Whose Camera is on First?

The past couple of nights the Yankees and the Red Sox have been playing a series, so I've been relaxing with a few baseball games in the evening. The other night while watching the game in New York City on the Boston based NESN, I began to wonder what the media set-ups were like for sport venues.

The idea really occured to me when I started thinking about the cameras used for these games. The cameras and their pedestals are pretty large pieces of equipment. It seems that they would not be very travel friendly. Then I started to think about all the other pieces of equipment that would need to be broken down and transported from stadium to stadium, sometimes with only a day of travel time in between. So how do they pull this off?

Now, the answer to this question could be as simple as this: each sports station makes sure that they are equipped with a very thorough mobile unit. One that brings video switchers, audio boards, mics, cameras and all that jazz. However, when you stop and think about all the time and effort that would be spent rebuilding and then tearing down all the pieces of such a major production, it seems that there must be a better system in place.


My best guess is that they must have an entire media suite already in place for those visiting teams. In my mind this suite would contain the switcher, audio board and the visiting team would have cameras already in place that are reserved for visiting media.

I also wonder if the meat of the game isn't the same for multiple broadcasters. When Andy Pettitte is on the mound with the glove over his face, and then the camera goes to a tight shot of Posada crouched behind the plate, follows the hit by Youkilis and then showcases the sweet defensive play by Cano, Jeter and Mientkiewicz ...this turn of events could be shared by ESPN, YES and NESN if they are all covering this game. Then during the dead time between plays, different networks can use the guest cameras around the stadium or use their own camera set ups that they have brought so that the shots focus in on players that the conversation is revolving around.

Truly I have no idea what really happens. I assume that a lot of the work is being done in the stations hometown where all the graphics are being added into the show (including players names, stats, fullscreen information and promotional material) but I would appreciate any light that could be shed on this.

Same to same.

Capt. Hendry