By the time Major League Baseball gets going in earnest this season, it will let a Fox into the henhouse.
And although Fox Sports insists it intends no harm to the traditions of the national pastime, it certainly means to ruffle some feathers.
The upstart network, whose first sports telecast was a Broncos-49ers exhibition football game less than two years ago, now has added baseball to its strong presence in the National Football League. This year, Fox Sports will resurrect a baseball tradition, televising a national Game of the Week every Saturday beginning June 1.
Then, after sharing the season with local stations and ESPN, which will televise Sunday and Wednesday night games, Fox gets sole possession of the dream dessert: This fall, Fox–whose chairman, Rupert Murdoch, shelled out $575 million for baseball broadcasting rights for the rest of this century–will telecast the World Series for the first time.
How is the network preparing?
For starters, some Fox executives in L.A. are playing a lot of baseball video games to see what audio and graphics can be brought to TV ballgames.
“We’re looking for what kids like to see and hear. We’re adults who like to act like children,” confesses Ed Goren, executive producer of Fox Sports.
Fox is using the time until June to test possible innovations in ballparks. For example, Goren says, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could hear the ball hit in an outfielder’s glove as he catches it, or hear him hitting the wall?
“Or in a close play at first, which they call a bang-bang play because the umpire hears the ball hit the first baseman’s glove and the runner’s foot hit the bag, what if you could hear that too?”
Acknowledging that he doesn’t know if all that can be done, or how long a microphone can be left open before it picks up language best left on the field, Goren quips, “I think we’d shut off the mike near first base once the umpire makes the call. Unless we get players cursing as they’re running to the bag, we should be OK.”
He says Fox still is working on a “situational graphic” that instantly and nearly constantly shows viewers the score, inning, outs, count on the hitter and runners on base.
“We will respect the traditions of the game, but our approach won’t be same-old, same-old,” he says. “Baseball certainly is slow if you’re sitting on your center-field camera the whole time between pitches. Do you think kids care about poetry in baseball? They want superstars and action.”
He is disinclined to believe critics who don’t like the techno-enhanced puck Fox brought to National Hockey League telecasts. And he won’t rule out the possibility of something similar to track a baseball’s flight.
“Always expect the unexpected from Fox,” is all he will say on the subject.
Here’s what you can expect, however. Fox will top off its regular-season telecasts with the American League Championship Series followed by the World Series. ESPN will do postseason divisional playoffs. NBC will do the All-Star Game and the National League Championship Series.
And here’s the pitch: Long before Fox’s opening game June 1, viewers will see and hear all about it in promotional spots featuring the game’s top players. Expect to see these images on billboards, in movie trailers and on Fox shows ranging from “The Simpsons” to “Beverly Hills 90210” to “Cops” to “The X-Files.”
Actors will range from extroverts such as Mike Piazza and Frank Thomas to the more reserved Cal Ripken Jr. and Ryne Sandberg to the downright stone-faced Albert Belle.
In his pitch for “Baseball on Fox. Same Game. New Attitude,” Thomas is first seen hitting gargantuan home runs. Then the scene switches to a desert, where Thomas is walking in full uniform.
“Last year I hit 40 home runs,” he says.
Stopping near a cactus, he picks through sagebrush and finds a baseball.
“Twenty-six,” he says. “I’m still missin’ a few of ’em.”
For Sandberg, the promo is more of a stretch. He is paired with Cubs teammate Sammy Sosa, breaking down a hotel room door to rescue a rookie who has overindulged in sunflower seeds.
“Our strategy is very simple,” says Tracy Dolgin, Fox Sports executive vice president for marketing. “Baseball is undermarketed. We think its audience has gotten older, and a generation has been lost.”
To bring in new fans, he says, “we need to make modern-day players into stars, give them personalities that kids want to see. . . . It’s not brain surgery.”
But it might cost as much, even though the players have volunteered their time.
“We don’t give out numbers, but these promos cost millions and millions of dollars. This isn’t just somebody holding a camera,” says Dolgin. “Getting players to do them has been the easy part. We expected an 80 percent response to our requests, but everyone we’ve contacted has agreed to do them.”
When Fox wrapped up shooting ads last month, it had used 42 players representing all 28 major-league teams.
The network’s response to agents who want their clients featured in a promo?
That’s easy. Wait till next year.
