National Baseball Hall of Fame member and former New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter made his long-awaited FOX Sports debut this weekend from the MLB London Series. Many baseball fans knew to tune in to the pregame show to watch “The Captain” alongside host Kevin Burkhardt and analysts Álex Rodríguez and David Ortiz (“Big Papi”), but not everyone knew it was taking place from across the pond. In order to inform press members about the proceedings, Dan Patrick revealed that FOX Sports sent a package shaped like home plate with a Yankees hat inside and an audio recording of Burkhardt announcing Jeter to FOX Sports.
The issue with the memento, according to Patrick, was how the network buried the lede by mentioning the MLB London Series towards the end of the recording. There is a chance it might have been lost in recipients looking at the decorative box complete with Jeter’s career statline and decorations, including a commemorative pin. Even so, Patrick watched Jeter on FOX Sports, who will be making occasional appearances on the network’s baseball coverage leading up to the postseason, and could tell there were early deficiencies that needed to be addressed.
“There’s a lot of forced laughter on that FOX set with A-Rod and Jeter and Big Papi,” Patrick said of the one-time rivals turned colleagues. “And then Big Papi fooled [Jeter and] tricked him into a Red Sox jersey – and then laughter.”
The presentation conveyed a sense of togetherness and friendly banter, evidenced by a bit the network put out of the MLB on FOX studio crew touring London on a double-decker bus with Ortiz as the tour guide. Nonetheless, FOX hyped up the arrival of Jeter to its broadcast team – which had started at the network’s Upfront event last month in New York City – and now awaits the ratings report, although preliminary numbers surpassed 1.4 million total viewers.
ESPN, however, did not advertise the MLB London Series game outside of their networks, and it left many sports fans, including members of Patrick’s show, unaware the games were even happening. During the show, Patrick surveyed the room and found that most of his compatriots were oblivious to the London Series until either seeing highlights of the game or hearing that it was taking place overseas.
“This person wrote, ‘ESPN must not have been advertising the England game on Entertainment Tonight because they’re pumping it all over the place,” Seton O’Connor, executive producer of The Dan Patrick Show relayed to the host.
“The audience is correct,” Patrick said later in the segment. “If it’s not on Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood, then I might have missed that.”
