This was the week we have all been waiting for - Cam Newton threw a football!
You've probably seen every tweet, read every article and heard every detail from Newton's time on the field (or check the links below to get all caught up), so I'm going to take a slightly different angle on this week's events and take you behind the process of how we, as the Panthers' content group, decided to cover Newton's return.
It's not every day your franchise quarterback and fan-favorite player has a moment like this where you're allowed time to plan coverage and give fans the best access. So, we knew we needed to be strategic and intentional. Here's how it went down.
Thursday, June 6
We started planning for the possibility of Cam Newton participating in any capacity during minicamp. We threw out some wild ideas, but landed on what you saw come Tuesday, June 11: a hype video released before practice, a "He's back" graphic with the announcement of our plan to live stream, a day-of stadium arrival video, a jersey/locker room video, a practice arrival video, the live stream of practice, a Make-A-Wish moment, graphics supporting a quote from Ron Rivera, multiple articles, a "Wired" video piece with quarterbacks coach Scott Turner, and any unexpected moments from Cam playing with the camera.
Did you get all that?
We then spent Friday ironing out any details for the Newton coverage and preparing to cover all of the other practice moments like Gerald McCoy practicing for the first time as a Panther (big deal!!)
Saturday, June 8
The announcement of Newton throwing at minicamp was released via Panthers.com and Twitter, accompanied by the hype video of Newton training to get to this point.
Sunday, June 9
A photo album released with photos from Newton's offseason workouts
Superman "He's Back" graphic released
Tuesday, June 11
The day started at 5:45 a.m. for two of our videographers as they waited for Cam's arrival to the stadium. You can't beat the bike arrival and coffee nod!
Stadium arrival: Check!
The rest of the day was a bit of a blur! We had four videographers and two photographers at practice gathering all the planned moments and even additional moments like this:
By 4 p.m. on Tuesday, all the content for that day was captured, edited and posted to either the Panthers' social platforms or the website. That included: three graphics, eight videos, one live stream, six articles and more photos than we knew what to do with.
Then we ate ice cream. No really, we did. It was delicious and very well deserved by our staff!
It was a crazy week with a lot of moving parts, but I hope you enjoyed seeing a little bit of the behind-the-scenes process of how we handle covering it all!
Now, just because the players have officially broken offseason workouts doesn't mean we are going anywhere! Stay tuned to Panthers.com and Panthers social as we get you ready for the 2019 season!
