JANESVILLE, Wis. — A Rock County man won’t be going to the Super Bowl, but his invention will be.
Klover Products owner Paul Terpstra created his Klover MiK parabolic microphone for Fox Sports more than a decade ago. This will be the fifth Fox Super Bowl for the equipment that Terpstra said he knows can really amplify the viewer’s experience.
“In football, whenever you hear the foot hit the ball, or a kickoff, or a punch or anything like that, that is captured through parabolic microphones,” Terpstra said. “There’s no other way. You can’t put a microphone on the football.”
Or any other ball, for that matter. He said it’s why his parabolic is pretty popular in an array of sports.
“They were at the World Cup this last fall for the first time,” he said. “I’m pretty excited about that. They’ve been used that March Madness for basketball, they’ve been at NBA playoffs.”
Terpstra said he is proud of his parabolic, but always perfecting the design. His recent work on upgrading the equipment’s handlebars with 3D printing of bulletproof kevlar plastic in his basement.
“We do know that Fox is using the new 3D kind of handles and that the crew that is doing the Super Bowl will have those,” he said.
Terpstra said he hopes the new handles will be a game changer for the mic operators doing an incredibly dangerous job on the field.
“On a very regular basis, the microphones and people holding them will get run over on the sidelines of games. We have quite a few videos that we’ve collected of people being run over on the sidelines,” Terpstra said. “So we get a fairly large number of parts back in the spring that need to be repaired or replaced.”
Meanwhile, Terpstra said his family will play “Where’s Waldo?” during the game and cheer when the mics pop up on the big screen.
Learn more about the company at https://www.kloverproducts.com.