New York Mets fans can expect to see better graphics, higher picture and sound quality, and more super slo-mo replays, thanks to a new production truck the team’s regional sports network commissioned during the offseason.
SportsNet New York is leasing the truck, called “Amazin’,” from Game Creek Video. It has used the truck for a women’s college basketball game in November and spring training games in Florida. It makes its regular-season debut at Citi Field on Opening Day, March 31.
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The production truck, dubbed “Amazin’,” is leased from Game Creek Video.
Photo by: GAME CREEK VIDEO / SPORTSNET NY
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“We outgrew the technology of the truck that we were in,” said Curt Gowdy Jr., SNY senior vice president of production and executive producer.
In addition to games at Citi Field, SNY plans to take the bus to away games “along the eastern seaboard and as far west as maybe Chicago,” Gowdy said.
Gowdy said viewers will notice a difference in picture quality, which he said would be “warmer and richer.” Slow-motion replays will be twice as slow as the ones the RSN had been using.
“One of our goals is to bring the viewer closer to the game,” Gowdy said. “With this new, improved technology that we will have, our viewers will notice a difference.”
The process of commissioning the truck started about six months ago, when Game Creek executives drove a lookalike truck to Citi Field. SNY producers, directors, engineers and technicians went through the truck and developed a wish list down to the smallest details.
“If a producer wanted a pull-out drawer, we had it built,” Gowdy said. “If they needed a little bit more storage space in back of them, all those details were thought through and built specifically for us.”
Game Creek leases the truck out to other channels when SNY isn’t using it, Gowdy said. Executives would not reveal how much the truck cost or its lease price.
