Winning Shot

Left to right: Tom Fletcher is welcomed into the 2023 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and Panavision Vice President Chris Konash. (Image courtesy of Tom Fletcher)

Imagine a close-up of a basketball and two NBA centers leaping straight toward you mid-jump ball. Or a Stanley Cup face-off, viewed up from ice level.

Spectacular images like these bring the wow factor to televised sports, a feat duly recognized when Tom Fletcher, ’85 LAS, was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2023. The Glen Ellyn, Ill., native has also won five Emmy Awards for his application of robotic cameras in sports broadcasting.

Fletcher, his father, Archie, and his sister Sally, ’78 BUS, had little idea of that future when they launched their camera and lighting equipment business, Fletcher Chicago, in 1987. The firm began providing equipment for news organizations, and got into the motion picture business.

Fletcher Chicago introduced Tinseltown to Hot-Heads, developed in the mid-1980s as part of a remote-control camera system that could be mounted in precarious places.

A sports fan, Fletcher had an epiphany: Why not shrink the Hot-Head and place it on top of shot-clocks, above rims, behind backboards, inside hockey nets—the option were endless.

“One of my biggest skills is that I’m able to see industry trends and adapt them,” Fletcher says. Indeed, his camera angles have become so pervasive in the industry that “Fletcher Cams” are synonymous with robo-cams.

When his family sold the company, Fletcher wasn’t ready to stop. So, in 2019, he, Sally and his son, Austin, co-founded Momento, a Chicago-area company that turns the camera onto the audience. By scanning a QR code, fans can download images of themselves on commemorative tickets or Sports Illustrated cover mock-ups. “What father wouldn’t love a picture of him and his son at the big game?” Fletcher says.