How Sinclair Pulled Off the Gargantuan Bally Sports Networks Rebrand Amid the Pandemic

How Sinclair Pulled Off the Gargantuan Bally Sports Networks Rebrand Amid the Pandemic 19 former Fox RSNs across the country relanch under Bally Sports brand tomorrow By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor

Tuesday, March 30, 2021 - 4:22 pm

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After 2 decades, Fox Sports Regional Networks is set to ride off into the sunset, and the era of Bally Sports networks will begin. Tomorrow, 19 of the 21 regional sports networks that Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired in 2019 (the two more-localized brands, Fox Sports Tennessee and Fox Sports Carolinas, will transition to Bally Sports South) will relaunch as Bally Sports networks, in one of the largest rebrand projects in the history of sports media.

Sinclair updated eight studios and launched two brand-new studios as part of the Bally Sports rebrand.

Although Sinclair's RSN teams have been gearing up for the rebrand project for more than a year, the partnership with Bally's wasn't finalized until January. As result, the past two months have been a whirlwind of activity to rebrand studios across the country, as well as to build a new graphics package, music library, and overall on-air look from scratch.

It has been 25 years since the [Fox Sports] RSNs started out, and this is the first major rebrand, notes Laura Mickelson, VP, production, Bally Sports Networks. It's massive in scope across the board. It's not like just remodeling your own home; it's like remodeling an entire neighborhood that is spread across the country - all with different dimensions, sizes, and needs.

An entirely new Bally Sports graphics package was built from scratch.

In all, Mickelson and her team have updated eight studios and launched two brand-new studios, built a whopping 64 desks based on five discrete desk designs, and created 500+ pieces of artwork. Meanwhile, the graphics team - led by VP, Creative Services, Brad Roe - has created 2,800+ network/team/player animation graphics, 120 templates that generate thousands of in-game graphics and statistics, and 3,000+ new sponsorship graphics.

It has been a true team effort, notes Bally Sports EVP Michael Connelly. This is the biggest rebrand I have ever seen in my years in the business, and we had to do it in the middle of a pandemic. We made a few key [hires] and brought in some amazing people, who have stepped up and worked hard. We also relied heavily on the regions themselves. Most of our GMs and EPs have been around for a while so they have a lot of experience and knowledge. We leveraged that, and all came together to get this done.

The Sets: Bringing the Bally Brand to the Studio All Bally Sports studios feature a sleek new signature desk.

Although Mickelson and her team may not have known what the actual brand would be, they knew a rebrand was coming, from the minute Sinclair acquired the RSNs from Disney (via 21st Century Fox). More than a year ago, she began assessing which physical elements would need to be rebranded at each RSN, planning to visit each region individually for site surveys beginning in February 2020. Then the pandemic hit.

Usually, in these situations, she explains, we travel to every region and do production-site surveys to intensively measure everything and work with all the production teams. But, in this case, I knew this wasn't going to be a possibility. So there were extensive Zoom meetings, paperwork, and lots of cooperation from each individual region. We worked closely with production, operations, and engineering people to pre-assess what they already had in place and what they needed.

The process of designing new sets began with Fox Sports Midwest (St. Louis) and Fox Sports Sun (Tampa, FL), which were set to build new studio facilities. Sinclair teamed up with Big Creative to design and Scenic Solutions to construct the new sets, which became the basis for revamped studios in other regions.

[Midwest] was our first transition from the previous smoky, dark, navy look to the new look, says Mickelson. In Tampa, we installed a large brand-new set with a huge, 70-ft. LED screen, a touchscreen, and a demo area. Those two sets set the tone for us.

Fox Sports Florida is now Bally Sports Florida.

Once news arrived in January that the RSNs would carry the iconic Bally brand, the studio-design team officially shifted from pre-planning mode to building mode. Each RSN required not only a new studio (including a desk, scenics, and displays) at its home facility but also new remote sets at its teams' arenas and ballparks.

When we became aware that it was going to be the iconic Bally name, says Mickelson, we kicked the rebrand into high gear under the direction of [SVP, Marketing and Promotions] Dana Feldman and started to implement what these products would be like. But, at that point, we had already pre-assessed each regional studio, remote set, and all the products. So we had a pretty good handle on the scope of the project before we even knew what our new name would be.

A new signature desk has been deployed in the studios and larger remote sets across all the regions. The desks are either 10- or 8-ft.-wide circular desks with a ribbed flex LED panel in the front screen. Sinclair also designed a smaller S-and-S (sit-and-stand) desk, which has been rolled out for all regions, featuring a Rhino Linings top and built-in LED monitor. The carbon-fiber, lightweight S-and-S desks are very durable and provide RSN on-air talent with plenty of flexibility.

It's adjustable, Mickelson points out, so an NBA analyst who is 6 ft. 6 and a shorter play-by-play talent can sit next to each other and be at level height on camera. It also provides more durability, which is huge because, especially during COVID, you may not be producing from your traditional location, so you may have to move quickly.

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