SBJ Power Up: MLB altering broadcast strike zone for benefit of ABS

Happy Tuesday and welcome back to Power Up. If you had President’s Day off, then maybe you missed the latest digital delivery of our magazine. You can catch up on this week’s stories here. — Ethan Joyce

In today’s edition of Power Up:

• MLB changing strike-zone box on broadcasts to avoid ABS exploits
• Cubs’ Ricketts says club savors TV independence ahead of possible MLB consolidation
• Spidercam amazes fans during Olympic hockey games

The strike-zone box used during MLB broadcasts will also be “used for the ABS system” this season, and MLB is “doing everything it can to ensure no one can exploit it,” according to Jeff Agrest of the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES. MLB’s “biggest point of emphasis” at the annual production meetings last month in N.Y. was the “change to who can see the broadcast feed with the strike-zone box.” MLB “doesn’t want that feed shown anywhere in the ballpark except the broadcast booth to prevent teams from taking advantage of it.” Players in the clubhouse and dugout and fans waiting in line for concessions “won’t see the strike-zone box on nearby televisions.” Teams from local and national outlets have “spent a lot of time figuring out how to change the feeds they send through the park.” The change “won’t affect home viewers.” The strike-zone box will “remain on the screen but no longer will indicate whether a pitch was a ball or a strike.” Viewers still will “know when a call is obviously incorrect and merits a challenge.” Challenge counts are “more likely to appear in a graphic that slides out” from the scorebug, as broadcasts “already do with mound visits” (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, 2/12).

Cubs Chair Tom Ricketts said as there has been “a lot of speculation” on MLB trying to take over all 30 teams’ broadcasts in the coming years, his team loves Marquee Sports Network and “we love our independence.” He noted given all the “market headwinds for RSNs,” Marquee was “one of the best things we ever did.” Ricketts: “To be in control of our own destiny and be able to produce the games we want to produce the way we want to produce them, with the right people and the right staff and the right level of production quality. For us, it’s been a huge home run” (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, 2/16). Ricketts noted Marquee has the “economic realities that are facing other sports networks and the declining revenue model,” adding there is a need to “balance that out and try to focus our efforts where we can get a great experience and a great production for fans” (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 2/16).

The ATHLETIC’s Mark Lazerus wrote the Spidercam has been the “real star” of the men’s hockey games during the Milan Cortina Games. The camera, which is “suspended over the ice by four retractable wires,” gives fans “a new vantage” of the game. The NFL has used its “Skycam” for years, but the technology is “new to hockey” and brings “some innovation to broadcasts that haven’t changed much since the advent of high-definition television.” The Spidercam’s “primary pilot,” Rüdiger Kasig, also has a hockey background, which is “why the camera always seems to be in the right place at the right time, anticipating the play” (THE ATHLETIC, 2/15).

ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: In L.A., John Cherwa wrote NBC should ask “Today” hosts Craig Melvin, Al Roker and Dylan Dryer “to turn in their journalistic credentials” after an “embarrassing, saccharine interview” with IOC President Kirsty Coventry on Friday. The trio “covered such difficult topics of how much fun everyone is having in Italy, how the Olympic spirit is pervasive and, of course, how cuddly the mascots are.” Cherwa: “In no way did they address what would have been the first question any legit journalist would ask, Coventry’s barring of Ukranian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych for wanting to honor his fallen Ukranian athletes with stickers on his racing helmet was never mentioned” (L.A. TIMES, 2/15).

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