In Major League Baseball (MLB), the connection between the game’s live action and the operational power supporting the production is crucial. While players showcase their skills on the field, a network of power infrastructure operates behind the scenes to capture, relay, and broadcast every moment.
Seamless operations and planning ensure the smooth functioning of camera setups, lights, and other broadcasting equipment, providing viewers at home with an uninterrupted and immersive experience of the game. It is a subtle yet essential partnership that seamlessly brings the game from the field to screens worldwide.
As part of the push to reduce carbon emissions, MLB is collaborating closely with broadcasters like Fox Sports to ensure sustainable best practice is in place. On the day of a World Series game, Brad Cheney, and the team at Fox Sports’s focus shifts to the practicalities of powering up cameras, lights, microphones, laptops and more to facilitate a smooth and uninterrupted broadcast for millions of viewers.
““We cover a plethora of sports at Fox, including the MLB, NFL, the FIFA World Cup, the USFL college football, NASCAR, and college basketball in the United States. It is our team's responsibility to make sure that we have reliable power to help us put that broadcast on.””
Power to the people
As the MLB reaches the playoffs, the pressure mounts and audiences eagerly anticipate the outcome of the series. Brad explains how the production comes together “Playoffs are important, on gameday we power fifty-two cameras, over one hundred microphones, multiple lighting setups on the field, portable lighting systems and lighting setups on the announcement booth. The crew work hard to setup two days before game day.”
At the recent Texas Rangers World Series game at Globe Life Field, Anton/Bauer’s newest sustainable sodium power solution, the 9Kw Salt-E Dog, was called upon to provide sustainable power. Salt-E Dog delivers consistent, reliable power that is cleaner and more environmentally safe than fossil fuel or lithium generators. Brad explains the crews first impressions
“Salt-E Dog not only provides a very sustainable power source for us, but it is also a very health and safety minded product for us to use. It provides a lot of power on game day. To bring a power source like that with you was never possible before. We used to bring generators, but this year we did not need to do that, which is great because it is a long cable run.”
Greener Production.
As broadcast productions look to new emission free sustainable power options reliability and durability on location are important. Salt-E Dog is IP-55 rated meaning it can operate in any kind of weather. Brad explains “We were really happy with the weather resiliency of the system and built quality, we think that it would work well and in challenging conditions.”
“It is huge to have something like Salt-E Dog which provides that kind of power source while also being as safe as possible. We are large users of Anton/Bauer and have continued to grow with the with the Anton/Bauer product line, we find that their innovation and durability has been second to none.”
The silent nature of Salt-E Dog made it easy for the crews to bring the power close to the action. Brad explains “You could not have had a generator right sitting next to the fans, on gameday it was less than 15 feet from the fans, less than 20 feet from our announcers. I like that it is quiet, it could have been behind our announcers, and they would have never heard it.”
The silent operation Salt-E Dog enables you to bring power closer to the action and reduce the amount of cabling needed.
Game day put Salt-E Dog through its paces, Brad explains how it helped the crew “Our goal is to be as portable as possible and as quiet as possible. We have people supporting the broadcast group, from the announcers on the set, producers, researchers to our operation staff. All of them require power, with Salt-E Dog we powered all of that as well as charging all the additional Anton/Bauer batteries that were powering our portable lights.”
Brad adds “We try to run the least amount of power cables humanly possible. What we really used the Salt-E Dog for in this application was being able to be mobile and have power with us. We had utility carts bring out Salt-E Dog and power all our equipment and at our field set. We also charged the carts while they were sitting idle on the field for ~4 hours”.
MLB Green.
MLB is the first professional sports league to proudly confirm all its clubs as members of the Green Sports Alliance, which promotes healthy, sustainable communities in sports. MLB has taken significant strides towards environmental responsibility, embracing the green initiative with a commitment to sustainability.
Brad explains how the MLB is collaborating closely with Fox Sports on fostering a more sustainable future “We work together to find new ways to be greener and be more efficient. We have done everything over the years, we have green water bottles now, we provide refilling stations for our people to bring reusable water bottles. It is all those things that make it difference. We have made a large effort in the last couple of years to use utility power sources from the grid and bring in uninterruptible power supplies to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we are putting out by running generators. We really think that the sodium cell Salt-E Dog from Anton/Bauer is part of our next step as we continue to move forward.”
A home run for broadcast sustainability.
Brad explains how the broadcast industry is leading the charge on sustainability “broadcast has always been on the forefront of embracing innovative technology, especially in the power realm. Broadcasters put these products to the test and show their ability to work in in a variable number of conditions out there, from bright sunny days, hot, cold, rainy days, to everything in between. We are always looking for better ways to operate and execute our shows. We are always looking for the newest innovations that are out there to make our productions better and deliver for the viewers at home.”
“At Fox Sports, we are committed to embracing innovative technology and minimizing our environmental impact while consistently delivering high-quality broadcast productions. Thanks to Anton/Bauer's revolutionary sodium power solution, Salt-E Dog, we are ushering in a new era of cleaner and more sustainable energy sources. With zero emissions, whisper-quiet operation, streamlined cabling, and uninterrupted equipment power, we are proud to be pioneers in sustainable broadcast productions powered by the latest technology.”