MLB Opening Day: ESPN Gets REMI, REMCO Models in a Groove for Sunday Night Baseball' Schedule

MLB Opening Day: ESPN Gets REMI, REMCO Models in a Groove for Sunday Night Baseball' Schedule Broadcast production evolves from fully remote to a hybrid environment By Kristian Hern ndez, Senior Editor

Thursday, March 27, 2025 - 1:52 pm

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ESPN is offering its Major League Baseball audience a special Opening Day doubleheader: 2024 World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Detroit Tigers and American League Champion New York Yankees vs. Milwaukee Brewers. The two games represent the broadcaster's approach to its Sunday Night Baseball schedule in 2025: a REMI production at Dodgers Stadium and a hybrid REMCO production at Yankee Stadium.

Everyone has gotten comfortable with our traditional REMI and REMCO models, says Paul Horrell, remote production operations manager, ESPN. As technology gets better and connectivity gets more robust, we've begun to branch out.

Bicoastal Doubleheader: Day 1 Games Put Tech to the Test in Los Angeles, New York Prior to Sunday Night Baseball's official start on Sunday, March 30, both coasts of the U.S. will be involved in the first pair of games of the broadcaster's 36th MLB season. In Los Angeles, a 42-path REMI (remote production) and NEP NCP11 mobile unit - both part of the standard SNB package - will drive the show. The production will be augmented by a REMCO (remote-controlled) element: EVS replay in Bristol, CT will control three super-slow-motion cameras. In the sky, ESPN's drone team will provide scenics of the Opening Day atmosphere and the vistas of Chavez Ravine.

Inside the venue, The Famous Group will present a mixed-reality activation with the Dodger Stadium crowd as the canvas. A Corona-sponsored spot during the broadcast will be similar to the creative-tech company's recent project with the Milwaukee Bucks at Fiserv Forum and its long history of work with professional teams and venues. The TFG team will be housed in NEP NCP11 B unit in the compound.

In the Bronx, NY, given the broadcaster's close proximity to the venue, the show will be a hybrid onsite/remote production. The onsite crew will be housed in NEP EN2, and a REMCO component similar to that used in Los Angeles will be deployed for the Yankees-Brewers game.

Both games, as well as others under the SNB umbrella, will feature technologies and workflows that enhance productions. Operated positions will comprise 10 total hard cameras, including six super-slo-mos and an RF shallow-depth-of-field camera with a Sony 100 on a DJI Ronin stabilizer. Commentary teams in the booth and reporters at field level will be captured via robotic cameras in the booth and mid-home robos.

On the POV front, UmpCam will be a regular in the rotation, based on wearer's approval, as will be three DreamChip AtomOne cameras with Cyanview control. Audio will be captured by the broadcaster's customary field microphones buried in the dirt and by player mics with IFB communication and RF connectivity by CP Communications. When possible, the DEFY WireCam will be deployed at ballparks that have installed the two-point camera system.

REMI/REMCO Evolution: Onsite Staff, Bristol-Based Control Rooms Work Together Deployed on Opening Day and throughout the SNB slate, ESPN's system of REMI and REMCO workflows has significantly improved since its accelerated inception during the pandemic era. The REMI aspect has been a straightforward practice around the industry, but confidence in the REMCO model has taken some time as services and solutions develop.

At first, the REMCO wrinkle was commonly known as GREMI (graphics and EVS remote integration), with a broadcast deploying Bristol-based Vizrt graphics machines and EVS replay servers for its standard cameras. The team found a rhythm on baseball games produced on Wednesdays, which influenced the current iteration of REMI and REMCO initiatives on other live sports productions at ESPN. Looking to push these production methods even further, Horrell and the operations crew began asking questions about how they could add super-slow-motion replays into the mix.

In the beginning, he says, we didn't want to put the super-slow-motion cameras up into the cloud, and we didn't want to put operators in the truck. We introduced the REMCO model, where you have operators in Bristol, machines in the truck, and these replay feeds sent to these remote operators by fiber.

Aiming for an enhanced replay workflow replicating the onsite experience in Bristol, the crew began experimenting. With 10 JPEG 2000 fiber paths and 24 paths of IP multicast routing, the conventional approach is to send primary camera feeds to the facility via the fastest route possible. Instead of placing these cameras on the JPEG 2000 paths, they put the REMCO multiviewers and replays on this line.

We flipped the script on the transmission side, Horrell explains. Everything lines up to create a nice working environment in Bristol.

Making the entire operation run smoothly requires coordination and communication between the onsite team at the stadium and the staffers at headquarters. This will be on display today with the team of Senior Producer, Operations and Technical Management, Chip Sego; Remote Operations Specialist Kevin Cleary; and Operations Coordinator Stephanie Santora in Los Angeles and the team of Senior Operations Producer Mike Miner; Operations Producer Ryan Dobesh; and Senior Operations Coordinator Samantha Majewski in New York.

Joe Buck's One-Off Return: Broadcast Veteran Leads Opening Day Roster of Talent The matinee portion of today's doubleheader will be called by a familiar face in baseball circles. Joe Buck, longtime announcer of MLB on FOX and current lead play-by-play announcer of ESPN's Monday Night Football, will return to the MLB broadcast booth for the first time sin

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2025/03/27/mlb-opening-day-espn-gets-remi-...
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