Schanzer savors role as Derby producer

Longtime NBC horse racing analysts Jerry Bailey and Randy Moss praise producer Lindsay Schanzer for her smarts, her organization, her knowledge of the sport; but most of all, her ability to handle pressure.

Schanzer demonstrated that last year when she produced the Kentucky Derby for the first time and racehorse Rich Strike, at odds of 81-to-1, came out of the clouds to win — the longest shot to do it in more than 100 years. The broadcast won rave reviews and earned Schanzer a Gracie Award.

“When things go wrong on a horse racing telecast — which often happens — the atmosphere in the [production] truck can be just absolutely chaotic,” said Moss. “On the set we get none of that. She completely insulates me and Jerry and [hosts] Mike Tirico or Ahmed Fareed — we have no sense of how much chaos is going on.”

Bailey prizes poise under duress as the No. 1 quality in a producer and knows something about that, as a former Hall of Fame jockey who won the Kentucky Derby twice before becoming a TV analyst.

“There’ve been producers who get excited, and they yell and they don’t get back to you in your ears and you really don’t know what is going on,” Bailey said. “You know things are a mess, but you don’t know how the rhythm is going to change if the format is out the window. She is very calm under pressure. …For me as an analyst on the set, a sense of calm really gives you a lot of confidence.”

NBC Sports Executive Producer Sam Flood said Schanzer “has creative flair, an innovative spirit and a welcoming leadership style, which complement her calm demeanor in the production truck.”

Schanzer is the daughter of former NBC Sports President Ken Schanzer, who retired in 2011. She grew up around sporting events and worked summers as a runner on NBC Sports broadcasts. She studied film and television at Notre Dame and originally pursued a job producing features.

But at the 2013 Kentucky Derby — won by favorite Orb — she ended up in the live production truck and got a glimpse of the action. “And I just decided post production is not for me, I want that,” she said. “I want the adrenaline; I want to be the mix.”

Schanzer has worked on horse racing coverage in different roles for 10 years, including as tape producer, and producing the Preakness and Belmont Stakes. She was promoted to producer of the Derby last year after longtime producer Rob Hyland was named coordinating producer of “Sunday Night Football.”

Schanzer is the first woman to produce the Kentucky Derby, which historically has been one of NBC’s highest-rated sports broadcasts in the second quarter of the year. The event attracted 16 million viewers last year.

Asked about that, Schanzer said, “Is it good for women? Yeah. Anytime you have a woman in the position of being a producer … of a show that is being watched by this many people is great. The visibility is great. If it makes one more person say, ‘Hey, I think I can do that, too,’ then awesome.”