This baseball season, a new show called Foul Territory has aired on YouTube every Monday- Friday at 1 PM ET that allows the viewer to get the perspective of current and former MLB players from an unfiltered standpoint for two hours a day. The show hosted by Scott Braun along with a rotating panel of former players such as AJ Pierzynski, Erik Kratz, Todd Frazier, Lorenzo Cain, Brock Holt, and Jason Kipnis as well as FOX insider and writer for The Athletic Ken Rosenthal dives into all of the key issues of MLB while having current players on as guests.
In the first two months that the show aired, it has delivered some key moments that have been talked about by many in our industry, whether it be interviews with reporters, former/current players, agents, or commenting on controversial issues in the sport.
Braun, who used to work for SNY and MLB Network, got tired of waiting for someone to do a show like this.
“I have been conversing with former and current players for many years on the road and earlier in my career, being a similar age as the average age of an MLB player. I felt like baseball needed a platform for players to express themselves and for authentic baseball conversation that can go anywhere.”
For all of the great things that Braun has done in his career, hosting Foul Territory has been, in his own words, the most fun he has had doing something in this industry.
“For me, I’m having more fun in life than ever, based on working with all these guys, and having these conversations everyday and interacting with fans on a wide variety of platforms (podcasts, Tik Tok, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram). I love it,” said Braun.
As Braun gets the chance to work with former players in their next career phase, he wants them to know he’s available to talk about anything and has become in a way another producer.
He got Pierzynski, who currently works at FOX as an analyst, on board with the show and Pierzynski mentioned how current players go up to him when he is covering a game asking when they can appear on the show.
“I loved the idea because there’s nowhere for players to go,” Pierzynski said. “Everything is controlled by the league and this is the only place they can go to be themselves and not have league control. I was all for it. When Scott said let’s do this, I said I’m in.”
The former catcher says his instincts are validated every week. He can see the impact Foul Territory has every time he is at the ballpark.
“Players approach me and say hey, when can I come on Foul Territory? To me, that’s the biggest growth thing there is. That shows you that people are watching, people are paying attention, and people enjoy seeing the show and enjoy coming on the show.”
By doing the show every weekday, it allows the former MLB catcher to be more prepared for the game he does that week for FOX.
“When you get to do interviews everyday with people, then we do the in-game interviews, you have better ideas of what to ask people what they like and what they don’t like. It’s made me personally a better interviewer because before I was like what do I ask these guys? What are they going to say? Now, because of the show, I’ve learned how to ask better questions.”
The success of Foul Territory has allowed the show to expand into other podcasts whether it be Rosenthal’s show Fair Territory, Legends Territorywhich is run with the MLB Players Alumni Association, and even team-centric podcast such as Brew Crew Territory. At this point, the show is a brand and Braun is going to continue to focus on growth.
“In terms of next steps, looking at big events in baseball and event activation and more connectivity with fans and definitely more shows. Continuing to activate the best voices in the game from writers to players to other personalities and to be as friendly within the baseball community as well.”
Braun is very familiar with doing a show on YouTube since he used to be the play-by-play voice for when MLB had a game of the week on YouTube. He enjoys getting the chance to interact with views on the platform and he is happy that he raised his hand years ago to help baseball as they started to air games on Facebook and YouTube.
“To be able to help not just on those games, but work with the smaller team behind the scenes on something that was brand new in sports media and in baseball. We jumped into doing games on tech platforms and social a while back. It was really cool to be a part of that history and to see what worked, what didn’t, and see what we can control.”
“I’m on YouTube all the time, it’s free and its global. You can be anywhere and watch a game in 5 seconds and stream it anywhere. I’m a tech guy. I love all that stuff. I felt like we went through a lot together from a production standpoint to get those games going. One of the biggest things I took pride and responsibility in was the balance of still giving the traditional nuts and bolts of what people wanted with innovating and taking advantage of having platforms like YouTube where we had comments going through and I got to mix those comments in during the game.”
In this day and age of new media, baseball needs a show that fans can go to and hear people speak their minds, even if some swearing is involved. The show has a slogan – the world is our clubhouse. It goes a long way on social media and lets audiences know that Foul Territory is going to take them places only former players can.
