Even Michael Kay, who gets paid to call MLB playoff games for ESPN, recognizes the network is doing baseball fans a disservice by taking them away from their local broadcasters.
The MLB playoffs are here, which means fans have to watch their favorite teams play their most important games of the season without the soundtrack of their local announcers. ESPN, TBS, and Fox offer a cast of national announcers during the MLB playoffs and they’re challenged with the impossible task of living up to local broadcasts.
Thursday afternoon, Kay , who calls games locally for the New York Yankees and nationally for ESPN, acknowledged the Worldwide Leader would be better off letting fans hear their local announcers.
“Don’t you think that it’s only right the Met fans and Brewer fans get to hear their home team announcers on a secondary audio?” Kay asked co-hosts Don La Greca and Peter Rosenberg on their ESPN New York radio show. “Don’t you think Met fans want to listen to Gary, Ron, and Keith do this game? Don’t you think that Brewer fans want to listen to Brian Anderson do the game?”
The irony of this rant is the fact that Kay was the national announcer tasked with calling the Houston Astros-Detroit Tigers Wild Card series for ESPN. But that wasn’t lost on Kay, who had the self-awareness to know he wouldn’t be the announcer of choice for Astros or Tigers fans.
“You don’t think Tiger fans want to hear Jason Benetti? And they didn’t want to hear Todd Kalas on the Astros side? Come on. It’s so easy,” Kay said. “And this way ESPN, and next round TBS and Fox, they still get the ratings because you’re still watching their show, but the bottom line is the people get to hear who they want to hear.”
Similarly, Boog Sciambi, who is calling the Mets-Brewers series for ESPN humorously acknowledged fans would prefer to watch their local broadcasters during Game 1.
Rosenberg had a logical solution, suggesting fans should be able to select their local radio broadcast as the audio feed while watching the game on ESPN. For years, fans have gone through the hassle of syncing up a radio feed with the TV broadcast. Last year, however, Apple TV began offering fans the ability to watch their broadcast while playing commentary from either local team’s radio feed. This would be a seemingly easy offering for ESPN, Fox, and TBS to adopt.
Don’t get me wrong, Mets fans would love to hear Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez, and Ron Darling calling a playoff run. But who wants to tell Hernandez he needs to work more if the Mets make the playoffs? The radio announcers are already working, so might as well let more fans hear them.
Fans are used to watching their favorite NFL teams with national announcers. Watching national broadcasts of your favorite NBA and NHL teams is even palatable. But baseball is different. It’s different because MLB fans are with their local broadcasters for about 150 of their 162 games in a season. There’s a stronger connection between fan and broadcaster. And it’s different because the sport is so regional. Los Angeles Angels fans aren’t watching the New York Mets and Milwaukee Brewers, but Lakers fans might watch the Knicks and Bucks.
If networks want to push their own broadcasters during the LCS and World Series, it’s fine. Many fans won’t be happy about it, but you can understand networks wanting to showcase their announcers during championship games. But in the early rounds of the MLB playoffs, fans should have a more viable way of listening to local announcers while watching games nationally.
[ The Michael Kay Show ]
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