MLB Postseason 2023: MLB Network Remotely Produces Division-Series World Feed From Secaucus Facility

MLB Postseason 2023: MLB Network Remotely Produces Division-Series World Feed From Secaucus Facility Seven games will be produced: four on the BBC, two domestic Spanish-language, one for India By Kristian Hern ndez, Senior Editor

Friday, October 6, 2023 - 12:40 pm

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MLB Network, after being consistently busy throughout the regular season, faces one of its toughest tests of 2023 beginning tomorrow. For Saturday's packed slate of Games 1 in the American League and the National League Division Series, the broadcaster's headquarters in Secaucus, NJ, will remotely produce the world feed of seven games at once: all four matchups on the BBC in the UK, two Spanish-language games on MLB Network in the U.S., and one for Disney Star in India - as well as pre/postgame studio coverage on MLB Tonight.

We've never done anything like this before and are super-excited about it, says Susan Stone, SVP, operations and engineering, MLB Network. We're tapping every single control room and studio in our facility, working with some cloud-based workflows for the first time, and bringing in a mobile unit from Game Creek Video Game Creek to help with these efforts.

Control-Room Capacity: Six Spaces To Handle International Games, Domestic Studio Shows At this time of year, the production facility in northern New Jersey bustles with activity. Not only will Saturday's slate of responsibilities push its resources to the limit, but duties for the NHL Network will be tested with the start of the 2023-24 regular season just three days later. With production and operations for both the live game and the studio show fielding a combined total of 250 people on their respective staffs, all control rooms will be occupied. Harking back to production during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, MLB Network has Game Creek Video's Nitro truck in its parking lot for additional control-room space.

Game Creek Video Nitro in MLB Network headquarters parking lot

[Nitro] currently spends most of its time doing NHRA races, says Jason Hedgcock, senior director, remote technical operations, MLB Network, but there are two control rooms within that mobile unit. We'll have one team in the A unit and another team in the B unit, each with its own set of switchers and audio consoles, and we'll be bringing some feeds from our facility and the venues into this truck.

Facilities Operations Manager Frank Perrone has connected the building to the truck. Apart from Secaucus, the crew needed to make sure that each venue has the necessary equipment for the remote world-feed production. Like ESPN with its logistical challenge during the Wild Card round, MLB Network had to wait to see the full playoff seedings.

We send out a flypack that adds into our existing connectivity and system within the park, says Hedgcock, but, with teams scattered from Miami to Seattle heading into the final weekend of the season, shipping posed a significant challenge. Now that we know each team, we're in good shape for everything that we need to do on Saturday.

In Secaucus, Hedgcock and MLB Network Director, Studio Operations, Michael Herbert laid out traffic flow, what control room each production team would be working out of, and studio space reserved for remote commentators. The approach permits the team to work with the most efficiency, and having everyone under the same roof eliminates communication lapses.

The most exciting part about this plan is that we'll all be here together, says Herbert. We're used to having five control rooms running on Friday nights from June to October for Apple's Friday Night Baseball, so we have pretty good experience with this setup.

For the four BBC games, Studio 21 will be split into two separate announce booths and transmit the feed through a singular stream via Game Creek Nitro tethered to the broadcaster's Overdrive control rooms. To accommodate a March Madness-esque production with consecutive games, the two production/ops crews will work with their own talent: Melanie Newman, Xavier Scruggs, and Felix White on Games 1 and 3 and Robert Flores, Jake Peavy, and White on Games 2 and 4. Producers Ryan Sullivan, who produced the MLB London Series games for MLB Network, and Keith Costas will lead the two teams. Sullivan will be joined by director Bryan Fennessey, and Costas will be alongside director Keith Kielty. With White participating on all four games, the crew is hoping for great timing.

We're banking on the schedule working in our favor, says Samantha Calastro, senior production manager, operations, MLB Network. Felix has been great because he has become this champion of Major League Baseball for the British audience.

The two Spanish-language domestic productions will leverage two crews for two separate broadcasting teams. Fernando Alvarez and Candy Maldonado will be on the call for Saturday's Game 1, with Carlos Pe a joining Alvarez for the remainder of the series. On the other matchup, Clemson Smith Mu iz and Yonder Alonso will be behind the mic. The series will be called from Studio K and Studio V, respectively. The Alvarez-Maldonado/Pe a pairing will be led by director Jason Lobb and producer Mike Treanor. The Smith Mu iz-Alonso duo will have director Dan Gentile and producer Bill Boland.

Production Puzzle: Crew Prepares To Show Multiple Games on One Feed From a production standpoint, overlapping start times will force the team to get creative in updating viewers on one game about the progress of another. This wrinkle might be most prevalent on the BBC games.

Depending on how the schedule plays out, notes Chris Pfeiffer, VP, live events, MLB Network, you could be on the air with the first game, and the second game is starting, so it's all happening on one feed. There's going to be

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2023/10/06/mlb-postseason-2023-mlb-network...
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