FOX Sports continues its hot Summer with two more big events involving MLB over the next couple of weeks, beginning with the Yankees and Red Sox playing in the London Series on June 29 (ESPN carries it on the 30th) and then the annual All-Star Game out of Cleveland on July 9. Joe Buck, analyst John Smoltz and reporter Ken Rosenthal will call Saturday’s matchup in the UK with the game beginning 1:10p. With the MLB on FOX team preparing for both events, Cynopsis Sports asked FOX Sports VP/Head of Productions and Operations Brad Zager about the events and season so far.
Zager on lessons learned so far this season: The biggest lessons and surprises so far in the first half of the season is the depth of Stars and teams in MLB, The Yankees in first place even with Stanton and Judge missing extended time, The Twins and Braves continued growth adding to the established contenders like Hou, CHC, and LAD. When you talk about players, the greatness of Mike Trout will never get old to watch and cover, the Bellinger/Yelich anything you can do, I can do better march through the NL has been so much fun to watch and great for the game.
On the London Series: We are looking at the Red Sox & Yankees playing in London the same way we look at all MLB Jewel Events like the ASG and Postseason. This is an opportunity to not just play a regular season game in London but take one of sports greatest rivalries and play it somewhere it has never been played and expose it to an even larger fan base. This has included us having specialty shoots with both teams, additional cameras, and the addition of our pregame show on-site.
On production: We are lucky that MLB did all the heavy lifting of making it ready for baseball, we worked closely with them to make sure that our camera positions and audio will be to our standards as in any MLB Stadium. But we also want to make sure that we show off the uniqueness of playing the game there and I know that will be a priority for our director Matt Gangl throughout the game.
On the All-Star Game: We are going to build on the success we have had last couple years with access to the players during the game, more in-game interviews. We will have a skycam again which we don’t get to do during the regular season and enhanced audio with mics spread out all over the field. But most of all we want to make sure that really tell the stories of these players and what makes them All-Stars, our Producer Pete Macheska always does a great job of telling the story of the 1st half of the season and setup the second half drama still to come.
