Challenges facing networks broadcasting Yankees-Red Sox London battle
How do you give a regular-season game a World Series feel when the stadium it’s being played in has never seen a baseball game?
That is the challenge facing Fox on Saturday as it broadcasts the first of two games — ESPN has the second — at London Stadium between the Yankees and Red Sox. MLB handled a majority of the heavy lifting when it came to the stadium setup. London Stadium was built for the 2012 Olympics and is now primarily used as the home field for West Ham in soccer’s Premier League.
“We were working with them still kind of figuring out the cameras. … We have a basic standard for a big game like this,” said Brad Zager, Fox Sports’ executive vice president and head of production and operations.
“We had to make sure even in a one-off event we don’t lower the quality of what the viewer is expecting to see on a baseball game. That the camera positions look natural and the announcers in the booth can call a game correctly. So, those are really the things early on you wonder about and get smoothed out through the process. Everyone’s going in there thinking we can produce a high-level baseball broadcast in a stadium that has never had a baseball game before.”
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The London Series is part of an MLB initiative to help spread baseball more globally. Fox’s primary concern is making it feel remarkable for the millions of fans who are watching from their couches, just as most would if the game was in Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park.
“For us it was: What makes this special? What makes this unique? How do we bring that to the surface and the viewers?” Zager said. “So, the first thing we did was decide to treat this as a jewel event. So, we went through our playbook of how we get ready for the postseason and All-Star Game to get ready for this game.”
That means the network’s studio show and top announce team — Joe Buck and John Smoltz — are in England for the game. There have been London-themed commercials running for weeks during Fox’s baseball coverage, featuring Yankees manager Aaron Boone and Red Sox star J.D. Martinez. There will be coverage of both anthems, the pregame introduction for the players and the other little details that Fox hopes will give more juice to the rivalry.
The Yankees have done their part in bashing their way to the American League’s best record as they near the season’s halfway point. The Red Sox sputtered at the start of their World Series defense, but are in the middle of the AL wild-card race and could use this series as a chance to remind the Yankees the AL East race is not over.
“We were excited about the opportunity to do it, but it went up a level when we saw it was Yankees-Red Sox and baseball’s biggest rivalry,” Zager said. “And getting a chance to expose that to a brand new venue, a brand new atmosphere and fans perhaps being exposed to it for the first time.
“Everyone feels like our job is to sell the game of baseball and the greatness of the game.”
