Angels to continue remote radio broadcasts but risk 'a greater disconnect'

After the Angels beat the Dodgers on Tuesday night in the final spring training game, the entire team flew to Oakland. The 26 players that made the roster. All 13 coaches. Then more employees from the front office, as well as television broadcasters, media relations and training staff.

Pretty much everyone important to the operation, but not quite.

When Shohei Ohtani throws his first pitch of the season on Thursday night, the radio broadcasters will be watching from monitors inside an otherwise deserted Angel Stadium.

It’s the fourth year of this setup. For the first two years, that’s what everyone did. COVID-19 forced the change. But as baseball and society have moved toward a more post-COVID reality, Angels radio — at the direction of Angels management — remains stuck in the past.

“We found out that it’s not changing — we love our radio people, they do a great job,” Angels owner Arte Moreno said during a rare press session on March 18. “We just found that the economics — 40,000-50,000 miles is not going to change that experience.”

The Angels are one of two major-league teams that will not travel their flagship English-speaking radio booths on the road. The Blue Jays are the other team.

Moreno cited cost as one reason and also pointed to a lack of tangible benefit to being on the road. But several people experienced in the profession were unconvinced by those arguments.

The Angels declined further comment, beyond Moreno’s response during his media availability. The Angels radio broadcasters — Terry Smith and Mark Langston — who are employed by Moreno and the Angels — both declined to comment, as did engineer Jorge Sevilla.

Mike Ferrin, a former Diamondbacks broadcaster, said his experience is that covering road games is vital to the profession.

“You want to be able to do the job the right way,” said Ferrin, who now hosts a show on MLB Network Radio. “And if you’re doing it the right way, you’re taking advantage of access you have as a broadcaster, that not even (beat writers) have.”

Calling games solely off of monitors, he said, is very difficult. Aside from potential technical problems that arise, you inevitably won’t see the whole game or its surroundings.

“Then you’re creating a greater disconnect between your fans and the players,” Ferrin said, “which is, in essence, the product that you’re trying to sell.”

Ferrin also pointed out that you’re missing out on actually seeing the scene. He recalled his own experience of calling Madison Bumgarner’s no-hitter in a seven-inning game remotely. And he said it was impossible to truly capture such a compelling moment in baseball history.

“There are huge things that get missed that you can’t provide the proper context to,” Ferrin said. “… Twenty-eight teams think (on-site broadcasters) add a significant value right now and there’s two that don’t.”

Moreno specifically cited economics factoring into the decision. The cost, however, is likely a drop in the bucket for the overall operating cost of running a major-league franchise.

The Athletic spoke to an industry expert who was tasked with running the operations and financial budget for a different major-league radio team. This person spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern of reprisal from their team.

This expert said they budgeted between $185,000 to $200,000 per season for all expenses related to radio broadcasters’ travel. The cost typically accounts for $350 per person per night in a hotel room, along with a $70 to $100 per diem that covers daily food or miscellaneous expenses. Per diems are typically given to all members of a traveling party. Some of the costs can be offset if the engineering duties are outsourced to a local freelancer.

Broadcasting remotely, while much less expensive, is not completely free either. At a minimum, there are costs associated with acquiring various live feeds from Major League Baseball.

The Angels and Bally Sports West infamously did not plan to travel their television crew last season in an effort to accommodate play-by-play Matt Vasgersian working remotely. Vasgersian defended the practice in a story on The Athletic before the season.

“Anybody that’s critical of the remote setup, I get it,” Vasgersian said last year. “It comes easier to you if you’re at the ballpark. I get that. For me, in my situation, I not only appreciate the technology required to do it this way, I’ve made a point to become conversant in it and embrace it.”

But weeks after making these comments, in the first road series of the season, there were enormous issues with delays — the broadcasters’ calls were coming several seconds after viewers saw the play. Vasgersian also incorrectly called balls in play as foul, and vice versa.

The Angels quickly reversed course, and Patrick O’Neal handled play-by-play duties at home and on the road for most of the season.

While part of the technical difficulties stemmed from Vasgersian and color commentator Mark Gubicza calling the games from separate locations, the experience underscores the challenge of calling games remotely. It’s particularly tricky to do it off of a monitor.

Major League Baseball declined to comment when asked if they preferred to have broadcasters travel with their partner teams. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred was asked about remote broadcasts during his media availability at the Blue Jays’ spring training complex in February. He noted he was “not qualified” to give a good answer.

“Honestly, I listen to baseball on the radio a fair amount actually,” Manfred said, according to the Toronto Star. “I can’t tell you that I really have discerned a significant difference in part because I’m not sure which clubs are doing what.”

While game-to-game, inning-to-inning differences might be difficult to spot with remote broadcasts, Ferrin’s point is that you’re losing out on access, which will negatively impact the broadcast over the course of a season.

Broadcasters are often on the field before games. They’re in the clubhouse. They’re in media scrums with the manager. They’re also on the team charter and buses and become engrained in the operation. By the time the microphones are hot, they know what’s happening.

That will not be the case for Angels broadcasts for another year. And given Moreno’s staunch view of the situation, it might remain that way for the foreseeable future.

Spanish broadcast adds games

The Angels will now air half of their games on Spanish radio KWKW, the team said. The team’s new official broadcaster is Rolando Gonzalez, an employee of the station.

The Athletic reported in January about the Angels neglecting their Spanish-language broadcasts. Longtime broadcaster Jose Tolentino said he was receiving about $350 per game on a freelance basis to broadcast games for KWKW. The number of games aired was lowered significantly in the last several years, and Tolentino said he was boxed out of his role without a clear notification.

The Angels had also removed the Spanish broadcasters from their radio booth before the 2013 season. Games were being called from a sound booth adjacent to Angel Stadium, the KWKW studio in Los Angeles and sometimes from Tolentino’s home. Neither the Angels nor KWKW would say how many games were aired over the last couple of years.

The Angels did offer an in-stadium booth behind home plate to KWKW for 2023, according to a source with knowledge. KWKW declined. It is unclear why and it is not known where Gonzalez will do his play-by-play.

KWKW general manager Jim Kalmenson did not respond to questions about their coverage of the Angels.

(Photo: Ashley Landis / Associated Press)