more shots as a team is bringing the ball up the court.
“Sometimes I wait until the ball crosses midcourt before I come back to my play-by-play camera. I may go to three or four shots before they bring the ball past midcourt,” Grant said. “I like to capture the emotion of the game. I want people to watch the game at home and and see everything going on. I try to make them wish they were at the game.”
Grant said the best advice he got from Fishman was to be himself and not to change his approach to directing a game.
“I’m there because they thought I was the best person for the job. It makes me feel good because as great a director as Bob is, we’re totally two totally different directors in style,” Grant said. “I give credit to CBS for seeing something something that didn’t look exactly like the way Bob did it.
I know when I walk out the truck after the championship game, my first call will be to Bob. I want to get his take. It means as much to me as anybody else’s.”
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