Marlins and Braves get a global stage as they begin a series with playoff implications
The Miami Marlins are in the thick of a playoff race in this pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
And they are getting a global spotlight in what can be viewed as one of their biggest games of the season.
Monday’s 1:10 p.m. game against the Atlanta Braves, the first of a three-game series in Atlanta and the first of seven Marlins road games against the National League East’s top team over the final three weeks of the season, serves as the first of four “MLB Game of the Week Live on YouTube” contests that will take place over the home stretch of the regular season. The broadcast is free and can be seen on MLB’s YouTube channel.
The other three games that will be streamed on MLB’s YouTube channel over the final month of the season are the Milwaukee Brewers and Detroit Tigers on Wednesday (1 p.m.), Kansas City Royals and Brewers on Sept. 18, and Cincinnati Reds and Minnesota Twins on Sept. 25 (8 p.m.).
The Marlins-Braves game was chosen to be the first game YouTube televised this year for a few reasons, according to YouTube’s head of sports and news partnerships Tim Katz.
First was logistical. The game’s 1:10 p.m. start time on the East Coast is ripe for global consumption and gives an increased chance for viewership. That’s amplified in the United States given the Labor Day holiday.
Second was opportunity. Katz noted that both the Marlins and Braves are “so loaded with young talent” that it could serve as an opportunity to attract younger fans to watch.
The Marlins have nine key contributors on their 28-man active roster who are 27 years old or younger, including starting pitchers Sandy Alcantara, Sixto Sanchez, Pablo Lopez and Trevor Rogers; relief pitcher Alex Vesia; catcher Jorge Alfaro; infielders Brian Anderson, Jazz Chisholm and Lewin Diaz; and outfielder Lewis Brinson
For the Braves, their top young players include 22-year-old outfielder Ronald Acuna Jr., 26-year-old shortstop Dansby Swanson; 26-year-old Cy Young contender Max Fried; 22-year-old starting pitcher Ian Anderson, the club’s No. 3 prospect who is scheduled to start Monday against the Marlins’ Jose Urena; and 23-year-old infielder Austin Riley.
“With the majority of our fans being younger than you would historically see,” Katz said, “it becomes a really attractive mix between the talent and the players on the club plus what our user base looks like.”
The fact that the series has playoff implications helps, too.
The Marlins (17-18) enter Monday four-and-a-half games behind the Braves (24-16) for the top spot in the NL East and one-and-a-half games behind the Philadelphia Phillies (19-17) for second place in the division. Under the expanded playoff format in place for the 2020 season, the top two teams in each division plus the two remaining teams with the best record make the postseason.
“The Marlins are very serious playoff contenders,” said MLB Network’s Scott Braun, a University of Miami alumnus who will serve as the play-by-play announcer for Monday’s game. “Even for some of the teams that are in the middle at this point this year in terms of the standings — I’m talking teams like Baltimore and Detroit because they’ve been competitive and they’re close to the .500 range; Toronto’s a great example, too — in a normal season when you don’t have expanded playoffs, it’s much more difficult to be competitive in September. You have young players who are getting to experience a playoff chase and then potentially even a postseason when you maybe didn’t necessarily expect that for these clubs that might normally be another year away.”
What will the broadcast look like?
This is the second year that YouTube and MLB have partnered to live stream regular-season games. YouTube televised 13 games last season and averaged about 1.2 million viewers per game, according to Katz.
Braun will be joined on the broadcast by Kevin Millar and John Smoltz, both of whom will serve as analysts. Millar spent the first five years of his big-league career with the Florida Marlins (1998-2002). Smoltz, an eight-time All-Star pitcher, spent the bulk of his MLB career with the Braves and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2015.
The trio will work remotely, with Braun and Smoltz working out of the MLB Network studio in New Jersey (socially distanced, of course) and Millar based in Texas.
Their goal with the broadcast: Make it as engaging and interactive with the fans as possible, especially since fans haven’t been at ballparks this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
That will be done by polling viewers and engaging with a live chat throughout the broadcast. Both allow viewers to provide commentary that in turn can add additional talking points during the game.
“At times, we’ll organically incorporating some of that commentary into our broadcast,” Braun said. “Someone might ask a very relevant question or someone might have a follow up question to a pitching breakdown John Smoltz just gave us or a hitting breakdown that Kevin Millar gave us. We’re able to continue that conversation and bring questions directly from people that are watching ... and relay what we’re doing on another level.”
This story was originally published September 7, 2020 at 10:09 AM.
.JPG)