these nicknames even greater exposure. Nevertheless, two teams, Orlando and Birmingham, imposed policies that forbade players from using nicknames. Orlando's ban was voted upon by the players, although Jeff Brohm objected. Birmingham's players were banned from doing so by coach Gerry DiNardo, a notoriously strict disciplinarian more accustomed to coaching at the college level. DiNardo previously alienated players at Vanderbilt and LSU and later did so at Indiana with his iron-fisted rule. The Thunderbolts were the only professional team he would ever coach. Rod Smart, a running back who played in the first XFL nationally televised game, was the first player to gain notice from his nickname, "He Hate Me." Broadcast overview Camera perspectives Although the XFL was not the first football league to feature the "sky cam", which enables TV viewers to see behind the offensive unit, it helped to popularize its unique capabilities. For the first several weeks, the league used the sky cam and on-field cameramen (nicknamed the "Bubba Cam" after WWE's cameraman, Bubba, who couldn't get medical clearance to cover the XFL) extensively, giving the television broadcasts a perspective similar to video games such as the Madden series. During player interviews, particularly later in the season as attendances declined, the television crews took extensive efforts to avoid capturing the empty stands on camera. When they did show the stands, it was just mostly close ups of individual sections that were full. Player interviews at sparsely-attended games were often shot from a camera angle in close proximity and low to the ground pointed upward, giving the perspective of the camera being operated by a little person. After the XFL's failure, the sky cam was adopted by the NFL's broadcasters; the device has subsequently come into use on all major networks. NBC in particular switched back to the XFL camera angles in 2017, when traditional cameras were too far away to cut through thick fog and smoke on some of the Sunday Night Football games that year; response was so positive that the network opted to use two of its Thursday Night Football games to experiment with intentionally broadcasting most of the game through that angle. Broadcast schedule At the beginning of the season, NBC showed a feature game at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday nights, also taping a second game. The second game, in some weeks, would air in the visiting team's home market (as was