The coverage of baseball on television has changed dramatically over the past decade. For one thing, it's about a lot more than just television, as sports networks are tasked with catering to fans that now consume the game on multiple screens at once thanks to proliferation of online streaming services and mobile device apps. However, when it comes down to the heart of today's baseball coverage - both on a national and regional level - the key remains finding new ways to bring fans closer to the action on the field.
Our mission statement from the very beginning was to bring the viewer close to the field, especially with audio, said Jerry Steinberb, Field Operations and Engineering Jerry Steinberg, during a baseball-centric panel at the SVG Summit last week in New York City. When we first got the baseball [rights] deal in 1996 all you really heard was the announcers and the crowd. It's totally different now. In bringing the viewer close to the playing field it allows the directors and producers to better tell their story and it becomes a lot more engaging television for the fans.
Telling the Story Between Pitches
Fox Sports has worked to integrate comprehensive on-field audio coverage into its telecasts, as well as a variety of unique camera angles and various high-speed cameras to illustrate the microscopic details of the game. However, in addition to these technologically driven storytelling devices, producers and directors also must take advantage of what makes the game of baseball unique - the downtime.
I always find the moments between the pitches are full of interesting happenings, said John Moore, MLB director for YES Network and Fox Sports. In a basketball game, I find the timeouts between action become routine and there isn't much going on. But in baseball you've got 10 guys in the dugout, the manager and coaches, the guys in the bullpen, the players on the field all interacting in separate stories between each pitch. It's a challenge to cover all that but it's a lot of fun. There is a lot more going on there then the casual fan would think and it is our job to show them that.
Breaking Down the Walls of the Baseball Compound
Perhaps the most significant trend in remote sports production over the past two years has been the rise of virtual compound workflows that allow the on-site truck compound to share content with the home broadcast center and vice-versa. Baseball is no stranger to this trend as several networks have already begun instilling workflows that allow on-site teams to delve into their vast content libraries at the broadcast center and allow those editors at home to instantly access content from the live game at the ballpark.
We are looking to build upon the infrastructure of file sharing since we have the strength and breadth of the ESPN library and should something happen inside the confines of a live game that demands a bit more context and perspective, said Tom Archer, ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball Coordinating Producer. The ability to look in and seamlessly have things sent to you or go into a library and pull things out in almost real-time is borderline revolutionary.
The Rise of Replay on the Diamond
Much of the discussion at baseball's winter meetings this year centered on the league's plans to introduce instant replay an exponentially larger scale next season. Much of the infrastructure and operations for this sprawling new ballpark-by-ballpark system will rest on the shoulders of MLB Advanced Media.
There is some construction going on, servers in place, people moving around - but its still all being discussed, said Dinn Mann, EVP, Content, MLBAM. I can tell you that there is still a level of excitement about it and level of nervousness about it, but its definitely more excitement than nervousness.
Steinberg adds that baseball must took to avoid the game-delay issues that have plagued the NFL since it introduced its current challenge-based instant replay in 1999. The worst time in the NFL game is when the ref is under the hood and you don't know whether to break or stay - your trapped, he said. There's got to be a better workflow for them to figure that out and I hope [MLB] will do that.
Studio Shows and Social Media Look to Keep Young Fans Engaged
Of course, while the ballgames themselves remain the bread-and-butter programming for sports networks, studio shows and shoulder programming have never been more integral to how the game is covered. MLB Network, for example, has transformed itself into a fully-fledged 24-hour network that caters to the baseball junky - both in-season and out. During the season, the network's programming slate centers around its flagship program, MLB Tonight, which relies on the comprehensive IP network that interlinks its Secaucus, NJ-headquarters with all 30 ballparks.
MLB Tonight is kind of like having NFL RedZone every single night, said Susan Stone, SVP, Operations and Engineering, MLB Network. We have an integration producer whose job it is to watch all the games and see where the big moments are. Due to the great access and connectivity that we have at all the ballparks, we can go to any ballpark at anytime. That really engages the viewer and especially this [younger] generation that has grown up expecting more immediate results.
That younger generation not only wants instant gratification when consuming baseball content - it also wants to consume it on a multitude of devices. MLBAM has led the way in developing the kind of multiscreen experiences that aim to keep an increasingly fidgety generation of sports fans interested in the often sluggishly paced game of baseball.
If you look at the [younger] generation they are interacting with and focusing most of their attention on mobile devices and smaller screens, said Mann. We focus on
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...
The coverage of baseball on television has changed dramatically over the past decade. For one thing, it's about a lot more than just television, as sports networks are tasked with catering to fans that now consume the game on multiple screens at once thanks to proliferation of online streaming services and mobile device apps. However, when it comes down to the heart of today's baseball coverage - both on a national and regional level - the key remains finding new ways to bring fans closer to the action on the field.
