Fox's MLB All-Star Game broadcast will highlight Shohei Ohtani and the rising generation of baseball talent (2024)

Fox Sports is very clear about who is the star among stars for this year’s MLB All-Star Game in Denver: Los Angeles Angels marvel Shohei Ohtani.

Brad Zager, the network’s executive producer, said in an interview on Friday that Fox is planning an in-game interview with Ohtani via his translator. The network also plans to tell his story from as many angles as possible.

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“We’ll figure out the right time during the game but that is one of the things we’re working with Major League Baseball on, for Ohtani to talk to Joe Buck and John Smoltz during the game,” Zager said.

Fox will air the All-Star Game from Coors Field on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. ET. Pregame coverage begins at 7 p.m. ET on Fox. Buck and Smoltz will call their fifth consecutive All-Star Game as a duo. Ken Rosenthal (who also works for The Athletic) and Tom Verducci serve as dugout reporters and insiders. The pregame show features host Kevin Burkhardt and studio analysts Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz and Frank Thomas. Tom Rinaldi will be part of the pregame with an essay about the iconic moments of All-Star Games past. The Spanish-language coverage on Fox Deportes features announcer Adrian Garcia Marquez, reporter Carlos Alvarez and former MLB infielder Edgar Gonzalez.

“If you’re going to ask me the general question of what are we looking forward to in this All-Star Game, it’s Ohtani and (the San Diego Padres’) Fernando Tatis Jr., right?” Zager said. “That is kind of our focus, making sure that we appreciate everything that’s happened over this first half of the season with this true phenomenon (Ohtani) who is doing things that literally we’ve never even thought were possible in baseball.”

Zager said having replacement players for the All-Star Game does not change Fox’s production dramatically. It’s also something we’ve come to expect for the MLB All-Star Game.

“When we got on the call this week with Major League Baseball, that was part of the conversation,” Zager said. “For instance, with (the Los Angeles Dodgers’) Mookie Betts (who won’t play in the game), there were definitely things we thought about doing with Mookie with him being such a superstar player. We kind of have different tiers of players that we look at and focusing on during the All-Star Game. But we can only deal with who’s there and we adjust. We always hope as many of the voted-in people in the original All-Star team are there.”

The Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr., a first-time All-Star and one of the game’s biggest young talents, leads the National League with 28 homers and a 1.020 OPS. (Orlando Ramirez / USA Today)

On the production end, the MLB All-Star Game will air in 4K, High Dynamic Range (HDR) for the first time. Fox has more than 50 1080p HDR cameras, 75 microphones, and a pair of the popular “Megalodon” cameras for the game.

“We are constantly trying to provide viewers with the best viewing experience,” Zager said. “Being on the forefront of technology, providing viewers the best viewing experience as technology evolves, that has always been kind of who we are at Fox. For us being able to produce shows at this level, big events, in 4K, allows us to present it for the viewer the best way to watch it.

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Zager said viewers should not expect any of the game coverage to focus on MLB’s moving the game from Atlanta to Denver. If it comes at all, it will come up in the pregame. (Commissioner Rob Manfred announced in April that MLB would relocate the 2021 All-Star Game and MLB Draft out of Georgia in response to changes in Georgia’s voting laws.)

“We never have a say on where the All-Star Game is,” Zager said. “We’re just focused on producing the best All-Star Game coverage come Tuesday night. We made the adjustments when the game was moved. We had planning for Atlanta and then fit the planning for Denver. We don’t feel like the stadium move will impact the coverage once the game once again starts it. That’s what we’re focused on.”

As amazing as this will read, once upon a time the All-Star Game brought in 36 million viewers (that came in 1973). The game remains a huge draw in today’s cord-cutting television environment, but viewership continues to drop. The 2019 MLB All-Star Game drew 8.14 million viewers on Fox, down 6 percent in viewership from 2018 (8.69 million) and 12 percent from 2017 (9.28 million). Per Sports Media Watch, the 10 All-Star Games from 2010-19 rank as the 10 lowest-rated and least-watched. As recently as 2009, the All-Star Game drew 14.6 million viewers

“I think from a production standpoint we are doing what we can,” Zager said. “You’re adding in-game interviews, talking to players in the field, all that stuff that we’ve added over the last few years. We’re constantly talking with our league partners, including Major League Baseball, about what we think could move an event like the All-Star Game forward, and taking advantage of the access that we don’t have in a normal situation in a normal regular-season game.”

This year will be an interesting viewership test given the mega-interest in Ohtani and Tatis and a host of exciting young players including Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (On that note, it’s a bummer that the incredible, exciting Ronald Acuña Jr. of the Atlanta Braves is out for the season.)

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“Right now the game of baseball has some of the best young stars that we’ve seen in a long time,” Zager said. “Fernando Tatis is truly must-see television. Obviously, you can’t take your eyes off of Ohtani and look how many people watch his home runs over and over again on social media. … Baseball has so many young stars and we want to make sure everybody understands how well baseball is situated for the future as we highlight these amazing players you’ll see on Tuesday.”

Fox's MLB All-Star Game broadcast will highlight Shohei Ohtani and the rising generation of baseball talent (2024)

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