MLB Opening Day: ESPN Brings Sunday Night Baseball Into Analytic Age With Volumetric Replays, Win Probability' in Scorebug SNB will also make the leap from 720p to 1080p this season By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. Thursday, March 28, 2024 - 3:11 pm
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Baseball may be America's Pastime, but ESPN is focused on bringing the game into the present - and, for that matter, into the future.
Over the years, ESPN has integrated an array of new technologies and advanced metrics into its MLB broadcasts to cater to the modern fan. That effort hits a new level this season with the addition of an omnipresent win probability metric to the on-screen scorebug and more Statcast-driven features, such as exit-velocity data and pitch probability. In addition, ESPN will introduce new volumetric video replays during its MLB Statcast alternative broadcasts beginning in July.
We always want to be a little bit more aggressive, says Phil Orlins, VP, production, ESPN. I'm not saying we want to be completely off the rails from what people traditionally expect from a broadcast, but, if you want to put us on a bell curve, we want to be on the progressive end of that.
ESPN will exclusively televise all Sunday Night Baseball games in 2023, plus five additional exclusive games, including Opening Night tonight as the World Series champion Texas Rangers host the Chicago Cubs at Globe Life Field.
ESPN's first MLB outing of the season tonight will feature all the technological accoutrements, including a live drone (similar to ESPN's College World Series and FOX Sports' World Series coverage) and UmpCam, which ESPN expects to use periodically throughout the season depending on the matchup and the ump's willingness to wear it for four or more innings at a time. The UmpCam was also seen for the MLB Seoul Series last week and will be on hand for the St. Louis Cardinals-L.A. Dodgers SNB broadcast this weekend.
Statcast Goes Volumetric: Altcasts To Feature New Data-Fueled Replays ESPN will produce more editions of its MLB Statcast alternative presentation than ever before, beginning with the Home Run Derby on July 15 and continuing with nine out of the following 10 SNB games. These Statcast altcasts will feature play-by-play caller Kevin Brown and analysts Trevor May and Mike Petriello in the booth. They will be produced in close collaboration with Major League Baseball, which provides all Statcast data and animations.
ESPN will aggressively use volumetric-data-created replays that allow viewers to see replays from any position on the field, including in the batter's helmet, behind the pitcher, and over the shortstop's shoulder.
Instead of creating an entire alternative telecast based on an animated world - like ESPN's Toy Story-themed NFL Funday Football and NHL Big City Greens Classic altcasts - SNB will focus on integrating volumetric-video replays in the Statcast presentation to aid in telling the story of the game.
There are some similarities to what we've done with the NFL and NHL, notes Orlins, but it will be more of a replay and database and human approach versus the cartoon approach. But, from a technology standpoint, [we are] using that collection of data to re-create things from any camera angle and embed data into that. I think, from a visual standpoint, it's going to differentiate those shows.
The volumetric replays will be used throughout the Statcast presentations, but Orlins hopes the production team will find effective and important usages for it in the main ESPN broadcast.
ESPN MLB Producer Andy Jacobson similarly hopes that the volumetric re-creations will be available as a first replay in many cases, adding a valuable new tool to the front bench's storytelling arsenal. Immediacy is something we're extremely hopeful for, he says. To me, one of the differentiators would be, sure, we see Statcast 3D show up in a lot of places but do we ever see it in a first-replay sequence or very soon after it happened? That's one of our goals we're working on: not just frequency but immediacy.
This will mark the latest attempt by MLB and its broadcast partners to create a more immersive baseball-watching experience, following the launch of the Gameday 3D virtual ballpark last season. Declining to get into specifics on the technology until closer to the first Statcast of the season in July, Orlins says MLB is working on some pretty fundamental changes coming to the technology and engines, [which] are evolving the look pretty drastically and allowing the graphic to be better embedded in the whole scene.
Embrace the Differentiation': Win Probability Gets Full-Time Scorebug Treatment This season, for the first time, ESPN will display win probability in its scorebug graphic at all times during MLB broadcasts. ESPN's in-house statistics and information team will provide the real-time win-probability data for the graphic.
I think it speaks to the way people think about sports right now, Orlins explains. [Win probability] is on every website. After a lot of debate, we want to embrace the differentiation there.
Although ESPN is bullish on the ubiquitous presence of win probability on-screen, Orlins is setting reasonable expectations for fans' initial reaction. He compares it to the debut of the K-Zone Live graphic over the plate in 2015, which created an uproar on social media early on but is now a standard component of nearly every live baseball telecast.
[Win probability] will cause some reaction, he predicts. It will probably not be mostly positive at the outset, but I think, over time, it will connect with the psyche and intentions of the viewers. I'm 100% sure that backlash will diminish over time and people will get used to it and ultimately begi
