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Leagues and Governing Bodies

Teaming up for ‘Pitch’

How MLB came to play a vital role in new Fox series

Kylie Bunbury stars as a new pitcher for the San Diego Padres in “Pitch,” debuting this week.
Photo by: FOX
“Pitch,” the new Fox dramatic series chronicling a fictional account of the first female Major League Baseball player, will take on its own real-world challenges, thanks in part to MLB.

The show, which centers on Ginny Baker, a young female pitcher who joins the San Diego Padres, features the deepest level of involvement by MLB in a Hollywood production since the 2011 film “Moneyball.” Official team logos, uniforms and facilities including Petco Park are used throughout the show, and Fox Sports broadcasting talent such as Joe Buck, Colin Cowherd, Katie Nolan and baseball hall of famer John Smoltz make appearances.

Series premiere:
9 p.m. ET Thursday, Sept. 22, on Fox.

The premiere episode airs at 9 p.m. ET Thursday.

But “Pitch,” like many fledgling TV series, almost did not happen. Now that it has, it occupies a highly competitive portion of the TV schedule, where it will try to strike a delicate balance between baseball accuracy and dramatic license.

The idea for the story had kicked around Hollywood for years as a feature film concept without finding traction. It was only when co-creators Dan Fogelman and Rick Singer shifted the idea to a TV series, and were introduced to MLB by Fox Sports, a key league partner for more than 20 years, that “Pitch” came to life.

“To really do this right, it needed to be a real MLB team,” said Kevin Falls, “Pitch” executive producer. “And we had to get the baseball right. What really helps makes this work is that you see the teams, the stadiums, you hear the broadcasters, all the genuine reference points [that] fans are familiar with. To miss on all of that would end up being a distraction and drag the whole thing down.”

Former major league players helped series star Bunbury and others with their on-field skills.
Photo by: FOX
MLB is continually approached by TV and film producers for the use of its intellectual property. “Pitch” drew the league in on multiple fronts. The basic story line of Baker recalls the recent real-world accomplishments of Little League pitcher Mo’ne Davis, French player Melissa Mayeux, collegiate player Sarah Hudek and other female players, and offered an opportunity to draw a wide variety of demographics with a new weekly national showcase for the sport. Fox Sports President Eric Shanks and executive vice president Larry Jones then helped arrange a meeting last summer between Fogelman and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and Chief Operating Officer Tony Petitti to secure the league’s involvement.

Fox TV Group Chairman and CEO Gary Newman was also involved in the initial outreach to MLB, and the league was attracted by the chance to deepen its ties with one of its largest and longest-running corporate partners.

“We’re obviously always looking for new fans, and we viewed ‘Pitch’ as a great platform to extend our reach,” said Chris Tully, MLB executive vice president of media. “The story line was very attractive to us, and we think the authenticity we can help provide will be a real selling point.”

Reviews of ‘Pitch’

Baseball series have a notoriously poor batting average on television (remember “Ball Four,” “Hardball,” “Bay City Blues,” “Clubhouse,” “A League of Their Own,” “The Bad News Bears”?). This heartfelt dramedy has the right game to succeed where so many others have failed.
Mark Dawidziak
The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer

The most powerful moment of the [pilot] episode comes toward the beginning when Ginny sees a young girl outside Petco Park holding a sign above her head that says “I’m next.” … It’s moments like that — which are a little heavy handed in the pilot — which ground this fictional story in reality and relevance. And though Ginny is briefly overwhelmed by the weight of the world’s expectations on her shoulders, the far more compelling part of the story is how she fits into the baseball world.
Terri Schwartz
IGN Movies

Time will tell if a show about a sport whose popularity has dwindled in recent years, and one whose win-loss count over the course of a season tends to provide all the drama a fan might need, can support a show week-in and -out. But keep your eye on Bunbury’s gritty, internal performance. From her first moment onscreen, she’s got that intangible toughness team scouts, and TV fans, look for.
Daniel D’Addario
Time

Collected by SportsBusiness Journal research

The league has reviewed each episode script as it has been developed since “Pitch” received its pilot order in January and series order in May. Tully, with Nick Trotta, senior director of library licensing for MLB Productions, and Robin Jaffe, senior manager of presence marketing, have led those efforts.

MLB doesn’t have singular veto power over script content. But due in part to the long-running relationship with Fox Sports, all sides describe the creative give-and-take as much more organic. The series is tagged as being presented “in Association with Major League Baseball,” and the league has been paid an undisclosed licensing fee for the use of the intellectual property.

“It’s been a healthy dialogue,” Falls said. “We’re eager to please them, and they also understand dramatic shows are driven by conflict, so we’ve worked to find a good balance. And right now, particularly as we are getting things up and running, we’ve had daily contact.”

Many of the changes to the script MLB has suggested concerned the accuracy of what big league players actually do as part of their daily routines. But Falls said there was one baseball custom that the show’s producers pushed back on: the tradition that starting pitchers typically stay alone, away from teammates, on the days they pitch.

“We couldn’t have that, a featured character with no dialogue and interaction in that type of situation,” Falls said.

The Padres were selected as the team the Baker character would play for in part because tax incentives and production logistics encouraged Fox to use a California team. But the network did not want to use the Los Angeles Dodgers, believing that would be too predictable and that they were too much of an “overdog,” Falls said.

The Padres, conversely, were within easy reach of Hollywood and could represent a likable underdog for viewers of the show, and the club was already working deeply with MLB executives on preparations for the 2016 All-Star Game at Petco Park, widely considered one of baseball’s best ballparks.

Several scenes were shot during All-Star Week festivities in July in San Diego, and Petco Park is frequently used for scenes involving game action. Replicas of the inner sections of the ballpark, including the clubhouse, were built on the studio lot.

Despite the heavy focus on on-field authenticity, show producers insist “Pitch” is not strictly a baseball story, and describe the show as a “The West Wing” for baseball, focusing heavily on human drama.

MLB sees “Pitch” as a platform to reach new fans.
Photo by: FOX
“We’ll look to really show the engine of what makes these environments tick,” said Falls, who worked on the Aaron Sorkin-led “The West Wing” and “Sports Night.” “We’re interested in exploring the glass ceiling, and the impacts of that being broken within this show.”

Beyond the content itself, there was also the matter of helping the actors to be authentic in their baseball movements, particularly stars Kylie Bunbury, who plays Baker, and Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who plays catcher and team leader Mike Lawson and whose TV credits include “NYPD Blue” and 1990s teen sitcom “Saved by the Bell.” Former MLB pitchers Gregg Olson and C.J. Nitkowski, the latter a Fox Sports analyst, aided on technical elements, as did professional trainer Alan Jaeger.

Despite the strong early buzz for “Pitch,” and the league’s extensive involvement, the series faces a tall order establishing itself. Thursday night is typically one of the TV industry’s top battlegrounds, and “Pitch” will be airing against “Thursday Night Football” on CBS and NBC.

Fox is supporting “Pitch” with a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign that began during July’s All-Star Game, long before many new fall series receive significant network promotion. It will be heavily promoted during Fox Sports’ coverage of the NL playoffs and World Series.

The marketing also involved special “Pitch” nights at dozens of minor league and college summer league ballparks in which the show pilot was screened. The show has a 10-episode order; any further commitment will depend on ratings.

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