NBC Sports Chicago's New Pitch-Type Graphic on White Sox Games Draws Fan Praise, Interest From Other Broadcasters The RSN is first broadcaster to add type of pitch to strikezone graphic overlay By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor
Wednesday, June 16, 2021 - 7:00 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Although the pitch-tracking graphic over home plate has become a staple of the modern baseball broadcast, NBC Sports Chicago (NBCSCH) has brought a new twist to the overlay. In late April, the RSN debuted a pitch type element as part of the MLB PitchCast strikezone graphic overlay and it has drawn not only rave reviews from viewers but growing interest from other MLB rightsholders around the country.
Although pitch location and speed have been a fundamental piece of the virtual overlay of the strike zone for years, NBCSCH displays the pitch type in real time, offering the viewer a more complete picture of the pitcher/batter duel. Other RSNs, including YES Network, have displayed the pitch type as part of its scorebug graphic, but NBCSCH is believed to be the first to integrate it directly into the strikezone graphic overlay displayed above home plate.
It's the first of its kind, which we're really proud of, says NBC Sports Chicago Executive Producer Greg Bowman. We believe It just allows the viewer to engage more with the game. It provides them additional information for the most important storyline, which is that pitcher and batter duel. With pitch type, you can see how a pitcher is attacking a hitter. Plus, all the information is in one specific area on the screen [over home plate] so it makes it more engaging and easier to watch the experience.
The idea for the pitch-type graphic came up during one of Bowman's regular morning calls with NBCSCH SVP/GM Kevin Cross at the end of March just before Opening Day. The two were pondering how to better engage viewers - especially younger viewers - in the pitcher/batter duel during the broadcast.
We wanted to provide fans with valuable information during the game, as well as appeal to a younger audience and what they experience in playing videogames, Bowman explains. The league already provided pitch speed and location within the strike-zone box, but the one thing that was missing was pitch type. We started talking about putting it all in one location within the strike-zone box so that the viewer's eyes didn't have to go up to the scorebug in the upper left-hand corner after every single pitch.
He quickly put together a mock-up of the pitch type graphic and sent it off to the league for feedback and approval. Since MLB provides all Statcast and PitchCast data at the ballpark, using dedicated optical-tracking cameras (capturing angle, spin rate, and speed of the pitch), Bowman knew the league would have to play a major role in developing the new graphic.
[The league] had not been approached about this in the past, and they were very receptive to it, he says. They went to bat for us in working with their development staff and worked up a demo fit for their system. Then we went back and forth making some tweaks here and there and tested a couple of different versions.
The pitch-type graphic premiered during the White Sox home game against Cleveland on April 30 and has been used in every home-game broadcast since then.
Originally, the pitch-type graphic was not available for away games (the RSN worked with vendor TV Graphics to incorporate a dropdown element in the scorebug). However, after working with the league and away-team broadcasters on the MLB's current enhanced-world-feed model, NBCSCH was able to add the pitch-type graphic over the plate to its away-game broadcasts in early June.
It's great that now we're consistent on both home and road games using pitch types, says Bowman. When Major League Baseball delivers the PitchCast [data], they deliver a home feed and a visitor feed. All we had to do was reconfigure some TD switcher setups for our own show since we provide a world feed to the visiting team. And then, when we're on the road, we work with the home-team [RSN] to take the PitchCast visiting feed that they're getting at their stadium and have Major League Baseball feed our pitch-type graphics look on the visiting PitchCast feed.
He notes that, although fan reaction was about 50-50 after the first weekend of games, White Sox fans soon warmed to the pitch-type graphic and the feedback has been extremely positive in the weeks since.
In addition, several other MLB rightsholders have inquired about using the technology in their own broadcasts. NBCSCH did not want to limit other broadcasters' access to the pitch-type graphic, Bowman says, adding that the league is free to grant access to the technology for other rightsholders.
This further differentiates us from other broadcasts, he says. We're all very proud, but we're also happy to share it because it's really an exciting addition.
In my opinion, Bowman continues, we have one of the best production teams in the country, and we would put our game productions up against anybody. With innovations like this and all the other production elements we include in our games, I feel like we're one of the best productions in baseball, and this is just one example of that.
Most recent headlines
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
22/12/2025
Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...
22/12/2025
The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...
22/12/2025
Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...
22/12/2025
Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...
22/12/2025
Monday 22 December 2025
Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Spo...
22/12/2025
Back to All News
Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026
Entertainment
22 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to clipboar...
22/12/2025
Siobh n McSweeney, Rory McIlroy, Elon Musk, Catherine Connolly, Jim Gavin, Ivan Yates and Traitor Paudie Moloney lead new characters for Callan Kicks the Year 2...
22/12/2025
Winner announced in the picturesque surroundings of Wicklow's Avondale Tower and Treetop Walk
Andrew Trimble wins the show in his first series as coach
Th...
22/12/2025
The 2025 winners have been announced today, Sunday 21 December, for Ireland's largest choral competition Choirs for Christmas hosted by RT lyric fm.
Ove...
21/12/2025
Back to All News
Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Fin...
21/12/2025
John Shortt named Young Sportsperson of the Year Kerry are the Team of the Year
...
20/12/2025
Atomos announced the immediate availability of a new firmware update for its Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX monitor-recorders, unlocking ProRes RAW recording from the...
20/12/2025
CJP Broadcast has completed the digitisation of the European Gymnastics tape archive, converting 328 tapes containing more than forty years of recorded material...
20/12/2025
Bitmovin, the leading provider of video streaming solutions, today announced the launch of the Stream Lab MCP Server, to give AI agents and large language model...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Barack Obama Includes Laufey on His 2025 Favorite Music List The former presidents roundup of books, music, and movies includes a song from the Berklee alums ...
20/12/2025
Study reveals a key hormonal circuit in the kidneys Scripps Research scientists identify the protein that helps kidney cells regulate renin, providing foundatio...
19/12/2025
With Playout Release 2025.4, ToolsOnAir continues to push professional playout w...
19/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Diversified's Jared Timmins on AI for Broadcast Sports and Cre...
19/12/2025
2025 SVG Summit Audio Recap: Say What?The Audio Production and Distribution Workshop at the SVG Summit 20 took on issues including speech intelligibility, Next-...
19/12/2025
Gamified fun: Channel 5 on its NFL Big Game Night ambitions with Hungry Bear Med...
19/12/2025
College Football Playoff Preview: For ESPN, Round 1 is a Fantastic Yet Familia...
19/12/2025
AWS's Jason Dvorkin on Developing Partnerships With the NBA and PGA Tour, Em...
19/12/2025
Netflix Kicks Off Packed Sports Week with Paul-Joshua Fight Before Shifting to N...
19/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Nareev Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
19/12/2025
Mounted to the pylon of an AH-1Z Viper helicopter, a Red Wolf vehicle successful...
NBC Sports Chicago's New Pitch-Type Graphic on White Sox Games Draws Fan Praise, Interest From Other Broadcasters The RSN is first broadcaster to add type of pitch to strikezone graphic overlay By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor 
