The World Baseball Classic returns to the mound starting today, with a record of 63 MLB All-Stars set to participate in the 2017 tournament. MLB Network will carry the event, lining up Matt Vasgersian, John Smoltz and Jon Morosi to call every Team USA game, the entire second round from San Diego’s Petco Park, and the Championship round from Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Other talent is set to include Paul Severino, Gary Thorne and Rich Waltz among the lineup of play-by-play announcers. Severino and Joe Magrane open play today with Pool A from Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul. Viewers will also be able to access MLB Network’s World Baseball Classic game coverage through its live, authenticated stream via MLB.com At Bat and online at MLBNetwork.com/Watch.
Cynopsis Sports asked Dave Patterson, SVP, Production at MLB Network, about the legacy of the World Baseball Classic and the channel’s plans for the staple event.
Patterson on the tournament: The ultimate goal of the World Baseball Classic is to globalize the sport of baseball and celebrate the way the game is played all over the world. When you look at the past installments of the World Baseball Classic, you can’t help but get caught up in the raw emotion from the players when they are playing for their countries. The tournament has produced some incredible moments over the last 11 years, from the emergence of Japan’s Daisuke Matsuzaka in 2006 before he became a star pitcher in the Major Leagues, to in 2009, just a few months after MLB Network launched, when the Netherlands beat the superstar-packed Dominic Republic team in extra innings to advance to the next round, and in 2013 when Team USA faced the Dominican Republic in a Second Round matchup that still ranks as MLB Network’s most-watched non-Postseason game.
The World Baseball Classic is MLB Network’s most important exclusive live content outside of the Postseason, and this is the third time we’ll televise it and the second time we have the exclusive English-language rights to the entire tournament. Six of our top seven most-watched games outside of the Postseason are from the 2013 World Baseball Classic, and that led to our best-ever Q1. We’re coming off our most-watched Q4 in 2016, so the World Baseball Classic is a great opportunity for us as a network to really own an event and build off that growth.
On storylines: In 2013, the Dominican Republic became the first team to go undefeated and win the World Baseball Classic, so whether the stacked Dominican team can win back-to-back titles like Japan did in 2006 and 2009 is a major storyline. There’s also a sense of urgency for Team USA to break through and get to the finals for the first time. They have star position players in Giancarlo Stanton, Buster Posey, Nolan Arenado, Andrew McCutchen and Daniel Murphy, plus a formidable starting rotation and bullpen for veteran manager Jim Leyland to call on in his return to the dugout. One of the highlights of First Round play this weekend is a sold-out rematch between Team USA and the Dominican Republic on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. ET. Given the history and the rosters there, that’s a date we have circled in our calendars.
On new production elements: We’ve got a deep lineup of announcers for the World Baseball Classic, including Matt Vasgersian, Hall of Famer John Smoltz and Jon Morosi, plus Joe Magrane, Paul Severino, and longtime MLB broadcasters Buck Martinez, José Mota, Gary Thorne and Rich Waltz. We’ll also treat the Championship Round in Los Angeles from March 20-22 as we would an All-Star Game or World Series, with on-site pre- and postgame coverage from “Intentional Talk” with Chris Rose and Kevin Millar, and “MLB Tonight” with Greg Amsinger, Robert Flores, Harold Reynolds, Mark DeRosa, who played for Team USA in 2009, and Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez, who played for the Dominican Republic in 2009.
We’ve created a new, custom open for both the MLB Network and MLB International productions of the tournament, and at each World Baseball Classic game in Miami, San Diego and LA, we’ll use a variety of super mo and Phantom high-frame rate cameras for enhanced on-screen resolution and clarity of both live action and replay footage. To make sure we capture as much field-level sound as possible, each game played in the U.S. will have enhanced audio, including mic’ed bases, and in LA, we’ll add to that even more with microphones in the infield grass, around the pitchers’ mound and home plate. This will also mark the first time that MLB’s tracking technology Statcast, which launched in 2015, will be used in games throughout the World Baseball Classic.
On activations: MLB Network’s telecast of the 2017 World Baseball Classic will be presented by GEICO, a longtime presenting sponsor of our exclusive League Division Series telecasts. Similar to our programming throughout the regular season, Statcast will be powered by Amazon Web Services, and Alfa Romeo will have a World Baseball Classic Player of the Game feature in every game on MLB Network. More than 50 sponsors from 15 countries across five continents are involved in the tournament including four global partners: GungHo, Hublot, Nippon Express, and Nomura Securities. This year’s tournament features a record 23 team partnerships and 12 teams with sponsor branding on their uniforms.
