FOX Sports Gives Series Sound a Refresh With New People on the Audio Team, New Parabolics

A playoff season featuring three series sweeps allows broadcast crews extra time for setup

After a couple of years in the high-intensity environment of Los Angeles, New York, and Toronto, the 2026 MLB World Series gets to chill a bit - atmospherically, at least, - before the first pitch tonight in laid-back Milwaukee. With fewer games thanks to three notable sweeps - the Tampa Bay Rays over the New York Yankees (3-0) in the ALDS, the San Diego Padres over the Chicago Cubs (2-0) in the Wild Card Series, and the Milwaukee Brewers over the Los Angeles Dodgers (4-0) in the NLCS - the postseason gave broadcast crews a bit of a breather. FOX Sports A1 Joe Carpenter and his partially reconstituted audio crew got the benefit of that extra time prior to setup for World Series Game 1, when AL champ Tampa Bay Rays face NL champion Milwaukee Brewers in the first matchup since 1980 in which both teams are seeking their first World Series title.

We've never had a sweep in the Championship Series so we've never had this much time between the CS and the World Series, says Carpenter, clearly relishing the relatively easy intensity of game setup in Milwaukee on Tuesday. The whole series got knocked off in four games; we've never had this kind of time luxury.

New Faces on the Team

The line-up of the FOX audio crew has changed slightly from previous years. Dave Free is the new FX submixer, and audio guarantee Ezra Matychak - also production mixer for the Yankees, Mets, and Islanders and for Saturday Night Live's 50th Anniversary special - joins as part of the Game Creek Yogi truck staff. The A2 complement of Fred Ferris and Jason Knapp will reprise their roles for the Series, joined this year by Anthony LoMastro, assisting Free on submixing.

In addition, BSI is responsible for wireless audio, inheriting the gig from CP Communications. The company is bringing along new bases fitted with new cameras and new microphones that will be in a new location and have a pickup pattern that Carpenter says will give him more reach into the outfield for sound.

Sitting in Klover

In a serendipitous turn of events, a shipping mix-up that lost some of the microphone gear between Los Angeles and Atlanta was easily resolved. Klover Products, which manufactures the parabolic microphone collectors widely used in broadcast sports, happens to be located in Janesville, a little over an hour's drive from Milwaukee. The owner offered to send over a pair of the smaller, 16-in. parabs, which not only were timely arrivals but also allow the A2s handling them to be positioned in more locations in the stadium, including aisles, without interfering with fan sightlines.

That'll be less cumbersome for the two guys we have on the field, Carpenter says, and maybe we can find better spots for these guys now that we're talking about [smaller] dishes that are not blocking people. We have a better chance of getting them a spot now because we're using a smaller dish.

We'll experiment with putting these guys in places they couldn't usually go, including on the sideline, he continues. And we found that [these parabs] also have pretty good reach. We'll take that win.

Viewers will get more audio from FOX's DirtCams as well. One will be buried in a new location in front of the pitcher's mound with a microphone on either side of the lens.

What I'm hoping with that, says Carpenter, is that, since that's now being recorded all the time in an EVS, there might be some cool reactive stuff or something we can get some permission to play back immediately. Now I have direct, isolated audio associated with that camera, something we've never had before. With all that, along with 24 mics on the outfield wall, we'll get some cool stuff for this Series.

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2026/10/23/fox-sports-gives-series-sound-a...
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