FOX Sports MLB Postseason Audio Aims To Make Officials' Calls More AccurateA1 Joe Carpenter hopes to bring some baseball CSI' to the ABS ump-cam systemBy Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Monday, October 13, 2025 - 11:15 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
FOX Sports will ride the 9%-viewer-bump of its ALDS broadcasts into the ALCS, which started yesterday, and then onto the World Series. But the audio won't be resting on its laurels. A1 Joe Carpenter will still try to stretch a single into a homer by deploying a few new tricks, often a rarity for marquee postseason games. One trick could help the officials make close calls.
We never stop trying, man; we take risks, he says. If anything, I tell all my guys I don't ever want you going into this trying not to make mistakes. We just go for it. It's the only way you get anywhere.
FOX Sports' Joe Carpenter: Umpires have told me that they go by audio cues a lot, especially with catcher interference.
For this year's MLB Postseason, that will mean enhancing audio sources that have been taking on new importance in recent years. For instance, FOX Sports was among the pioneers putting microphones into bases, picking up the unique SFX of a stolen-base slide or the occasional conversation between teammates or even opponents.
It's great when you can get the third-base coach on a wire and hear him on the replay send the runner home, he says. That's really exciting.
Close-In SoundThe 2025 season marked the arrival of the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) system: the umpire calls balls and strikes, but pitchers, catchers, and batters can challenge a call with high-resolution video, via Sony's Hawk-Eye cameras, but no audio component. Carpenter plans to try to change that this postseason.
In a process he developed over several regular-season games in September, he will make a digital copy of certain key close-up audio sources - such as the base microphones or the parabolics along first and third baselines or behind home plate - on the Calrec Apollo aboard the NEP ND1 truck assigned to the ALCS games, placing them on a secondary layer of the desk. They can be called up on replays to isolate and highlight the unique sounds of a ball into a first baseman's glove or the runner's foot touching the bag.
You would never hear any of that normally unless you had the [overall] gain structure cranked way up, Carpenter explains. I'm putting the second copy in a different layer of the console so you can crank those elements up after the fact, and you might be able to hear something that you wouldn't normally hear, or determine something that just happened.
And that's where it could become the sonic complement to the ABS system, adding audio cues to the video to more precisely determine the true outcome of a very close play.
Audio Cues for the Ump? Umpires have told me that they go by audio cues a lot, especially with catcher interference, he says, noting that the idea was sparked when a contentious regular-season game play at first was followed by a challenge on replay. There was a bang-bang play at first, and, in the audio, you could definitively hear that the ball was caught in the glove before the stomp on the base. And I didn't even have mics in the bases at the game!
Now that we have mics in the bases, Carpenter continues, it's definitive, like the snap of the glove. It's a totally different sound. The way we [mike] our bases, you can definitely determine by the sound whether he beat the throw. If we can crank up those individual play sounds, you can tell if the ball or the foot gets to the bag first.
Getting the audio precisely synchronized with the video is critical for making this pairing accurate. In this instance, that involves the use of a sync-audio beacon to verify synchronization of multiple devices or streams, using inaudible, ultrasonic signals. It's a technique he has also tried out on golf shows, where the soundscape can go from near utter silence to a roar in seconds. Using cloned digital-signal paths offers a way to isolate critical SFX and recall them for replays instantaneously.
Things that would have been drowned out by the crowd can now be brought up to the front and heard clearly, he says, adding that, when paired with the ABS video, they make even the most difficult close calls that much more accurate.
Sound EverywhereOther audio candy on postseason shows will include using outfield mics to pick up the unique sounds that each stadium's foul poles make. Carpenter's benchmark for that technique is Fenway Park's Pesky's Pole : the right-field foul pole, named after '40s-era Boston Red Sox shortstop Johnny Pesky, makes a highly distinctive thonk when struck. Given foul poles' criticality in determining a fair or foul ball, that kind of sonic cue could bolster officials' decisions.
Those are the kinds of sounds that Carpenter and submixer Joel Groeblinghoff will be capturing at Toronto Blue Jays' Rogers Centre Stadium. They're crossing their fingers that the weather lets them keep the roof open and avoid the venue's notorious standing waves, which have generated complaints about its acoustics since the ballpark opened.
He'll also have a couple of Shure's new DCA901 planar-array microphone systems to try out, possibly around home plate or along the lower first and third baselines.
But the idea of adding a sonic dimension to the increasingly surgical analysis of close plays in baseball is what hypes Carpenter the most this time.
If I can get some sound clips together, we'll be able to definitively prove some of these plays, he says. It's evidence. It's baseball CSI.
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
In a live broadcast from the Reagan National Defense Forum, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher Kubasik joined Morgan Brennan on CNBCs Closing Bell: Overtime. Ku...
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Introducing New Perks to Help You Get Even More from LinkedIn Premium Published on Dec 5, 2025 Categories: Company News, Product News
LinkedIn Corporate Co...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
04/12/2025
SBS launches Future Frames initiative to support emerging First Nations video ed...
FOX Sports MLB Postseason Audio Aims To Make Officials' Calls More AccurateA1 Joe Carpenter hopes to bring some baseball CSI' to the ABS ump-cam systemBy Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
