Wallenda's Walk Feels, Looks Like Any Other Game

Daredevil Nik Wallenda walked across the Grand Canyon on a high wire Sunday night and the made-for-TV event was just as much sports TV as any baseball, basketball or football game.

In so many ways, including some minor missteps -- by broadcast partner Discovery Channel, not Wallenda, who does not like being called a daredevil -- the broadcast had all the elements of any game broadcast.

Drama was the major player and the fact that Wallenda walked without a net, without a safety tether or even without a parachute was front and center throughout the broadcast. After that key thing -- the part where Wallenda could die if he made a mistake, a big difference as opposed to, say, the consequences of a missed free throw -- the similarities to any other sports broadcast were striking.

There was a nickname. Discovery Channel christened Wallenda the "Superman of Stunts."

There were unique camera angles. Wallenda had cameras strapped to his shirt and his balance pole, while cameras from either ends of the walk captured the action, as did a camera in a hovering helicopter.

There were sideline experts. In this case the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore told viewers about temperatures and wind gusts. And, like any other analyst with a high-tech tools, Cantore had a wealth of bells and whistles, including some of the same devices he trots out for viewers to follow landfall of a tropical storm somewhere on the East Coast.

And social media was ubiquitous, at one point with the event prompting 40,000 Tweets per second, about half of what Usain Bolt drew during the 2012 Olympic Games. Discovery Channel promoted its efforts along those lines, just like "Sunday Night Football" with viewers able to make their own camera selections and web exclusives. The insistence to cite the event and themselves as "trending" gave the broadcast a slight WWE feel, though.

Still, there were appropriate statistics, including news of 300 rescues a year from people visiting the Grand Canyon during the pre-walk show, and necessary references to the distance of the walk (1,400 meters) and Wallenda's height above the floor of the canyon when he was on the wire (1,500 meters).

It was clear Wallenda was nervous throughout much of the walk, which added to the drama, and there was even some unintended action and humor when Wallenda told his constantly talking father that he did not want to talk to anyone else (presumably shooting down a planned in-walk interview with a member of the broadcast team) and when he later told his father not to update him about how long he had been walking on the wire.

Where Discovery Channel faltered was mostly minor. Most notably, before Wallenda stepped on the wire, the storyline consistently teased a countodwn to the action. But there was never an on-screen countdown clock. Of all the sports staples, it's hard to imagine the broadcast without that item.

Beyond that, mistakes were minor, with no reaction shots of Wallenda's wife and family, even though viewers did see televangelist Joel Osteen, and with a bit too much of Wallenda's father's banter, but there were no other options for the broadcast. And almost all such broadcasts have such hiccups. For Discovery Channel was a good effort on what will likely be a big stage once the ratings are finalized. Wallenda's previous walk over Niagra Falls drew about 13 million viewers, and this show could be in the same (though probably slightly lower) range.