At the Ballpark: Minnesota Twins Infuse Personal Touches in Player-Centric Videoboard Production

At the Ballpark: Minnesota Twins Infuse Personal Touches in Player-Centric Videoboard Production With fans at home, players are the star of the show By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor

Tuesday, August 25, 2020 - 11:03 am

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Although Major League Baseball is continuing with a 60-game regular season, the pulse of what makes professional baseball exciting remains at home. In the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, 30 in-venue departments are forging ahead with operations inside empty stadiums. SVG's At the Ballpark series takes you behind the control-room door and examines what it's like to produce a fan-less venue experience in 2020.

Baseball is a team sport in every essence of the phrase, drawing on the strengths and skills of every player on the 25-man roster. As the saying goes, there' s no i in team, but there is most certainly an i in Twins. With no fans to entertain, the in-venue team is putting each player in the spotlight with specific music playlists, hype videos, graphics, and more.

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New York Mets' In-Venue Show Entertains Players On-Field

Since we're not adhering to fans this season, we're just adhering to the players, says Sam Henschen, director, game day experience, Minnesota Twins. We're not just doing stuff to do stuff. Our hope is that on the videoboards, it's information or entertainment that the players might enjoy listening to or glance up at.

Center of Attention: Player Requests Dictate Sights, Sounds at Target Field Whether it's crowd noise or music, audio has played a huge role for the Minnesota Twins this season.

Major League Baseball, in general, is becoming more of a player's league, with an exciting youth movement currently under way. Players are more likely than in previous seasons to express themselves in the form of bat flips, body language/gestures, and custom-made spikes or other accessories. Target Field has become home to high-profile, exuberant players, like Miguel San , Eddie Rosario, and Jos Berr os. In addition, with players with nicknames like Nelson Boomstick Cruz and Josh Bringer of Rain Donaldson, it's only right to cater videoboard content to this packed roster.

We wanted to make sure that the players felt as normal as possible, says Henschen. We know that the players aren't necessarily watching the videoboard since they're warming up and getting ready to play, but we're putting stuff up in the background in case they do peek up there. We've built a hype video for each of our players, and, when they come up to bat or go on the mound, we have a minute video that can play right before the start of an inning.

Rather than sit and wait for the season to begin, the Twins in-venue team is proactive with their time. In a jam-packed season with consecutive games, losing attention to detail can be common throughout the grind of an 81-game home schedule. Prior to the beginning of this year's campaign, the content team had more time to define and fix any mistakes.

One benefit of being away from the ballpark is that all of our graphics that we've created over the last six months are the nicest-looking that we've ever had, says Henschen. Despite none of our fans' seeing these graphics, we had the additional production time to put some of the finesse and finishing touches on things.

A peek inside the in-venue control room at Target Field

Along with videoboard elements, the players are calling the shots when it comes to music. Without an in-person audience comprising a variety of ages, the playlist is filled with songs that are bit more contemporary.

We've developed this philosophy where we're playing songs between innings that the players would like more than 18- to 65-year-olds in the crowd [would], he says. We've also been incorporating a lot of music between pitches as well; before, we used to maybe have organ music play or nothing at all. They want games to be treated almost like an NBA game, where there's music constantly because it would help them as hitters.

Open Dialogue: Constant Feedback Helps Refine Audio Quality Aside from visuals and music, fabricated crowd noise is also being tailored to the players' tastes. Conversations are held with both in-venue and on-field teams to come up with a perfect solution.

All personnel are staying safe with proper face coverings.

Our strategy has changed from Game 1 until now with our players, says Henschen. We had to turn down the audio to make the crowd noise softer, make the crowd noise louder, or the cheering wasn't loud enough. We just listened to [the players] and said, Hey, hit us with what you want. We're only adhering to you guys. If it's really loud in the upper deck, we don't care since we know that, on the field, it's exactly the volume that you want.' If fans were in the stadium, we'd obviously have to play the balancing act.

Fake crowd sounds have become engrained in the fabric of this 2020 season. Since it's a completely new concept, it has become a job done well through concentration and timeliness. With each passing home game, the audio team has learned when to hit or not hit certain buttons on the MLB-sanctioned iPad.

We're trying to figure out the [right] balance, Henschen explains. If a guy strikes out and the cheer happens three seconds too late, we've decided that we're just not going to d

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2020/08/25/at-the-ballpark-minnesota-twins...
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