![]() And those broadcasts offer networks the chance to test out riskier elements that could eventually make their way into the traditional one.įor instance, ESPN doesn’t plan to do any Statcasts this season one of the reasons is that the traditional broadcast has already taken on a more analytical bend. Blyn pointed out that, for a network that has already secured the rights to broadcasting a game, the relative cost of experimentation with alternative broadcasts is low. ![]() ![]() Orlins can see a future where alternative broadcasts become more of a consistent expectation. You can imagine alternative broadcasts branching out to fill different niches in fandom - a broadcast with a less formal approach, like the Mannings’ a broadcast heavier on gambling information a broadcast with a specific focus on one player or camera angle or target demographic, like the Nickelodeon broadcast in the NFL playoffs.ĭeitsch imagined fans watching a “Mike Trout Megacast,” where “literally everything is centered on your favorite player.” (One broadcast) is not going to please everybody.” “So you have this incredible dichotomy of passionate fans. ![]() And then the next equally large portion of our viewers are what they call diehards, which watch just as much and are just as passionate about (it as traditionalists) and want every new piece of information they can get,” Orlins said. “Our two main chunks of viewers are what we call traditionalists, who basically reject new information. ESPN will try to recreate that dynamic on Sunday Night Baseball this season with Alex Rodriguez and Michael Kay on an alternative broadcast for eight games. Most famously, Monday Night Football introduced the ManningCast for several of its broadcasts this past season. Earlier this month, Turner’s Inside the NBA studio team called the All-Star Game on an alternative broadcast. In baseball, ESPN has occasionally provided a “Statcast,” a broadcast with a heavier emphasis on analytics, starting with the 2018 National League wild-card game. ESPN has done it with jewel events such as college football’s national championship game, where alternative feeds include home radio announcers calling the game, a coaches’ room breakdown and different camera angles. This has already started happening, and it’s probably the nearest-term view of what’s next in broadcasting. The first step is, as Blyn suggested, nichecasting - spreading out the coverage of a single event into multiple broadcasts catering to different audiences. What does this look like over the next two decades? “You have to access avidity for the sport wherever you can.” “I don’t think you can fight that people’s viewing habits have changed,” said Phil Orlins, ESPN’s senior coordinating producer for Major League Baseball. “That’s what baseball should be thinking about.” “Baseball has to figure out how they can package their sport to somebody who’s 10 and is going to grow up in a video-game, augmented-reality type of world where everything is fast, everything is niche, everything is segmented to what they want,” said Richard Deitsch, The Athletic’s media reporter. “We have to be more inclusive in our coverage across all platforms.” And I thought to myself, it’s really nichecasting,” Blyn said. “I saw the topic of your article is broadcasting. And they look at the experience differently.”īlyn is the vice president of research and analytics at Disney, reaching that role 14 years after starting in consumer insights with ESPN. ![]() “It’s kind of kaleidoscoped out over the past 10 or 15 years where people fan differently. “In simpler days, if you were a fan, you watched the game,” Barry Blyn said. “How am I going to consume the baseball I want to consume?” “There’s a lot of consternation among fan bases,” said Jeff Levering, broadcaster for the Milwaukee Brewers. So when we ponder what a baseball broadcast might look like two decades from now, we have to start more granularly with one question. ![]()
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