As U.S.-Cuba relations continue to thaw, the two nations' shared pastime is serving as the backdrop for history in the making. The first sitting U.S. president to visit Cuba since 1928, President Barack Obama will be in the stands at Estadio Latinoamericano in Havana today to watch the Tampa Bay Rays take on the Cuban national team.
Although it may be just an exhibition game on paper, ESPN will roll out a full production complement - on par with its Wednesday Night Baseball regular-season MLB package - to cover the monumental moment.
Havana's Estadio Latinoamericano, where the Tampa Bay Rays play the Cuban national team today
In terms of how we frame the significance of this [telecast], we want to focus on how, despite 56 years of embargo, baseball is something that the two countries have always shared a passion for, says ESPN Coordinating Producer Phil Orlins. I don't know that any event we have ever done had quite this kind of political angle tied to it. A baseball game is serving as the centerpiece of an incredible world event; you just don't get many like that.
Of course, given Cuba's lack of HD production facilities, evolving travel regulations between the two countries, and the fact that this will be the first MLB game played in Cuba since 1999 (Baltimore Orioles vs. Cuban National Team exhibition March 28, 1999), ESPN faced no shortage of logistical challenges along the way.
The unique thing is, even if we went to other countries, we had a pretty good grasp of what's available and what to expect, Terry Brady noted this week. We really don't know what to expect when we get down there, so there's going to be a lot of shooting from the hip on this one. But we feel really confident we have the right people, the right equipment, and the right partners to pull this off. There's a little bit of fear of the unknown, but it's also exciting. We will adapt as we go, and we'll put great television on on the 22nd.
A Moving Target: The Run-Up to MLB's Return to Cuba
ESPN's production and operations teams were initially informed about the game in January and traveled to Havana for a site survey in mid February. The original plan was for the Cuban national broadcaster to produce a world feed out of an RTV Commercial mobile unit (perhaps the only HD truck in Cuba) while ESPN provided a handful of unilateral cameras and its own announcers and graphics.
However, when Obama's visit became official, the Cuban national broadcaster opted to reassign its facilities for news coverage. This forced ESPN to act quickly, securing U.S.-based remote-production facilities and floating them over via barge in time for the game. Then, in the second week of March, the Cubans reversed course and opted to, in fact, produce its own show. However, since ESPN had already shipped over the facilities, the game now has two full productions onsite, with a handful of shared cameras.
Once we put that plan in motion to really beef up our coverage, said Brady, there really wasn't any turning back, because you had to get all the clearances to get the trucks over, all the permits, and provide for the shipping. When Cuban television came back into the mix, we stuck to our plan. Now we're just dealing with how to manage signal flow in 720p or 1080p, how we're going to actually convert [those signals], and figure out signal distribution and workflows. But we're fully prepared to do that.
In addition to NEP's SS23, which is serving as the mobile unit, ESPN shipped an Illumination Dynamics twin-pack generator, as well as a box truck with a flypack inside and a variety of complementary gear from Bexel and CP Communications on March 5 from the Port of Miami.
The bulk of the operations crew and technical crew arrived in Havana on Friday and parked the truck on Saturday. Setup at the ballpark took place on the Sunday, and ESPN went live from the ballpark on Monday morning beginning with the Rays' pregame workout.
Since this is all new for us, says Brady, we are giving ourselves some extra time for setup.
The Challenges of a 70-Year-Old Ballpark
ESPN will deploy seven hard cameras and two handhelds for its game coverage; the Cuban telecast, eight or nine. ESPN plans to share the high-home angle and possibly more.
Although [Estadio Latinoamericano] has traditional positions, they're a little bit different from what we would experience as a regular ballpark in the U.S., says Orlins. For instance, low cameras are not in traditional dugout positions: the centerfield position is a little off-center, and the high-home position is a little bit different. So, while the coverage is going to be close to what we do in the United States, it is not going to be exactly [the same] as it relates to camera angles. The Cubans will probably take some of the primary positions, and we'll have to adapt and either find alternative positions or go on a modified side-by-side situation.
Major League Baseball and the Estadio Latinoamericano facilities team in Havana also had some work to do to bring the aging ballpark (built in 1946) to bring it up to MLB standards.
The venue was not in a great physical condition when we got there, and MLB certainly had some challenges to get the field up to condition, but the team down there has done an unbelievable effort to get the ballpark up and running, says Orlins. Considering where it was just a month ago, it's pretty impressive. I think it will be venue the Cuban people are proud to present on a world stage.
ESPN Deportes will produce its own Spanish-language telecast using ESPN's camera feeds plus one unilateral camera.
Beyond the Action on the Field
Although ESPN has rolled out a sizable production complement to cover the game itself, the network has no shortage of ancillary content plan
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
As U.S.-Cuba relations continue to thaw, the two nations' shared pastime is serving as the backdrop for history in the making. The first sitting U.S. president to visit Cuba since 1928, President Barack Obama will be in the stands at Estadio Latinoamericano in Havana today to watch the Tampa Bay Rays take on the Cuban national team.
