ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball Statcast Edition Powered By Google Cloud Alternate Broadcast Returns With a (Shohei Ohtani) Bang ESPNs VP, Production Phil Orlins: differentiatied broadcast designed to go to the die-hards By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital Monday, July 22, 2024 - 2:32 pm
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473 feet. That's how far Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Othani blasted a fifth inning home run off the Boston Red Sox on Sunday night.
It was just the kind of moment ESPN had in mind when it brought back it's latest baseball alternate broadcast, Sunday Night Baseball Statcast Edition Powered By Google Cloud.
ESPN's MLB alt-cast Sunday Night Baseball Statcast Edition Powered By Google Cloud debuted on Sunday on ESPN2.
The data and tracking-filled broadcast returned for the first time since 2021 on Sunday evening and the show was even flashier, more colorful, and more informative than ever. The homer from baseball's biggest star was, fittingly enough, the second longest homer hit at Dodger Stadium in the Statcast era (since 2015), falling short of only a 475-foot bomb hit by than Miami Marlin Giancarlo Stanton on May 12, 2015.
We design our primary broadcast to reach the largest group of baseball fans and then we face a choice if we want to differentiate with an alt-cast, says Phil Orlins, VP, Production for ESPN. Do we want to do something that's designed for a more casual viewer? There's obviously been examples of that: the two years of the KayRod cast and other shows like Bird and Taurasi and the Manningcast. Or the other direction is to go to the die-hards directly. That means the new schoolers; the more progressive end of our viewers and really attack it with something that's designed to be innovative and look to the future of the way the most aggressive, and sometimes. younger baseball fans are approaching this. We wanted to take a different turn to it this year and we're happy to be able to do it.
From 2018-2021, ESPN had occasionally produced a similar Statcast-driven alternate broadcast accompanying Sunday Night Baseball. It has continued to appear as an alternate feed for select Wild Card playoff games carried by ESPN but, after a three-year hiatus, it's back in the regular season with the broadcast team of of Kevin Brown, Trevor May, and Mike Petriello.
The vast majority of the people in the game are immersed in this, says Orlins. It is the way front offices make decisions. It's the way game decisions are made. Maybe it's a lofty goal, but I like to think that broadcasts and commentary are and should be aligned with the way decisions are made, the way players and their skills are developed on the field. To fail to do that is to fail to address how the game exists in a contemporary way. I think it's an important goal to try to be in step with where the game has moved so quickly.
While both blossoming and established statistics, real-time tracking data, and visually appealing graphics are the technological star, Orlins points out that its crucial to build the focus of the broadcast around the strength of the on-air talent.
Candidly, I can't really even put into words the mind-boggling level of sophistication within the Statcast environment, says Orlins. [The show] is really more, to be honest, aligned with Mike [Petriello]'s way of looking and thinking about the game and mixing in [Trevor May's] experiences as a former player. This group is utterly crucial, and the most important thing we do is discussing the game in a more progressive manner.
I've done like 15 or so of these shows over the years with ESPN, says Pertriello, and the main premise has always been that this can be fun, not scary, and not become an algebra lesson. Fans' biggest worry about this show is that it's just going to be reciting launch angles, and we're not going to do that.
On the graphics and data front, ESPN worked with longtime partner TruMedia and MLB's Baseball Savant division on visualizing some of the key talking points like Damage Zones for hitters, preferred Pitch Location for pitchers based on the situation, and even a new Pitch Predictor graphic.
You'll see many graphics that borrow from the Statcast world, specifically Baseball Savant, including elements that look into skill set based and percentile metrics, says Orlins. These visuals are collaborative with MLB Statcast.
ESPN also made it a point to work in the avatar-based Statcast replays that Major League Baseball has made popular on social media in partnership with the firm Virtual Eye. With the turnaround time on the creation of those assets significantly improved from the last time ESPN produced these broadcasts in the regular season, the opportunity to work them in was more appealing to the crew.
3D tracking + bat tracking: Shohei Ohtani's 116.7 mph, 473 foot home run, the longest by a Dodgers player at Dodger Stadium under Statcast tracking pic.twitter.com/5Mx7PmBclw
- David Adler (@_dadler) July 22, 2024
As of a few days ago, we were down to about 30 seconds after a play happened, said Orlins prior to Sunday's debut. We think by the time we get to air on Sunday, we'll be down to 15 or 20 seconds and be able to incorporate these types of replays within the standard game coverage, which I think is considerably new and groundbreaking.
ESPN plans to produce more of these alt-casts throughout the remainder of the regular season and Orlins sees them as a big opportunity to tell the story of how the modern game is actually approached by players, managers, and front offices today.
This really allows us to push the envelope, try new things, and change the way we do broadcasting across the board, says Orlins. These are aspects of what we started doing with Statc
