Ask Me Anything: I work at the Worldwide Leader

[BallFour]

One of the universal things in all sports is that whoever is broadcasting your game (aside from your home team announcers) is godawful, biased, and has an absolute trash production. Doesn't matter if it's baseball, football, hockey, or the Masters tournament. It's the reason why sites like Awful Announcing do such good business.

 

I've been a member of this site for a little over 10 years now. I've also been an employee at ESPN for nearly 12 years. My job involves making sure that the integrity of the broadcast is secure (for example, making sure you're seeing the game you're supposed to see, not black on the air or a completely different show - yes that's happened before). My job duties are two-fold: the aforementioned quality control, and also as a liaison between my department and the folks at the stadium. My job is to count them back from our commercial breaks so they know when to start talking again, and to adjust things on the fly. If their satellite feed suddenly goes down, it's on me to find an alternative.

 

All of this to say, I know that there a lot of questions about the business, about the broadcasts, and about the biases. There are certain things that I cannot share due to information security policies, but I wanted to give an opportunity to answer any questions you may have... because yes, Joe Buck is legitimately a good guy.

[Yankee4Life]

The first question I would like to know is what questions or areas should we avoid asking you because of those information security policies?

[Jim825]

Did Chris Berman come up with a nickname for you? 

[Yankee4Life]

4 hours ago, Jim825 said:

Did Chris Berman come up with a nickname for you? 

 

Hahaha!!! You are funny Jim. 😄

[BallFour]

7 hours ago, Yankee4Life said:

The first question I would like to know is what questions or areas should we avoid asking you because of those information security policies?

 

I can't answer anything regarding potential mergers or deals or anything that isn't public knowledge. Anything regarding media rights and negotiations and things like that. Those things are way below my paygrade anyway.

 

6 hours ago, Jim825 said:

Did Chris Berman come up with a nickname for you? 

 

Saw him out walking toward the parking lot once and he said, "Hey Chief." I'll take it. Saw him again a few weeks ago and didn't say anything, but he's doing alright for a 70 year old. Age catches up to us all, but he's still Boomer.

[Kccitystar]

12 years is a long time brother! I'll throw something in your wheelhouse you can probably answer: 
 

As a fan of MLB like the rest of us, you've probably been fully aware of the pacing of MLB games changing dramatically on the field, with the pitch clock, disengagement limits, and other rule changes within your time at "The Worldwide Leader".  At the same time, stadiums are filling more of the ‘dead ball’ gaps with noise and entertainment to keep fans engaged. So, from a broadcast standpoint, how have those two forces changed how you and your team approach pacing a TV broadcast? Are you finding less flexibility for commercial breaks, storytelling, or graphic packages compared to before?

How does this compare to other sports if you cover those as well?

[BallFour]

Awesome questions!

 

• So when it comes to between innings entertainment, we don't really cover any of that, as you know. But the pitch clock (and yes, the ghost runner in extras) have been absolute gifts for the broadcasts. In 2025, ESPN has the *domestic* (USA) rights to Sunday Night Baseball and the Wild Card Series, along with the Home Run Derby. The Derby always goes over time, so that's just expected. But now instead of 5 hour regular season games, we're regularly seeing 3-3.5 hour games. Keeps fans more engaged, they don't have to leave the stadium as late or stay up as late watching the game.

 

• We also have international rights to show games to the Australia/New Zealand and Caribbean island markets. So we'll routinely have games from YES, SNY, Bally Sports, what have you... just airing on our networks. We'll have our own ESPN logo on there too, but the scoreboard will be the YES scoreboard or whatever. So during baseball season, it's absolutely huge that we can complete our window on time. ESPN has also evolved and knows that people have their favorite players as well as teams, so the Mic'd Up segment is something that was pushed hard. Wasn't really a fan of it, but if it drives engagement, why not?

 

• As for commercial breaks, which is where my job centers, baseball does indeed now cut into the time to tell stories. Each game has a certain amount of promos. Those are the commercials you see advertising the NHL on ESPN or the WNBA Finals on ABC or Chad Powers on Hulu. Those can be dropped at no charge, because it's just us taking away from one product to give back to the current live product. So we'll typically lose all that promo time right off the bat to allow more time to tell stories and things like that.

 

• Fun fact - we don't control the clock in MLB. That differs from every other sport we cover. In football we have a "red hat" and in basketball we have something similar where someone goes out onto the field/court and will physically stand there so that the refs won't start the game early. MLB doesn't have that, so if umpires decide "eff it, we're going to start now" and ESPN is still in break? We either dump out of break or miss the first pitch of the half inning.

 

• Another way MLB differs is in an obvious way. Baseball always has very set zones of where we look for commercial breaks. Every 3 outs, and on pitching changes (though it's optional to stay during pitching changes after we get our 2 pitching change breaks in). With football, it's after a score, a turnover, an injury, or a review. In basketball, it's in certain break zones on the clock (I can get into those more in depth for those interested). Same thing in hockey.

 

And this is just for MLB. We also broadcast a few Banana Ball games throughout the year, and that's a whole different (Party) Animal. Hopefully this answers your questions!

 

[Yankee4Life]

What an informative thread!

[Yankee4Life]

Have you met any famous athletes?

[BallFour]

1 hour ago, Yankee4Life said:

Have you met any famous athletes?

Several! Not sure if you're counting our current on-air folks, but I've met Ozzie Guillen, Eduardo Perez, Doug Glanville, Herm Edwards, Tedy Bruschi, PK Subban, Mark Messier, and Kevin Weekes. I also got to meet CM Punk when he was visiting Bristol to plug one of the WWE shows. The fun thing is that everyone is just there for a reason and doing their job. It's cool to see them, but we're instructed not to bother the talent or be unprofessional. So it's mostly just small talk in the hallways.

[marty65]

This is so great to read and it really is cool to get an inside “look” at how broadcasts happen. Thanks heaps mate 

oh remember “BOB JAAANE T- MAAAAAARTS”. 😀

do you get to hear all of our ads etc when you’re broadcasting to Australia 

 

[BallFour]

2 hours ago, marty65 said:

This is so great to read and it really is cool to get an inside “look” at how broadcasts happen. Thanks heaps mate 

oh remember “BOB JAAANE T- MAAAAAARTS”. 😀

do you get to hear all of our ads etc when you’re broadcasting to Australia 

 

 

I do get to broadcast all your ads. SO MANY SPORTS BETTING ADS. And the ones with Shaq are especially goofy. But we actually have a mandate where you can only air sports betting ads in natural breaks in the action. So that means no betting ads in pitching change breaks or in the middle of a football game. Also, a ton of Macca's and Hungry Jack's.

[marty65]

It’s funny, we were watching the Aussie Rules Grand Final last week and my wife commented that in one ad break there was a junk food ad, a beer ad and a sports betting ad. 
I said “yeah cause when blokes are watching the footy (football, we abbreviate everything lol) we like a beer a feed and a bet”

 

[BallFour]

Just to share a fun anecdote from today, since the problem JUST got solved. We have the international rights to the MLB playoffs. Basically just taking FOX or TBS feed, like I mentioned above. However, we're reliant on the folks from FOX or TBS to give us counts to commercial, so that way things look as smooth as possible for the viewer. However, for tonight's ALCS game, the phone number they gave us to dial into... wasn't saying anything.

 

So when the game started, we were flying blind for a bit. I was personally contacting our friends at MLB to get some sort of information. It took 45 minutes, but we finally got a new number. Dialed it in, and now we're hearing counts to and from commercial. They're just little things that can cause big problems.

[Fiebre]

Hi, so interesting.   In Costa Rica we are great fans of Ernesto Jerez and Orlando "Duque" Hernandez who are the broadcasters in Spanish among others but the favorites for most of us.  Have you ever been in a transmision with those guys?

[BallFour]

No, but I see Ernesto Jerez all the time! Fun fact about that is that the Spanish language broadcasters are based in Bristol, or at least Ernesto is. El Duque I believe has something set up in his own house. Ernesto does a little bit of everything too, calling futbol and basketball and maybe some American football.

[Yankee4Life]

How did you get the job that you have?

 

Have you told the baseball fans that you work with about the mod that you made? Because you should be very proud of it. I know I would be.

[BallFour]

7 hours ago, Yankee4Life said:

How did you get the job that you have?

 

Have you told the baseball fans that you work with about the mod that you made? Because you should be very proud of it. I know I would be.

 

So I got the job through... well, I guess you could say luck, but maybe it's also networking. "You never know who's gonna be important," and all that. I went to community college for 2 years and then to state school for two years. Failed out, took a 1.5 year break, went back to school. Basically during the economic crisis, while my friends graduated and found nothing, I worked retail and fell upward into getting back into school after proving I could do college work. Two years later, I have a degree and my dad points out that one of the local TV stations is hiring. My degree is in broadcast journalism, but I jumped at my first opportunity to work "in the biz". So yeah, doing the overnight stuff in Master Control. Not exciting stuff, but not bad either.

 

Anyway, after a few years, the writing is on the wall. The station is struggling and they're looking to ship our jobs out to one of the bigger cities. So I put out feelers and I remember a guy from community college who was working for ESPN in the recruiting department at the time. Asked him if I could slap his name on my application as a recommender and he said absolutely. So, long story short, this goes on in 2013 and I interview for the position in Bristol and absolutely aced it. Best interview I ever had and everyone walked away impressed. I didn't get the job, but they remembered me when another position opened up and basically told me, "it's yours if you want it." I said absolutely. So in January 2014, I got my offer letter and I started in April 2014. Moved out to Connecticut (which the company paid for), settled in, and have made a pretty good life for myself over the past 11 years. I was actually promoted this year to a SENIOR LEVEL position. Basically same job, more responsibilities.

 

As for the mod, I've brought it up with coworkers that are gamers. Unfortunately, the ones that game are on the younger side so they haven't bothered with a game from 2005. They're still impressed that I went through all the trouble to mod things, though. 

 

Sorry for going into a long ramble there. I don't give everyone the complete backstory because it's a long one, but for this, I figured why not?

[Yankee4Life]

I'm glad you did give your complete backstory here because it was a good one and a good read for me. I'm very happy for you and I am also happy that you are appreciated there since you got that promotion. There is one thing that I have to wonder about and I guess it is something you can't even answer. You said in 2013 you aced an interview with them and that everyone was impressed. Now when that happened you must have figured that you were going to get that job, right? What was their excuse for not hiring you? But at least they kept you in mind for the next one. I'm glad you got it and that you are doing well there.

[Jim825]

My father always said, "It's now what you know, it's WHO you know."  This is another example proving he was right.  Where in Connecticut do you live?  I grew up in Southington, the next town over from Bristol, and I remember when they were building the ESPN facility in Bristol and some of the early programming when it first went on the air.

[sabugo]

I have a cousin who's a journalist and he has this motto: 'It doesn't matter if you know. If matters if you have the phone number of who does'

[BallFour]

6 hours ago, Yankee4Life said:

You said in 2013 you aced an interview with them and that everyone was impressed. Now when that happened you must have figured that you were going to get that job, right? What was their excuse for not hiring you?

 

I went into the interview with the opinion that hey, I'm just happy to be in contention in the Big Leagues. Coming from a small market TV station and getting interviewed at ESPN? That was a dream in itself. I was of the opinion then, and still am now, that we hire only the best of the best in the business. So I figured that there was probably someone more qualified than me. The job requirements had 5 years of Master Control experience and I only had 2 at the time. So it was a bit disappointing and I applied to other jobs as well in the interim, but I'm glad that they thought highly enough of me in Bristol!

 

5 hours ago, Jim825 said:

Where in Connecticut do you live?

 

When I first started, I lived right in Bristol. I lived on North Main right next down the street from the police station. Was very nice to never worry about losing power in a storm, but Memorial Day/Mum Festival parade days were a pain when I was working until 5 and was woken up by the high school marching bands.

 

Nowadays, I live in a nice little place in the Northwest Corner. It's a bit off the beaten path, dead end road, friendly neighbors, and a protected forest for a backyard. Plus it's only a short drive to groceries and restaurants. My wife and I won't be having kids, but the house suits us and our pets perfectly. I have my struggles like anyone else, but believe me I know how fortunate I am. That's why I try to give back to my community as much as possible. In fact, I was volunteering at Plainville's PumpkinFest yesterday. That's a newish one-night-only festival that's been going on the past 10 years. Just something small I can do. Plus, being able to contribute with mods may not be a super big deal in the grand scheme of things, but if my mods enhance the game for folks and bring them joy, that's pretty awesome too.

 

2 hours ago, sabugo said:

I have a cousin who's a journalist and he has this motto: 'It doesn't matter if you know. If matters if you have the phone number of who does'

 

Exactly. And it's important to never burn bridges. You never know who will be switching companies and might be looking at your resume/CV.