With the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals in the midst of an interleague series, the respective FanDuel Sports Network RSNs presented a joint pregame show featuring an on-air roster covering both teams. The one-hour special combined program featured perspectives on both teams, and the network branded it on social media as something that was created “from our drive for innovation and elevating live events.” Jon Jansen, however, voiced Wednesday morning on 97.1 The Ticket while hosting alongside Jim Costa that it was a demonstration of budget cuts and expressed his disappointment in the on-air product.
Jansen himself was at a game on Tuesday night and listening to the radio broadcast featuring Dan Dickerson, but he acknowledged difficulties in accessing the pregame and postgame programming in the first place. There are instances where he will hear the pregame show, but in the way that the network has it set up, Jansen has to click a ‘Watch’ button to transition to the next program. For example, when a Tigers game concludes and he wants to tune in to hear postgame coverage, he needs to manually select it on the ‘Watch’ button. In discussing the shortcoming, he described it as something that seems idiotic, a point with which Costa concurred before discussing what took place on Tuesday.
“I was curious, ‘Okay, they’re doing this Tigers-Cardinals live split pregame,’” Costa said. “Todd Jones was the lone Tiger representative while they’re in St. Louis, and I don’t know if they’re going to do this every time both teams are FanDuel broadcasts.”
When Jansen mentioned budget cuts in the discussion, Costa agreed and explained that people see through it, rendering an “awkward presentation” that is trying hard to give teams equal time. Costa talked about how Jones was making a good point about Tigers starting pitcher Tarik Skubal but how the broadcast also had to give Cardinals catcher Iván Herrera credit for a good at-bat in the sixth inning.
“I don’t need to be spoon-fed homerisms, but I feel bad that guys – like Johnny Kane’s not doing this and we’re getting less of Natalie Kerwin and there’s no more of Mickey York, no more Trevor Thompson, and I’m getting two Cardinals people that I don’t know that are trying really hard to like, ‘Here’s a positive Tiger thing, and here’s a positive Cardinal thing.’ Waving both pom-poms at the same time makes for a weird presentation.”
Jansen pointed out how it felt like a mix of two home broadcasts, and Costa added that there is no camaraderie or chemistry evident on camera. Furthermore, he is not sure whether this is going to be a one-time thing or something that will last for a longer time, but there are also mechanical issues some people pointed out. When the show ended, as an example, someone informed Costa that the show tossed live to the Cardinals’ broadcast booth, but people in Detroit ended up hearing their home announcers instead. Jansen also opined that the formula of passing around the microphone does not necessitate that people always have to be nice to the opponent.
“It felt like they didn’t want to step on anybody’s toes – walking on eggshells,” Costa said. “Okay, someone won, someone lost. Someone had a bad day, someone had a good day.”
“To me, all that means is I’m just turning it off,” Jansen replied. “I’m not actually going to click the ‘Watch’ button.”
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