Major League Baseball just wrapped up its two-game series in Tokyo, Japan, as the Los Angeles Dodgers took both games over the Chicago Cubs to officially open the 2025 MLB regular season. While the games aired in the United States at 5 a.m. Chicago time and 3 a.m. Los Angeles time, there have been many critics of MLB opening its season this early in the calendar and, additionally, doing so overseas.
One notable aspect of the broadcast of the games on FOX and FS1 over the past two mornings was the fact that the broadcasters calling the action were located remotely in the United States. As a result, this led Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, during his Wednesday morning appearance on ESPN’s First Take, to criticize FOX Sports for not having the broadcasters on-site at the ballgames.
“If you’re the partner of the sport and they (MLB) open up the season in Tokyo with (Shohei) Ohtani, you got to be there with them,” said Russo. “The partner in this case, FOX Sports, was not. They kept the broadcasters here, and everyone else was in Tokyo. That’s not the way to do it.”
The telecast on Tuesday, which aired on FOX TV, featured Jason Benetti on play-by-play, while Wednesday’s broadcast on FS1 was called by Adam Amin. Meanwhile, FOX Sports analyst A.J. Pierzynski joined both broadcasts over the two days.
While remote broadcasts were the norm for nearly every Major League Baseball game during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the current use of this setup is widely seen as a cost-saving mechanism. Furthermore, Tuesday’s broadcast had several flaws, including delayed reactions, misaligned pitch speeds, and broadcast calls that were slightly behind the action.
“Remote play-by-play, that’s a joke,” explained Russo.
First Take co-host Stephen A. Smith quickly agreed with Russo’s take, emphasizing that FOX Sports should have made the investment to send its announcers to Tokyo.
“If you’re going to invest in the sport, invest in the sport,” said Smith. “The biggest star in the sport is there and on his home turf. You’ve got to be there, no question about it.”
The two-game MLB Tokyo Series at the Tokyo Dome featured broadcast operations and production efforts led by MLB Network, which was on-site and responsible for sending feeds to FOX Sports in Los Angeles and Marquee Sports Network in Chicago.
As for television ratings in the United States, they have yet to be released for the Tokyo Series. However, FOX Sports reported that game one of the series averaged more than 25 million viewers across all platforms in Japan. Notably, this marks the most-watched Major League Baseball game ever in the nation.
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