An Eye for ‘Extreme’ Sports : Television: San Clemente’s Dynocomm is a major producer of action programming for cable.

Like thousands of boys raised in the 1960s, Alan D. Gibby watched sportscasters like Dick Enberg and dreamed of someday being in the broadcast booth.

Gibby never realized that dream, but considers his job to be the next best thing. At 35, he is one of the nation’s largest independent producers of action sports programming.

The founder of Dynocomm Sports in San Clemente, Gibby produces shows for ESPN Inc., Prime Ticket Network, USA Network and other cable channels. The company’s fast-paced footage of everything from sky surfing to snowboarding is seen globally on networks such as MTV and CNN, and it has helped spotlight offbeat sports ranging from mountain biking to marlin fishing.

Dynocomm began in 1982, when the small Laguna Niguel cable production company Gibby worked for folded. Unemployed with no college degree and a young family to support, Gibby launched his own company. “I decided, the heck with it. I was going to try to make it on my own,” he said.

“When I was a kid, I wanted to be a broadcaster--an on-air commentator for the California Angels,” said Gibby, who had all but abandoned that dream once he graduated from Laguna Beach High. But combining his interest in sports broadcasting and his brief exposure to cable television, Gibby thought there might still be a way to make a living from his lifelong love of sports.

Having grown up a surfer in Laguna Beach, Gibby gambled that footage of beach sports and their accompanying lifestyles would attract both viewers and sponsors--if the programs could find air time.

The surfing movies of the early 1960s, especially “Endless Summer,” had created a generation of surfing enthusiasts who were just about to dive back into the water now that their children were grown, he said. At the same time, those older surfers’ children were discovering not just surfing but all its spinoffs--windsurfing, bodyboarding, motorized water-ski racing and snowboarding. Gibby figured this was his wave to catch.

Dynocomm was one of the first producers to air a national one-hour surfing special. “In the old days, surfing used to get 15-minute highlights on sports shows,” Gibby said. “At first it was a tough sell.”

At the time, ESPN--originally known as the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network--was just getting underway. “Nobody had any idea how big it would be,” he said.

Indeed, Dynocomm has grown up alongside ESPN. When Dynocomm produced its first show for ESPN 10 years ago, the channel was seen in fewer than 20 million U.S. households. Today the 14-year-old network reaches 61.1 million households in 75 countries.

This fall, Capital Cities/ABC Inc. and the Hearst Corp., which own ESPN, are launching ESPN II. That channel is aimed at the lucrative market of 18- to 34-year-old viewers and will be heavily weighted with “extreme” sports--the sort of sporting events Dynocomm was a pioneer in filming more than a decade ago.

ESPN uses about 75 independent producers to supply its shows, but Dynocomm is one of only a handful that it uses for multiple sports, ESPN Producer Dennis Deninger said.

“They are among the select few that have been able to demonstrate strengths and capabilities over and over,” he said. “I can’t say enough good things about their dedication and creativity,” Deninger said.

In particular, Dynocomm’s hallmark style, which incorporates unusual camera angles, computer graphics and animation as well as soundtracks, makes its videos appealing to a generation weaned on MTV--the generation ESPN is going after.

To get its distinctive look, Dynocomm had to develop special camera equipment, such as underwater housings, so that viewers could enjoy the vicarious experience of being right next to the competitors. For sound, the company draws mostly on a library of licensed music cuts, although occasionally staff members compose and produce original rock music for the shows.

More teen-agers and young adults are getting into non-traditional action sports, whether it be in-line skating or mountain biking, Gibby said. “We’re helping fuel the fire,” he said.

The trend has not escaped the notice of other networks, including MTV, which began adding sports clips into its mix of music videos a few years ago. And offbeat sports--among them dirt biking or bungee jumping--that used to be considered fads, are now having world tours and staging professional competitions because of the exposure they can get on cable television, Gibby said.

Dynocomm just finished taping 31 shows of the recently formed World Roller Hockey League, which made its debut on ESPN three weeks ago. Shot in an outdoor arena at the Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Fla., the league--invented to capitalize on a growing interest in in-line skates--features 20 former National Hockey League players.

“It’s the first time (outdoor roller hockey) has existed as a sport,” said Josh Krulewitz, a spokesman for ESPN at the network’s headquarters in Bristol, Conn.

According to the National Sporting Goods Assn. in Prospect, Ill., sales of in-line skates zoomed to $267 million in 1992, a 62% increase over 1991. The number of skaters hit 9.7 million, a 33% increase over the previous year, association spokesman Dan Kasen said. “Of the 50 sports we track, it is the fastest growing one.”

Indeed, roller hockey is a burgeoning neighborhood sport and indoor teams, such as the Anaheim Bullfrogs, are sprouting up and drawing audiences.

The World Roller Hockey series is just one example of the strategy to adjust programming to attract younger viewers.

“We’re really trying to enhance the late afternoon (shows) to appeal to a younger audience,” said ESPN’s Krulewitz. “At that time of the day, the (remote) control is in their hands,” along with the future of sports programming.

Alternative sports programming has come a long way since the days when Dynocomm, working out of a rented condo, had to shoot the occasional corporate promotional video to pay the rent between sporting assignments.

The company’s big break came in 1983, when Tustin-based Ocean Pacific Sunwear Ltd. hired Dynocomm to tape the Op Pro surfing competition at Huntington Beach. It recently completed shooting its 11th year of the contest for Op and ESPN.

“Op believed in us. We were local and they gave us a chance,” Gibby said. “They’re a large reason we’re still around.”

Today, Dynocomm has a core of 15 employees in its state-of-the-art, 6,500-square-foot production facility perched in the hills above San Clemente. It draws on a stable of about 100 free-lance camera operators, sound technicians, production assistants, lighting crew members and on-camera commentators. Together they log more than 1 million miles a year traveling to shoot domestic and foreign sporting events.

Through July 1, the company has already produced a record 105 shows, up from about 60 shows for all of 1992. Revenue from each show ranges from $25,000 to $80,000. Although the privately held company does not disclose sales or profit figures, Gibby said profits are growing at a steady pace of between 10% and 20% annually.

And Gibby, who still owns 95% of the company, is optimistic that the company’s biggest growth is still ahead. “People (in the cable industry) are talking about 500-station systems,” he said. “The more stations there are, the more programming you need.”

Dynocomm’s chief said his optimism has always given him a competitive edge. “A lot of times, I wanted to quit, but I knew I couldn’t for my family,” he said. “There were times when we were trying like mad to stay above water.” However, the alternative--working for a salary--did not strike him as all that much more secure than working for himself.

“This place was started because I had lost my job,” he said. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Profile:

Alan D. Gibby

Age: 35

Position: Founder and owner, Dynocomm Sports

Headquarters: San Clemente

Business: Films, edits and produces television segments on surfing, snowboarding, mountain biking, motorized water-skiing, windsurfing, roller hockey and other sports competitions

Personal background: Born in Fullerton; graduated from Laguna Beach High School in 1976. Formed Dynocomm in 1982. At age 25, produced his first nationally televised sporting event, the 1983 Op Pro Surfing Championship. Has produced and directed more than 300 national and worldwide sports specials.

Hobbies: Surfing, motorized water-skiing

Source: Dynocomm Sports; Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times