As MLB Opening Day Nears, YES Network Thrives on Synergy and Collaboration Studio programming and game production go hand in hand By Kristian Hernandez, Assistant Editor
Tuesday, March 19, 2019 - 2:55 pm
Print This Story
Story Highlights
As the New York Yankees wrap up Spring Training and embark on their latest quest for the franchise's 28th World Series, YES Network is eyeing another successful season from its headquarters in Stamford, CT. The offseason has been a busy one for both the men in pinstripes and the people who put them on the air, but, as some things change, others remain the same. In their 18th season at the network (their 20th in the industry), YES Network's Jared Boshnack, coordinating producer, studio, and Bill Boland, lead game producer, have stayed committed to a heavy diet of communication, cooperation, and interconnectivity.
We know each other so well that we know when to follow up on something that's important or when to just gently nudge, says Boshnack. Right now, we're ready to go, like the support staff, the players, and everybody else that's associated with baseball in any capacity. You get excited for Opening Day. Somewhere around July, we still love what we do, but a lot of other people lose this [connection] since it's a long season.
The Meshing of Two Departments
The symbiosis between Boshnack's studio programming and Boland's production of the television broadcast has brought synergy to the two camps. Although they plan their respective chunks of the day independently, there is always a constant flow of collaboration.
Jared Boshnack and Bill Boland have racked up 24 Emmys for their studio and game production since 2003. (Photo: E.H. Wallop/YES Network)
I'll look at his rundown, and, if I see something that's late in his show and right at the beginning of my show, we'll say, Hey, would you mind moving that so that it's not repeated content, says Boland. Even though we start the day separately with our own ideas of our own shows, we'll talk throughout the day.
For the work that goes on inside the network's signature production truck, Game Creek Video's Yogi, he blocks off at least two hours to scavenge through social media and other resources to determine what's going on around the league.
I'll listen to sound [of interview clips from the previous game on the YES Network website] in the morning, then format my open and communicate it with my crew, he says. I get to the stadium between 1 and 2 p.m., and I'm there until 10:30 to 11 p.m.
On the studio side, planning for the pregame show is a stringent process. With a 7 p.m. first pitch, Boshnack is in the building at 3:00 p.m., crafting the script that will set the table for that night's game. Although there is a formatted structure for the show, he can relax a bit after the final pitch and approach the game recap with spontaneity.
I get on a half hour before [Bill], and I stay an hour afterwards, he says. I get the best of both worlds, because we turn the page and the postgame is all free-flowing. He may be doing the game for the two- to three-hour range, but what's happening during the broadcast is our canvas.
Balancing Improvisation and a Scripted Plan
The duo's diligent preparation makes for a successful slate of day-long entertainment, but the magic happens when Boshnack and Boland adapt on the fly.
The producing aspect of it is a lot more fast-paced because you have all of this time to get things in, says Boshnack. You're talking about flashbacks, roll-ins, etc.
In addition to prepackaged content developed before the action starts, Boland will throw it over to the studio crew during the fourth and seventh innings for live, sponsored look-ins at the latest news, notes, and updates from games being played simultaneously. When breaking news occurs, they rely on working with each other.
There are times when bigger baseball news breaks and it's not the fourth or seventh inning, notes Boland. There's an [an audio channel for Jared] that's open at all times. That training comes way back from ABC when we worked on the college-football halftime show. We were the ones cutting in to four different regions of the country at one time.
Digital platforms that have become integrated with the linear telecast receive their fair share of exposure as well. For example, Boshnack's involvement with the Facebook Live show will get airtime on Boland's in-game broadcasts.
On the game side, we'll plug that the Facebook Live show is happening soon, says Boland. There was a time where we experimented with a three-man booth, and Kevin Sullivan [director, digital media,] did a show with [analyst and former Yankees pitcher] David Cone. It's a balance, because you don't want to tell your whole audience to go away, but all of [our younger viewers] have multiple screens.
Whether there's a plan of attack or decisions are made off-the-cuff, there is a sense of continuity that provides uninterrupted content from both sides of the operation.
When you turn on Yankees Batting Practice Today at 6 p.m. or even [The] Michael Kay [Show] before that, one show flows into the next show and into the next one, says Boland. The interaction between the game and the studio is seamless in that we'll follow up storylines that they do in their show and put it in ours. [Programming] flows through the whole day.
What's New in 2019
Given all the new creations of last season, the YES Network is looking to build on the experience gained in 2018. From an operations perspective, all home games at Yankee Stadium were captured by 16 Sony HDC-4300 cameras with complete super-slo-mo playback ranging from 2X to 8X. After an entire year with this technology, Boland and his t
Most recent headlines
04/08/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, is excited to announce Santiago Solanas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO)....
03/06/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, a...
28/04/2024
Mediahaus delivers the first SRT live-streaming sports production over 5G with U...
18/04/2024
In August 2023, Dyn Media launched as a new broadcaster in European sports, aimed at giving sports beyond football the exposure and viewership they deserve. The...
18/04/2024
Hitomi Broadcast, market leader in audio/video alignment and latency tools based in the UK, has signed a partnership deal with global broadcast rental specialis...
18/04/2024
18 04 2024 - Media release Screen Australia and Dynamic Television announce new Scripted Initiative
Savage River
Screen Australia and Los Angeles-based telev...
18/04/2024
Vislink's DragonFly V - The Company's Smallest-Ever Transmitter Debuted ...
18/04/2024
MediaSilo to Offer Camera to Cloud with Atomos
Brie Clayton April 17, 2024
0 Comments
Integration between MediaSilo and Atomos Cloud Studio unlocking ...
18/04/2024
MultiDyne Updates its SilverBULLET Series to Serve More Fiber-Optic Links
Brie Clayton April 17, 2024
0 Comments
MultiDyne Fiber Optic Solutions intro...
18/04/2024
Cinedeck Partners with Paramount to Revolutionize Content Delivery Process
Brie Clayton April 17, 2024
0 Comments
Cinedeck, a pioneer in integrated de...
18/04/2024
Unreal for video adding rocks and foliage
Graham Quince April 17, 2024
0 Comments
Welcome to my series on learning Unreal Engine for After Effects u...
18/04/2024
Best Budget Beginner-Friendly 4k Drone
Sean Alami April 17, 2024
0 Comments
Potensic Atom 4k 3 axis Gimbal Drone, ideal drone for beginners.
Some con...
18/04/2024
Rocky Mount Mills will be overflowing with runners, families and friends, all fo...
18/04/2024
Berklee's Yoon-Ji Lee Receives Guggenheim Fellowship Lee, an assistant professor of composition, creates music based on unconventional and nonlinear struc...
18/04/2024
Ben Sherwood, former president of Disney ABC Television Group, has been named CEO and publisher at The Daily Beast. Joanna Coles, former chief content officer a...
17/04/2024
Opening today, the exploration is aimed at selecting a location that will preser...
17/04/2024
On April 18 and 19, experts from across the audio industry-including artists, pu...
17/04/2024
With its particular combination of talent, ambition, culture, and, of course, wo...
17/04/2024
At Spotify, we want to equip student creators with the tools and resources neede...
17/04/2024
L3Harris Communications Australia Field Service support continues to grow with a...
17/04/2024
An optical technician lays on a diving board suspended between NASAs Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescopes primary and secondary mirrors. The photo is a projected ...
17/04/2024
DENVER Video streaming infrastructure providers Bitmovin has announced that the Graham Media Group has selected Bitmovin Playback to enhance its viewer experien...
17/04/2024
LGBTQIA+ representation in TV content boosts viewership among young (18-34) Americans, according to a new report from Horowitz Research....
17/04/2024
New NVIDIA RTX A400 and A1000 GPUs Enhance AI-Powered Design and Productivity Wo...
17/04/2024
Frezzi Unveils SunLight 2: The Ultimate High-Output Lighting Companion for ENG a...
17/04/2024
Peakto Search for Lightroom - Find at a glance among thousands of photos AND vid...
17/04/2024
Simone Pilon Appointed Executive Director at Berklee Valencia Pilon, who has served as Berklee Valencia's interim executive director since March 2023, has a...
17/04/2024
CBS will re-air Sundays Billy Joel concert telecast this Friday (April 19) after several CBS-affiliated stations abruptly cut part of Sundays telecast of the si...
17/04/2024
Jacqueline Matter has been named co-host of Good Day DC at WTTG Washington. Effective immediately, she co-anchors the 4 a.m. newscast with Stephen Graddick, rep...
17/04/2024
Television usage took its usual March dip, dropping 3% from February, according to Nielsen,...
17/04/2024
BET Media Group, part of Paramount Global, said it and Tyler Perry had reached an agreement extending their content production deal through 2028....
17/04/2024
Warner Bros. Discovery said it named David Porter head of ad sales research, data and insights....
17/04/2024
Lionsgate said it signed a new multi-year employment deal with Lee Hollin, its executive VP, television and head of current programming for Lionsgate Television...
17/04/2024
Federal Communications Commission chair Jessica Rosenworcel sits for an interview at the Paley Museum in New York April 16 at 12:30 p.m. ET. Moderated by Nick T...
17/04/2024
Travis Kelce will host Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?, a spinoff of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, that will stream on Prime Video....
17/04/2024
Amy Alvarez has been named news director at KULX Salt Lake City, the Telemundo station in the market. She comes from KVDA San Antonio, another Telemundo outlet,...
17/04/2024
Frndly TV, the low-priced, family-friendly streaming service, said it launched a channel store where users can sign up for subscription streaming services....
17/04/2024
TV Tech has announced its Best of Show Awards for the 2024 NAB Show, April 14-17 in Las Vegas. The awards are judged by a panel of industry experts on the crite...
17/04/2024
Colorfront has introduced AI vision-analysis tools to assist master QC operations with detecting framing anomalies, dead pixels, bright titles and sparkles
By ...
17/04/2024
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: April 17, 2024
Rory Springthorpe, founder and director at outside broadcasting company Vivid Broadcast, talks to TVBEurope a...
17/04/2024
Riedel Communications today announced its collaboration with Interstellar Technologies, a pioneering space transportation company based in Hokkaido, Japan, to o...
17/04/2024
Riedel Communications announced that Lafayette College, a liberal arts college in eastern Pennsylvania and one of 10 core members in the Patriot League, is usin...
17/04/2024
24i, the video streaming platform expert, today announced that Slovak Telekom and T-Mobile Czech Republic, part of the Deutsche Telekom (DT) Group, have extende...
17/04/2024
OpenDrives, Inc., the global provider of software-defined media workflow solutions and data management capabilities, is honored to announce its inclusion in the...
17/04/2024
Operative is pleased to announce a new and expanded partnership with Goldbach Media, one of the leading media sales organizations in Switzerland. This partnersh...
17/04/2024
Appear, the global leader in live production technology, and Roberts Communications Network (Roberts), the leading worldwide video distribution and wagering dat...
17/04/2024
Appear enables Mobilelinks to meet updated technical requirements.
Appear, the global leader in live production technology, has been selected by Mobilelinks to...
17/04/2024
The expanded solution offers enhanced visibility and automation of production and distribution workflows for live event contribution applications
Appear, the g...
17/04/2024
Econocom, a sustainable digital enterprise and pioneer of the circular economy in Europe, today announced the launch of an ambitious campaign as part of the rol...
As MLB Opening Day Nears, YES Network Thrives on Synergy and Collaboration Studio programming and game production go hand in hand By Kristian Hernandez, Assistant Editor 
