Live From MLB All-Star 2025: MLB Network Marks Five Straight Years of Onsite MLB Draft Coverage

13/07/2025

Live From MLB All-Star 2025: MLB Network Marks Five Straight Years of Onsite MLB Draft Coverage The Battery Atlanta's Coca-Cola Roxy will house Rounds 1-3 of this year's Draft By Kristian Hern ndez, Senior Editor

Sunday, July 13, 2025 - 11:56 am

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Atlanta and professional baseball have longstanding ties, and, for the first time since the turn of the millennium, MLB All-Star returns to the city, ready to write another chapter. Many aspects of the tentpole event have changed over the past quarter century, addition of the MLB Draft being the most notable. As the Draft has grown into a must-watch spectacle, so has MLB Network's operation in its fifth consecutive year of covering it.

[MLB All-Star] has grown a lot since 2000, says Marc Caiafa, SVP production, MLB Network. Everything from our operations to our programming has gotten bigger and better.

The Coca-Cola Roxy is hosting Day 1 of the 2025 MLB Draft in Atlanta.

In A-Town: Game Creek Video Varsity Houses Operations Team The two-day Draft festivities will take place on Sunday, July 13 and Monday, July 14, but, before they begin, the team has seen a handful of upsides in the Atlanta locale. Truist Park, home of the 2021 World Series champion Atlanta Braves, is still one of the league's youngest venues, having opened in 2017. Surrounding the venue is The Battery Atlanta: a bustling neighborhood filled with restaurants, bars, entertainment venues, and more that has become a hotbed of energy and fun for fans before and after games. The only possible downside is that, without much empty space around the stadium, the broadcast compound at Truist Park can become a bit congested.

It's definitely a challenge with so many broadcasters in so many locations, says Samantha Calastro, senior international operations manager, MLB Network. We keep getting more and more things added, but [VP, Live Events] Chris [Pfeiffer] is making sure we're organized on the production side while [VP, Remote Operations] Tommy [Guidice], [Director, Remote Technical Operations] Zaac [Christopher], and [Technical Manager] Kelly [Karsch-Bournes] make sure that we're in a great place technically.

Previous MLB Drafts have taken place at a considerable distance from the stadium. For instance, 2022's edition in Los Angeles was held at L.A. Live, 3 miles from Dodger Stadium. Or last year's effort in Arlington, TX, when MLB Network set up shop at historic Fort Worth Stockyards' Cowtown Coliseum, 20 miles from Globe Life Field. Luckily, the site of the 2025 MLB Draft - the 3,600 seat Coca-Cola Roxy - is in the footprint of The Battery Atlanta and adjacent to the ballpark's home-plate gate. Parked at the stadium, Game Creek Video Varsity A and B will be able to cover not only the two-day Draft but also events taking place on the field.

A View From Above: DEFY WireCam Offers New Vantage Point As the MLB Draft becomes more of a priority, MLB Network is matching the event's importance with high-quality cameras. A brand-new addition to an already stacked lineup of tech toys is the DEFY WireCam. Making a sizeable difference in permanent installations at many stadiums, as well as adding unique angles on plays to broadcasts produced by MLB Local Media, the aerial camera is a welcome sight in Atlanta for Day 1's schedule at the Coca-Cola Roxy.

This will be used by Van Wagner for the in-venue experience, notes Christopher, but we'll be able to take a feed of it [for the broadcast]. It's going to be great to be able to show off the intimacy of this theater.

In addition, MLB Network will deploy two roaming Sony HDC-2500 RF handheld cameras and integrate various feeds from fellow broadcaster ESPN and Van Wagner. Among the feeds are a hard camera of the podium, an RF handheld for interviews, a roaming RF handheld, and a roaming RF Steadicam from ESPN; plus a Sony HDC-2500 hard camera for another podium shot, a Sony HDC-2500 hard camera at the slash position, a Sony HDC-2500 RF handheld, and a Sony HDC-P1 RF Steadicam from Van Wagner. Two main sets will be captured with three Sony HDC-2500 hard cameras each, and the third set, for analyst Melanie Newman, will use two robotic cameras from NEP Specialty Capture (formerly Fletcher).

Behind the scenes, BitFire Networks will once again be a critical partner, providing video feeds of various prospects participating remotely. Three BitFire servers will connect the concert venue with these Draft picks and with each MLB club's Draft room, highlighting club executives before and after their respective selections.

Greg Amsinger, Tony Vitello, and Dan O'Dowd on MLB Network's main set.

A Plus in Production: FanDuel Sports Network Set Provides Secondary Site for Talent From a production perspective, curating an engaging broadcast for the MLB Draft is a delicate dance with many simultaneous elements to show. At the front bench, the crew has a lot on their plate: it relies on the on-air talent to fill in time between picks, communicates with the team at MLB Global Events to be ready when the pick is about to be announced, spotlights the atmosphere inside the venue, gives adequate time to analyze the pick, and stitches together moments for storytelling that will get fans excited over the future stars. Coordinating Producer Chris Roenbeck, handling his third MLB Draft, will be tasked with combining all these ingredients into a tantalizing feast for the eyes.

We've assigned each of our talent certain prospects to focus on, he explains. We've been going over the different graphics and video breakdowns for their set of prospects. The week before is about buttoning up all of their requests and making sure they feel supported by all the information that our research team can provide.

As with MLB Drafts in the

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Live From MLB All-Star 2025: MLB Network Marks Five Straight Years of Onsite MLB Draft Coverage

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