Baseball network coming soon
The digital clock outside Tony Petitti’s office counts down the seconds, minutes, hours and days, never letting him forget what he has gotten himself into.
As of Tuesday, it showed 37 days until the MLB Network goes live at 6 p.m. EST on New Year’s Day in more than 50 million homes. It will be the largest launch in the history of pay TV.
Petitti, who took over as president June 2 after leaving CBS Sports, for several months had more days than employees. Now he has 10 dozen of the latter and fewer than three dozen of the former.
“I liked it better the other way around,” he said.
Still, for all the urgency, the buzz around the Secaucus, N.J., headquarters is one of calm efficiency as workers build two huge, complex studios – one dubbed Studio 3 to honor Babe Ruth, the other Studio 42 for Jackie Robinson.
Because the network initially will rely heavily on live studio shows – eight or more hours’ worth on a busy summer night – it is important for the sets to be versatile and visually interesting.
That they are, especially No. 42, which is being constructed as a half-scale faux stadium, complete with brick walls and artificial turf, that can be used for live demonstrations from staff experts such as Al Leiter and Harold Reynolds.
(The network hoped to make a new tower in Harlem its headquarters, but that project ran into financing trouble. So it will remain in what was to be a temporary home at MSNBC’s old studios.)
The MLB Network’s launch has featured none of the distribution controversy that has dogged its NFL counterpart, which debuted five years ago and still has not reached the 50-million home mark.
That largely is because unlike the NFL, baseball awarded ownership stakes in the network to DirecTV and a consortium of cable giants, ensuring wide distribution.
The first hour Jan. 1 will feature a studio show, then the first TV replay of Don Larsen’s 1956 perfect game, with expected appearances by Larsen and Yogi Berra.
Early winter will feature a mix of some studio content, classic games and highlights shows from MLB Productions, plus original shows such as a list-oriented one called “Prime 9.”
When spring training opens, reporters will visit each team. March will bring live World Baseball Classic games. In the regular season, there will be a weekly live game (probably on Thursdays), blacked out in the participating teams’ home markets.
Most of all, though, there will be the studio – featuring main host Matt Vasgersian – with highlights and live look-ins, usually running from 6 o’ clock until … whenever.
“If there is one West Coast game and it ends at 1, or if there’s three West Coast games and it ends at 2, that’s what we’ll do,” Petitti said. “The idea is to be flexible.”
ESPN does a fine job with its popular “Baseball Tonight,” but it is limited in how much it can focus on one sport. Petitti called “Baseball Tonight” a “great show,” but said his will be different.
“Whether ESPN is still in the rotation of baseball fans? I assume they will be,” he said. “But I want to be in that rotation also.”