
MLB Postseason: Turner Sports Sets Up Onsite Presence for Wild Card, Will Debut Base Cam in Later Rounds A new national studio show will air at ALDS and ALCS By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor
Tuesday, September 29, 2020 - 11:43 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Over the past week, Turner Sports has made a massive splash in the Major League Baseball waters. Following its recent seven-year multimedia-rights extension through 2028, the broadcaster is making its onsite return to the compound at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, FL, for the AL Wild Card series between the Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays. In addition, a studio show and Base Cam will be introduced during the American League Division Series (ALDS) and American League Championship Series (ALCS).
It has taken a good bit of coordination with Major League Baseball, says Chris Brown, VP, operations and technology, Turner Sports. We're looking forward to capturing every shot and every angle and producing the postseason in a way that baseball fans are used to.
At the Ballpark: Production Crews Return to a Familiar Setting The past two months have been new territory for Turner Sports production and operations teams. Over the course of the 2020 regular season, many networks have relied on RSNs to send footage to their respective production facilities. During this peculiar season, MLB on TBS relied on remote workflows in maintaining consistency on its productions, but now, through diligent work by the league, a majority of staffers will be onsite in Tampa Bay for the duration of the opening series.
Major League Baseball decided to host the Wild Card in the higher seed's hometown. In some respects, it's easy to do because waiting to figure out [where we're going] is something we face every year, Brown points out. In a world where you'd like to try to implement COVID-19 testing and things like that, it creates some logistical challenges.
To adhere to health and safety protocols, the compound will consist of multiple mobile production units to ensure necessary social distancing. For each five-game set of the ALDS, each locale will have its own dedicated trucks. In San Diego, NEP TS2 and Supershooter 8 (the company's IP-based unit launched in late 2019) will handle the production; in Los Angeles, NEP ND7 A, B, C, and D will be onsite. The ALDS compound in San Diego will remain until the conclusion of the ALCS since the penultimate series also is taking place in Petco Park.
Although this isn't the first time games have been produced in a traditional way since the resumption of sports (the team recently left the NBA bubble in Orlando after the conclusion of the Western Conference Finals on Saturday, Sept. 26), this will be the first instance when the broadcaster's MLB staffers will be onsite to produce a game since Game 4 of the 2019 NLCS.
It's going to be a massive shift, Brown says, because we're going from a [remote production] where signals were being sent back to Atlanta for us to cut a show to actually being back onsite again. We're all pretty excited to be back on the ground and produce coverage in the way that we would like.
In the Base Path: Base Cam Offers Viewers a Baserunner's POV As the main headliner of Turner's MLB postseason, Base Cam will offer a unique vantage point near the end of the postseason coverage. Inserted at the 45-degree angle of any given base, two cameras (an incoming view and an outgoing view) will enable fans to see up and down the baselines and between the base paths during different parts of the game, including double plays, tagging up after a flyball, and close plays that involve a judgment call by the umpire.
Philosophically, we're about creating as much access to the players, the game, and the field as possible, says Turner Sports EVP/Chief Content Officer Craig Barry. Over the course of the last couple of years, we were trying to be really thoughtful about technology or enhancements that would bring editorial value to the broadcast.
Before signing off on the end product, Barry and company conducted ample testing and experimenting, which included use in minor-league contests and offline use during a handful of major-league games.
We went through this [testing] process with MLB to see if the camera was stable and making sure that the picture quality was good, he adds. We'll start slow and then ramp it up for the ALCS.
For this gradual approach, each ALDS will include a Base Cam setup in two of the three possible bases. For the ALCS, with the team more comfortable from a production perspective and with more available equipment, all three bases will have access to this technology.
You try to think about all the variations that the camera will work for, says Barry, but the truth is, some other variation could bubble up as we start to use this camera. We may also capture a great play at shortstop or a diving play right near the base, so it continues to be an experiment and an innovation that we think will both add value and bring the fan closer to the field.
Additional Firepower: Super Slo-Mos, Potential Onfield RF Handheld By shifting back to how sports were conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Turner has full rein over the technologies deployed inside each stadium.
After deploying a standard tech arsenal during the AL Wild Card round, Turner will expand its camera fleet for ALDS and ALCS games. The Base Cam will have a prominent position, but the team will use five cameras with super-slow-motion capabilities. In addition, the production will feature the graphics and other onscreen information that MLB on TBS has become known for, including Pitchcast and Statcast integrations.
New MLB on TBS studio show will debut during the American League Division Series.
Enhancements in
North America Stories
07/04/2026
Ikegami USA will launch a refinement to the UHK-X700 and UHK-X750 3-CMOS -in. UHD cameras in the UNICAM XE series plus two new 7-in. viewfinders at NAB 2026 in...
07/04/2026
The NAB Leadership Foundation and NAB PILOT will host a career mixer for technology students at NAB Show 2026 on April 18, 5-6:30 p.m., North Hall, Room N225/22...
07/04/2026
Audinate Group Limited and Futuresource Consulting have published results from a...
07/04/2026
Eluvio has announced the commercial availability of its Content Fabric Bucharest...
07/04/2026
Eluvio has unveiled a new architecture for video AI and an updated Eluvio Video Intelligence Editor (EVIE) ahead of NAB Show 2026. Eluvio AI runs analysis and i...
07/04/2026
The Professional Fighters League (PFL) has announced a deal with Sky New Zealand...
07/04/2026
The NBA and Enjoy Basketball, the digital media company co-founded by YouTube cr...
07/04/2026
The 4,000-sq.-ft. space in Frisco, TX, has produced live and packaged programmin...
07/04/2026
What began as a referee training tool is evolving into a powerful production ass...
07/04/2026
Manifold Technologies will announce at NAB Show 2026 (Booth C.1808) that its manifold CLOUD platform will be available as a deployable application within NEP Pl...
07/04/2026
Shaquille O'Neal, Authentic Brands Group, and TNT Sports, in partnership wit...
07/04/2026
Telos Alliance will debut the Omnia XII, a new FM/HD/DAB audio processor, at NAB Show 2026 in Las Vegas.
Built on a 2RU hardware platform, Omnia XII features a...
07/04/2026
Amazon Web Services (AWS) will exhibit at NAB Show 2026 (April 18-22, Las Vegas Convention Center, Booth W1701), with demonstrations, speaking sessions, and int...
07/04/2026
Synamedia will demonstrate AI by Quortex at NAB Show 2026, a framework that applies AI capabilities to video workflows on demand rather than continuously. The s...
07/04/2026
TVNewsCheck will present its 15th annual Women in Technology Awards on Tuesday, April 21, at 5 p.m. PT at NAB Show, in the Media and Entertainment Theater (W146...
07/04/2026
Akta will demonstrate its AI video platform at NAB Show 2026, highlighting new capabilities in media processing and vertical video formatting alongside its exis...
07/04/2026
ESPN and Disney have announced the launch of ESPN on Disney in Europe and select Asia-Pacific markets, bringing the offering to 53 countries and territories a...
07/04/2026
LOS ANGELES, CA, April 7, 2026 - The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the fellows selected for the 2026 Native Lab, the signature initiative of the ...
07/04/2026
The November 2025 YEP Newsletter highlights a recent YEP Coffee Chat, offering members the chance to connect with industry professionals in an informal setting ...
07/04/2026
The December 2025 YEP Newsletter includes a Spotlight on Emily Vail, showcasing her career journey and work in the industry, alongside Mentorship Reflections by...
07/04/2026
Ground-Based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance (GEODSS) telescope operated...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Catgut Sound Owner and Production Sound Mixer Chris Welcker, CAS, has built a career at the intersection of music and film. A former musician and composer, Welc...
07/04/2026
SDVI Corporation today announced the next generation of its Rally media supply chain management platform, introducing a redesigned orchestration engine that rep...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's leading streaming television channels, at NAB 2026 will be launching new Studio services to help content ow...
07/04/2026
Ikegami USA has chosen NAB 2026 in Las Vegas as the launch platform for new additions to its range of broadcast-quality television production equipment. These w...
07/04/2026
April 19, 2026, Las Vegas Kiloview, an innovative provider of AV-over-IP technologies, will showcase its latest broadcast IP solutions at NAB 2026, presenting...
07/04/2026
Bitmovin has announced support for Server-Guided Ad Insertion (SGAI) across its playback products using HLS interstitials, enabling more advanced ad-supported s...
07/04/2026
Synamedia is unveiling AI by Quortex at The NAB show, a just-in-time AI plugin framework that applies intelligence only when needed across video processing, dis...
07/04/2026
Cuez will showcase four additions to its cloud-based newsroom, rundown and automation platform at NAB Show 2026 (April 18 22, Las Vegas, Booth N1867):
Cuez ...
07/04/2026
CueScript to Showcase Innovations at NAB that Add Mobility Options, Ease Editing...
07/04/2026
Barix Extends Transport Options for Multi-Engine IP Encoder
Brie Clayton April 7, 2026
0 Comments
New for NAB, Barix adds SRT and RIST support to Mult...
07/04/2026
Elite Media Technologies Selects Interra Systems' BATON File-Based QC Soluti...
07/04/2026
Tightrope Media Systems to Debut Cablecast LiveBridge for Simultaneous Streaming...
07/04/2026
Cuez Brings Four New Innovations to NAB 2026: From Story-Centric Newsroom to Ope...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Designed for synchronized multi-stream playback, low-latency delivery, and real-time analytics, MATCH introduces a unified viewing experience for sports broadca...
07/04/2026
Berklee Students to Honor George Martin with Performance of Original Scores The orchestra, led by associate professor Xander Rovang, will perform several work...
07/04/2026
Telos Alliance Debuts New Omnia XII Processor at 2026 NAB Show
Search
Cleveland, Ohio (April 7, 2026) - Telos Alliance , trusted global leader in broadc...
07/04/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Reveals ONE PIECE Expansion With New Original Titles a...
06/04/2026
Michigan legends bring a new voice to the broadcast as TNT Sports and CBS Sports...
06/04/2026
From high school sports all the way up to the major leagues, building high-quali...
06/04/2026
Quickplay, an AI company for the media and entertainment industry, has been accepted into the Advanced tier of the TwelveLabs Ecosystem Partner Program. Quickpl...
06/04/2026
Grass Valley has announced the Future Playmakers Program, a global initiative to...
06/04/2026
El l der de operaciones impulsa la producci n en estudio mientras encuentra insp...