From the *Other* Mothership: How RSN Gets Rangers Baseball to Your Couch (and Makes It Look Easy) | Angie Swint & Joe Cronin

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Creators and Guests

Host

Mike Rhyner

Mike Rhyner… "a little on the bumpy side, but rather likable"…so stated famously by a grade school teacher in Oak Cliff, where Mike grew up. A complicated guy, yet a guy who can do long division and remember call strike three to A Rod. Probably best left unattended. Don't expect assistance from him if a medical situation arises.

What is Your Dark Companion Podcast?

"Whatever I want it to be about on a given day; is what it is." Your Dark Companion couples your familiar friends from radio, Mike and Grubes! Mike brings his classic interviews that draw you in, and Grubes—The Devil—drops…well the drops, and throws the occasional grenade. Mike likes to draw on his fascinating acquaintances and friends allowing them to tell their stories as you've never heard them. But he also goes outside his network, sharing Grubes' network, and often outside of both, to bring you those they don't know, but believe have a story that will make you laugh, make you think, think differently, or just entertain you…"that's what we are trying to do here."

0:00:00 - (Mike Rhyner): Nobody would have thought that I would be the one. Reiner. Sports talk. Baseball, baseball, baseball, baseball. Oh, with the big mic. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, okay, now I get it. We got a lightning strike, boys. What happened over there, Grego? We had a little lightning strike right outside the window. The Texas Rangers win the World Series. All right, all right. Here's a tip, right? All these Americano league teams don't. Wait, you said tip? Yeah, tip with a P.
0:00:37 - (Mike Rhyner): Keep jamming the ticket, colon. Nothing but a big Gen X jerk off session. This is a cool night. Or what? Although somebody would hear that and go, I'm back. Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of your Dark Companion. Good to be with you on this 10th September. I would be Mike Reiner. As you can tell, we are out here in the wild today. We are at Globe Life Field, high above Globe Life Field. This is on the press level of Globe Life Field.
0:01:24 - (Mike Rhyner): The radio booth is right down the way there. So if you've ever wondered what it looks like for those guys, you're getting a little bit of a look at it here today. They're a little bit more squared up than we are. We're kind of down the first baseline a little bit here. But what I thought we would do today, what got us out here is not too long ago, when RSN was new and just getting underway, we had Angie Swinton on with us and she told us about what their plans were for it, what brought it about, etcetera, and so forth.
0:02:02 - (Mike Rhyner): And what I thought we would do today is circle back with her and find out just how this year has gone. Because I got to tell you, I haven't run across too many people who are displeased with the Ranger Sports Network. I think this has been a pretty overwhelming success. But you know what? What I think doesn't matter. It's all about what you think and about what Angie thinks. So let's just jump in right there.
0:02:33 - (Mike Rhyner): How do you think this year on the whole, has gone for you? I know nothing's perfect in this world, but on the whole, what's it been like?
0:02:41 - (Angie Swint): You're right. Nothing's perfect in this world. But I do think, you know, we're really pleased. I think it has been. I think it's been a success from an overall fan engagement perspective. I think that the shows are putting out really good content. I think people like seeing, you know, Elvis Andrus on our pre and post game show. Right. He's been an interesting addition.
0:03:08 - (Mike Rhyner): Oh, he's been wonderful.
0:03:09 - (Angie Swint): He's been so much fun. Isn't he the best? You know, and then we're able to get Nick Hunley in there, who will be on the show today. And he brings just an entirely different perspective because he's in the front office and he's working with Cy every day. And we've had Brad Miller in some of those positions. And so, you know, and he played as recently as 2023 in the world Series championship team. So I think, you know, seeing some of those things has been positive. We get a lot of fan feedback about that.
0:03:41 - (Angie Swint): I think the simulcast with television and radio for that pre and post show and really leaning into Jared Sandler quarterbacking, it has just been tremendous. I don't know how you feel, but I was. I've just been so tickled at our friends Eric and Matt and their involvement and, you know, they get the makeup, they do the whole thing.
0:04:07 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:04:08 - (Angie Swint): Hair.
0:04:08 - (Mike Rhyner): They're not used to that either.
0:04:09 - (Angie Swint): They're not used to that.
0:04:10 - (Mike Rhyner): The radio guys are not used to that.
0:04:12 - (Angie Swint): And it's so great. It's kind of fun. Did you ever think you'd see that? You've known those guys a long time.
0:04:17 - (Mike Rhyner): I have known them a long time. Especially Eric. Yes and no. And I got to think that. That he must have gone into this kicking and screaming, but he did get into it and I guess embraces it now.
0:04:31 - (Angie Swint): He totally embraces it. And they're both just into it. They enjoy it and are talent, you know, just across the board. They're all so incredibly supportive of one another.
0:04:43 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:04:43 - (Angie Swint): And that's why it works, right? That wouldn't work with every team.
0:04:46 - (Mike Rhyner): No. No, it wouldn't.
0:04:48 - (Angie Swint): Yes, it would not. Right.
0:04:50 - (Mike Rhyner): Believe me, I know.
0:04:51 - (Angie Swint): Yes, I know. You know, so it's, you know, I think from that perspective and seeing that show, those shows, the Rangers game day shows, both pre and post grow has been awesome. We've had engagement with the baseball ops staff. We've been able to do more. We've had more player access, more. More everything. And it's been so fun.
0:05:13 - (Mike Rhyner): I know you must have had some level of expectations and going out in a new venture like this as you have. I know when I've had to do that before.
0:05:25 - (Angie Swint): Yes.
0:05:26 - (Mike Rhyner): I always set a pretty low bar for it.
0:05:28 - (Angie Swint): That's right.
0:05:29 - (Mike Rhyner): Is that what you did, too?
0:05:30 - (Angie Swint): Yeah. I think our bar was. Let's get on the air.
0:05:33 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:05:34 - (Angie Swint): Yeah. Right.
0:05:35 - (Mike Rhyner): Good place to start.
0:05:36 - (Angie Swint): That's about as low as you can get. But it's really necessary for broadcasting as I understand it. So we. Yeah, I Mean, initially it was like, man, can we do this? And let's just see if we can. If we can get this thing on the. On the air, get it to deliver to more households. Right. That was part of our goal, and I think we've accomplished that. So that's good. Yeah, yeah.
0:06:00 - (Mike Rhyner): It's always nice. And it kind of blows the whole thing up even a little bit more than maybe it really should be when you meet and exceed those expectations you had at the start of the year. And I know that's what you guys are experiencing right now.
0:06:15 - (Angie Swint): Yeah, yeah, we're really, really pleased with it. And, you know, I think I'd be. It would be misleading if I didn't, you know, touch on. We are changing these shows every day. We are tinkering, making little adjustments, make, you know, partially it's because we, like part of our goal was we want to keep everything fresh.
0:06:35 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:06:36 - (Angie Swint): Partially, though, it's because we see one little thing and then we may, you know, Patrick Madrofsky, our coordinating producer, who has just been amazing. We'll start talking and we say, well, what if we make just a slip, one little graphics. We could wait one little adjustment, and then it usually turns into some really large adjustment. But that's what we do every. Every day.
0:06:57 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, I guess, you know, you change on the fly. We do as the season goes on.
0:07:02 - (Angie Swint): Right.
0:07:03 - (Mike Rhyner): And. But, you know, that's a good thing too, because as you, you know, meet expectations along the way, there's another one that pops up.
0:07:12 - (Angie Swint): Right.
0:07:13 - (Mike Rhyner): And then you've got to tackle that. But that's.
0:07:16 - (Angie Swint): Right.
0:07:16 - (Mike Rhyner): That's what it's all about, you know.
0:07:18 - (Angie Swint): And in following this story that the team is providing. Right. It. It maybe not. Maybe wouldn't have been the story we all would have charted out before the season, featuring the guys that we're featuring right now, stuff like that. But it's been wonderful.
0:07:34 - (Mike Rhyner): Just absolutely wonderful on the now. I don't know a whole lot about this aspect that I'm going to ask you about now because I'm a DirecTV stream guy.
0:07:47 - (Angie Swint): Oh, okay, good.
0:07:48 - (Mike Rhyner): I get you there.
0:07:49 - (Angie Swint): Great partners.
0:07:50 - (Mike Rhyner): But on the Victory plus app.
0:07:53 - (Angie Swint): Yes.
0:07:53 - (Mike Rhyner): How have things gone there for you?
0:07:55 - (Angie Swint): They've been great. They're great partners as well. You know, it was really necessary to deliver a direct to consumer offering in this market. Cord cutting is very prevalent. It happens every single day. Victory came in. They have been absolutely tremendous partners for us. They've also just really helped meet a need. And our goal was to deliver Rangers baseball to as many Rangers Fans as wanted.
0:08:26 - (Mike Rhyner): Do you think the fact that they've also done the Stars and had, you know, a little bit of experience with this sort of thing, has that been of considerable help to you, do you think?
0:08:39 - (Angie Swint): 100%. Yeah. We came into it, you know, after they'd worked out everything that needed to be worked out. It was. They've just. It's been really great with them because they've already done it. And on the Starz side, they're also involved in production and a lot of other things. So I think we hand them a fairly turnkey broadcast. Produced by rsn.
0:09:00 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:09:00 - (Angie Swint): Yeah.
0:09:01 - (Mike Rhyner): Do you have any plans for programming during down times when there are no games? You know, because now you turn on. You turn it on and you get the theme song and everything. And don't get me wrong, I like the theme song.
0:09:17 - (Angie Swint): Okay. Okay, good.
0:09:17 - (Mike Rhyner): Theme song is cool. But I've always wondered, are they ever going to come up with stuff to fill in the blanks here a little bit around the games?
0:09:28 - (Angie Swint): Yeah, I think. I mean, just honestly, we haven't really gotten there.
0:09:34 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah. Yeah. That might be a way down the road thing.
0:09:38 - (Angie Swint): Yeah. I don't even know if it's way down the road. It's just at some point we need to be able to shift our mindset to that.
0:09:44 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:09:45 - (Angie Swint): But you know, certainly we have all kinds of content ideas, all kinds of things we want to deliver and you know, the goal is to just build it and build it and hopefully deliver stuff people really want to see.
0:10:01 - (Mike Rhyner): You know, I'd heard, like I said, I don't have a whole lot of experience with it, but I'd heard that Victory plus tended to have some, you know, problems with hang and stuff like that, but I haven't heard anything about that with the Rangers. Is that something you guys have done or is it. Is it your crew or what is it exactly?
0:10:22 - (Angie Swint): I think, I think by the time we got to them, Victory had a lot of time to work out whatever that was. I understand what you're talking about. I heard some of that too.
0:10:30 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:10:30 - (Angie Swint): We really don't get it. You know, I mean, they may have an issue every now and then, but it's. It's not anything of note. They've been. They've done a really wonderful job for us.
0:10:42 - (Mike Rhyner): Are you guys ready for the post season run? And if so, how. What's that going to look like for you?
0:10:48 - (Angie Swint): So superstitious.
0:10:51 - (Mike Rhyner): I know.
0:10:51 - (Angie Swint): It's so hard. What are you doing to me?
0:10:54 - (Mike Rhyner): I'm sorry, I didn't. I'm not trying to jinx anything.
0:10:56 - (Angie Swint): Okay. Okay. Okay. So should we be fortunate enough to advance, we have all kinds of plans we're working on to support the club and continue to deliver really great content.
0:11:12 - (Mike Rhyner): So what are you going to do when the season's over?
0:11:16 - (Angie Swint): When it's really over. Yeah, when it's all said and done.
0:11:19 - (Mike Rhyner): When whatever is said and done is said and done.
0:11:21 - (Angie Swint): Huh. Personally.
0:11:23 - (Mike Rhyner): Personally.
0:11:23 - (Angie Swint): Might take a couple days off. Honestly. Might like to try to get my staff a couple days off right now. That's. That's not an easy thing to come by because there's just so much to do.
0:11:34 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, that's the thing about baseball that people don't realize. Everybody thinks it's really neat. Be a. Would be a great gig and. Yeah, it is for sure.
0:11:43 - (Angie Swint): Wonderful.
0:11:44 - (Mike Rhyner): But that's provided that you don't need much downtime. And it seems like it's. You seem like the kind of person that doesn't need a lot of downtime.
0:11:53 - (Angie Swint): I don't need a lot that you can hang. I. I like to believe that about myself. But we're, you know, at some point here soon, maybe sitting back in a margarita or two wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
0:12:04 - (Mike Rhyner): No, you know, the worst thing in the world.
0:12:06 - (Angie Swint): Yes.
0:12:07 - (Mike Rhyner): In fact, you will find them quite tasty, I can tell you that.
0:12:11 - (Angie Swint): I look forward to it.
0:12:13 - (Mike Rhyner): So what are you gonna do in the Aussie? Are you gonna go on a trip or anything? Or do you.
0:12:19 - (Angie Swint): No.
0:12:20 - (Mike Rhyner): Do you ever take a vacation or anything like that?
0:12:23 - (Angie Swint): Yeah, we will take a vacation. We'll figure something out.
0:12:26 - (Mike Rhyner): We don't really have, just not right now.
0:12:28 - (Angie Swint): We don't have anything in the works yet. Do you have suggestions?
0:12:34 - (Mike Rhyner): I would say Vancouver's always nice, but this, it's. Oh, yeah.
0:12:38 - (Angie Swint): Okay.
0:12:38 - (Mike Rhyner): I love Vancouver. Never been there.
0:12:39 - (Angie Swint): All right.
0:12:40 - (Mike Rhyner): But maybe not so much in the wintertime. I go in the summer.
0:12:43 - (Angie Swint): Oh, yeah, right.
0:12:44 - (Mike Rhyner): Summer is just grand.
0:12:45 - (Angie Swint): Okay, what about wintertime vacations? What do you like?
0:12:49 - (Mike Rhyner): I generally don't go in the winter. If I'm going, I'm going in the summer.
0:12:52 - (Angie Swint): Yeah, you're like, opposite of the baseball schedule.
0:12:54 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah. Let's go.
0:12:55 - (Angie Swint): What are you doing to me?
0:12:56 - (Mike Rhyner): I'm sorry. Probably bumming you out in something fierce. So how are you guys going to expand this thing, man? I mean, what is the next step up? Have you even been able to stop down and think about that yet?
0:13:11 - (Angie Swint): I mean, every once in a while when I have a down moment, driving into work or something, I think about, where does this go? But Honestly, just to be able to meet our original baseline goal of getting on the air and trying to deliver a quality broadcast, it's been hard to think past the day right in front of us. Right.
0:13:32 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:13:32 - (Angie Swint): Because you're right. Baseball is no joke. It's 162 games. It's tough.
0:13:37 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:13:37 - (Angie Swint): And once you're in it, there's no, you know, outside of the All Star break, which isn't really much of a break, there isn't a lot of downtime. And so I think your point is accurate. And there hasn't been a ton of time to start thinking about all of that, but, you know, there's a few things rattling around in here. We'll see what we get.
0:13:56 - (Mike Rhyner): Do you have, like, I don't know, maybe a group of guys or a group of people that you lean on to kick things around with and make those decisions with the. I mean, you must.
0:14:12 - (Angie Swint): Yes, of course. Inside the industry, with other teams, you know, all over the place. Like, the amount of people that have.
0:14:24 - (Mike Rhyner): Oh, you share info with other teams.
0:14:26 - (Angie Swint): Oh, yeah, for sure. About, you know, especially when you're talking about the, you know, best practices, things you've seen success with. And then we have a group with other, like, executive producers where we get together and talk about various things that have worked and what they've seen. So, you know, we. I love talking about that kind of stuff because sometimes we get some really great stuff from it.
0:14:50 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:14:51 - (Angie Swint): Yeah.
0:14:52 - (Mike Rhyner): Anything that you would like to implement for next year that you'd like to maybe drop a little hint about here on little ydc?
0:14:58 - (Angie Swint): Oh, I don't know. I think, you know, I think our goal is to continue to deliver at the quality that we've been delivering at and to grow from there. But what that growth looks like, I'm not 100% sure right now. You know, and like I said, we are constantly in there tinkering and making little changes and coming up with ideas and throwing stuff out there. And so we don't. I don't know, if I think about it, that it will look different.
0:15:33 - (Angie Swint): It will just look as different as it has every other day of this. Of this season.
0:15:38 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:15:38 - (Angie Swint): Does that make sense?
0:15:39 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, total sense.
0:15:40 - (Angie Swint): Okay.
0:15:41 - (Mike Rhyner): Well, one thing I can tell you that you have done, and I know I mentioned this when you were on with us the first time, is that you have given Ranger fans a place where they know they can go and see the game. You know, one place.
0:15:56 - (Angie Swint): Yes.
0:15:57 - (Mike Rhyner): This is where you go. You want Ranger baseball, you go here.
0:16:00 - (Angie Swint): Yes.
0:16:00 - (Mike Rhyner): You don't go Here one night, over there the next, and then the third night, it's somebody else.
0:16:05 - (Angie Swint): Yes.
0:16:06 - (Mike Rhyner): If you want Ranger baseball, you go to rsn.
0:16:09 - (Angie Swint): Yes. We have tried to do that, and, you know, it's just super important to us that we're delivering content that the Rangers fans are proud of. That was really the ultimate goal when we set out here, is that this is for the fans, and we wanted this to be something that when they turned it on, they were like, this is my team, you know?
0:16:30 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:16:31 - (Angie Swint): Yeah.
0:16:32 - (Mike Rhyner): Well, one thing I can assure you of, and this is one not necessarily enlightened person's. Not necessarily enlightened opinion, but I hear about it from a lot, or I used to hear about it from a lot of other people.
0:16:46 - (Angie Swint): Sure.
0:16:48 - (Mike Rhyner): And now I don't hear anybody bitching or anybody complaining about. I wanted to watch the Rangers, but I didn't know where to go. You know? Now they know where to go.
0:16:59 - (Angie Swint): Yes.
0:16:59 - (Mike Rhyner): And if you haven't done anything else, that's a big, big hurdle. That's important to Ranger fans, and you guys have gotten that squared away for them.
0:17:09 - (Angie Swint): That's good. That's good. Thank you.
0:17:12 - (Mike Rhyner): Nobody. You never hear about it anymore because, you know, everybody knows if you want to watch the Rangers, go here, go here.
0:17:20 - (Angie Swint): That's what we want. And hopefully they do want to watch the Rangers. It's still so exciting.
0:17:25 - (Mike Rhyner): It is exciting.
0:17:26 - (Angie Swint): Exciting right now.
0:17:27 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:17:27 - (Angie Swint): Are you having fun?
0:17:29 - (Mike Rhyner): Well, it's baseball. I'm a baseball guy, so even when the team's bad, I'm having fun. Everybody else may be, but I am.
0:17:36 - (Angie Swint): But this is more fun.
0:17:38 - (Mike Rhyner): Oh, yeah, this is definitely more fun when, you know, they're about to play a game here in a few minutes, and you know what? The game counts. And the game matters.
0:17:48 - (Angie Swint): Yes.
0:17:49 - (Mike Rhyner): And it just so happens that right now, today, they're playing the team that is, according to record, the best in baseball.
0:17:57 - (Angie Swint): I know. It isn't that wild. Yeah, it was wild.
0:18:01 - (Mike Rhyner): So, yeah, maybe this game counts even a little bit more than that.
0:18:06 - (Angie Swint): I don't disagree with you. Feels that way, doesn't it?
0:18:08 - (Mike Rhyner): But no matter what the game counts, the place to see it is on rsn. You know that by now. And that's the way it's been this year. That's the way it will be for many, many years to come. Angie Swint, we cannot thank you enough for doing this, as always.
0:18:24 - (Angie Swint): Thank you.
0:18:25 - (Mike Rhyner): It's always great to talk to you, and you got, like I say, you guys have done great work. Everybody is feeling it. Everybody is digging it.
0:18:32 - (Angie Swint): Great.
0:18:32 - (Mike Rhyner): Just keep doing what you're doing, girl.
0:18:34 - (Angie Swint): Okay, we'll try.
0:18:35 - (Mike Rhyner): All right. There she is. That is Angie Swint of the Rangers joining us here today. And remember, if you like what we're doing, what would we would like for you to do is to get us out there. Follow us on social, we're on Patreon, we're on Twitter, we're on Spotify, we're on as the buy now cliche goes. Wherever you get your podcasts, we are there. So follow us, share us like us. Get us out there, tell your friends about us. Do what you have to do to get a little YDC out there. You do that for us, we'll keep doing this for you.
0:19:12 - (Angie Swint): Now, we're going on a tour.
0:19:15 - (Mike Rhyner): We're going what now?
0:19:16 - (Joe Cronin): On a tour.
0:19:17 - (Mike Rhyner): Now tell. We're going on a tour. Oh, yes, I forgot about that.
0:19:22 - (Angie Swint): That was good.
0:19:24 - (Mike Rhyner): But now you know what it's time for. It's time for a tour. So stand by. Well, we're down here on a place that I never thought I would be. We are on the field at Globe Life Field. Within mere feet of us to our right here, the brewers are having infield practice prior to their game with the Texas Baseball Rangers. And this is my first time to ever be on the field here over. Over at the temple. I was on the field so many times, I can't even count them all.
0:20:09 - (Mike Rhyner): Same for the old ballpark. But this is the first time I've ever been down here in this place. And man, this is big. And here we are in the best seats in the house. How do I know? Well, because this is where Bruce Bochy sits during a game. This is where high level baseball decisions are made. He is sitting here watching this out there in a game on the field. I'm down here on the field. I'm the triple super fake, Jared Sandler.
0:21:21 - (Mike Rhyner): And from this Rangers pre game and post game will emanate live tonight. Except I will be no part of either one. So enjoy. I want to look a white hair. He had that.
0:21:46 - (Angie Swint): He had. He doesn't like. Gilles.
0:21:49 - (Mike Rhyner): Wow.
0:21:58 - (Angie Swint): We're going up.
0:21:59 - (Mike Rhyner): Okay.
0:22:00 - (Joe Cronin): Okay.
0:22:01 - (Mike Rhyner): No, no. I'm just wandering around.
0:22:04 - (Angie Swint): He had his first grandparents day at his granddaughter's daycare yesterday. They did grandparents.
0:22:13 - (Joe Cronin): And you did not partake?
0:22:15 - (Mike Rhyner): I sat there and watched. Yes. You're a lot better looking than I am. I think they knew it really wasn't you. I think here in the second inning, big right hand hitter stands in. Peralta comes set. And the pitch. Way outside. Next pitch. Swung on. And that is hit a mile out to center field back as a center fielder, but it is gone. Nate Brigger has got the Rangers back into this thing with a home run that was hit just to the left field side of straightaway center field.
0:23:23 - (Mike Rhyner): Hi, I'm Mike. This is Joe Cronin, the former president of the American League and Baseball hall of Famer. Do you believe that?
0:23:35 - (Joe Cronin): And general manager of the Portland Trail Brothers. I think yes.
0:23:39 - (Mike Rhyner): Do you believe all that? You probably shouldn't. It's just a name thing, you know, the name's the same, but the guy is not. Tell everybody what you do, Joe Cronin.
0:23:51 - (Joe Cronin): Hi, I'm Joe Cronin. I'm currently the engineer in charge of the Texas Rangers home television broadcast. I'm in my 25th year of running the television truck that broadcasts the Texas Rangers when they're at home.
0:24:03 - (Mike Rhyner): That is a badass gig, man. That is a badass gig. You got to be squared away to do that gig, don't you?
0:24:12 - (Joe Cronin): Yeah. We have to be on our top of our game at all times because we never know when something's going to go wrong. The gentleman I work with, Tyler, and I are, we maintain the all the equipment for the show, monitor what's going on throughout the day, and as soon as anybody has a problem, we have to be on it and to be able to get it fixed as quickly as possible so we minimize any loss of time.
0:24:31 - (Mike Rhyner): Well, we are down here in the bowels, if you will, of Globe Life Field and we are standing right next to the mothership here, the truck where everything that you see on TV goes through there. They do what they do with it and it comes out on the other side and you and I consume it. We also have buses too that come rolling through here.
0:25:02 - (Joe Cronin): This is where all the player buses arrive to pick them up and drop them off every day.
0:25:06 - (Mike Rhyner): So you got to be ready for anything in a situation like this. Should we go inside, take a look around?
0:25:13 - (Joe Cronin): Walking through.
0:25:14 - (Mike Rhyner): Really? Should I keep it down?
0:25:43 - (Joe Cronin): No, in this area. This area.
0:25:44 - (Mike Rhyner): Not bad. Okay. Oh, did Mike Hellman do something just then?
0:25:49 - (Joe Cronin): Yep, another home run. I guess we're just scored.
0:25:53 - (Angie Swint): Wow.
0:25:53 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah. Surprise. Well, here we are inside the mothership. This is where Rangers TV happened. You see a huge flanks of monitors. You see three guys sitting down here with massive, massive quantums of buttons and lights and everything in front of them. It's hard for the layman to comprehend how anybody can know how to work all this stuff, but these guys do, and they're great at it they do a great broadcast every single time out.
0:26:39 - (Mike Rhyner): So what's the hardest part of all this?
0:26:42 - (Joe Cronin): Paying attention to detail. Because what the. What it is on this. These are the video guys, these are the shaders is what we call them, because they literally shade or paint the cameras. Because depending on how the light is hitting them, they're all going to look a little bit different as they go around the field. What they do is with the controls they have, they can control how bright or dark they are and change the colors and everything on there.
0:27:04 - (Joe Cronin): Because the whole thing is as they're hopping around the stadium, they want all the cameras to look the same. They also control the other fees that we get and other cameras that we get from either MLB or the ballpark itself.
0:27:16 - (Mike Rhyner): You see, that's something the average spare guy just would not think of. But for TV guys such as these is a reality of life. It's just what they do every day, and they're damn good at it. Well, we have made our way a little further down the truck and we have come upon something even more complex than what we just looked at was. I thought it couldn't get more complex than this, but it does. Here, you tell the story, Joe. What's going on here?
0:27:53 - (Joe Cronin): This is our replay room. Back in the old days, when I first started, we used tape machines. Nowadays we made a lot more progress. Up on the front bench. You'll see on the top, top row, there's a couple of four replay servers. They record the all the video in real time. The operators, there are four operators in this room for the Rangers home broadcast. And you can mark the beginning and the end of every play. They give it a label and then they save it as a clip on the screen up there.
0:28:19 - (Joe Cronin): That way they have instant access to anything later in the game that's happened during the game at the same time because they're all networked together. Even though he's only got four inputs on his machine, he can actually see all the inputs that we're using so he can get to them at any time. And when they go to either the end of an inning and something really important happens at the end of the game, game or whatever, he can build what they call a rollout, a whole series of plays of what's going on at that point in time.
0:28:47 - (Mike Rhyner): Wow. Extreme, man. That is extreme. It's a great broadcast. It's a great broadcast. These guys know what they're doing. These guys are great at what they do. So much better at what they do than I am at What I do, it's not even funny. But that's why they're there and I'm here, so there's that. All right, let's go down here.
0:29:16 - (Joe Cronin): Back up Axio.
0:29:24 - (Mike Rhyner): All right, I gotta hold it down a little bit down in here because there's a one listening to the broadcast. They're paying a lot of attention. And we're shaking down here.
0:29:41 - (Joe Cronin): Okay, what we have here is this is the main production room. You have a graphics machine on the back, which is the bug box with an operator. They keep track of all the lower information. The bug box itself with the batter position, ball strikes, the player stats, and there's a couple of graphics elements to come out of that as well. Well, on the far side we have the main graphics machine. There's an operator and a coordinator with that one because it does all the player stats, all the full screen graphics, all the boxes that you see on the stuff when they separate the video out.
0:30:10 - (Joe Cronin): So they have to generate that so it's more involved and more stuff going on. That's why they have two of them up there. If you want to come over this way just a little bit, you can look up front here. And Kevin Lewis is on the far right over there. He's our technical director. He's the one that visually makes everything happen that leaves the truck. He's been doing this for over longer than I have, like 30 years now. Doing the Texas Rangers, I believe.
0:30:33 - (Joe Cronin): So like I said, literally he loads a show and builds it and does everything visually that happens. The gentleman in the front is the director. He mainly looks at the cameras during game action. And this is one of the harder sports to cover because instead of a straight left to right, like football, basketball, baseball, you know, baseball goes around in a very circular pattern. They have to kind of jump all around and keep track of it.
0:30:54 - (Joe Cronin): He's listening to the producer to his left about when replays are ready and when graphics are ready to go in. And he kind of gives the. Gives the command when it's ready to go. And then the director has the technical director put it in. Well, he's working, worrying about his replays. He's also talking to his graphics department to make sure that they're good to go when they're ready to go. So it's just a lot of talking and listening at the same time.
0:31:19 - (Joe Cronin): So we're going to keep everything running smoothly in here.
0:31:24 - (Mike Rhyner): You're not wrong, though. Okay, what is this?
0:31:28 - (Joe Cronin): This is our main audio room. And this is Tim, our audio one. A1 or our mixer, we follow a mixer because he literally mixes the audio. If you have the luck to have the tickets to be able to go to the stands, you hear the roar of the crowd. Crowd. You hear the like the ball hitting the bat, the ball hitting the glove and that kind of thing. Well, you want to be able to hear that at home as well. So he has 19 effects microphones around the stadium and on top of that he's got between the pre game position for the booth talent, the headsets for them, the RF position we have for Groby talent, the pre game, post game set and player microphones and stuff that we have set up in case we need them. He has another 15 microphones he has to mix all together.
0:32:06 - (Joe Cronin): He's got to get him at a good level. So you can get the feel of being in the stadium but also hear the announcers because it's very annoying if you have. You can't hear the announcers at home or you can't hear the effects at all because you want to get the best of both worlds.
0:32:19 - (Mike Rhyner): So is there a lot of variation in the levels from day to day.
0:32:23 - (Joe Cronin): Or not really day to day? Well actually there could be depending on how good the team playing and exciting events and stuff. But it's a huge variation between during the game like when they hit a home run, you get the huge roar where he can't let it completely overdrive the announcer. She's going to kind of keep it ready for control.
0:32:41 - (Mike Rhyner): It felt pretty good as a nine year old. I'm like so hard. Wow.
0:32:47 - (Joe Cronin): We've been doing it for so long. Kind of normal for us.
0:32:51 - (Mike Rhyner): But everybody I've ever known has told me about it. You know, if you do it for a while it's all like second nature.
0:32:57 - (Joe Cronin): You learn what you do and you, you know, you get good at true like, you know, like I tell people I go when I'm like walking around checking things out, I sit in my area and because I actually doing, I'm actually doing the visitor broadcast at the same time. I'll listen to it. Two producers, two directors, two technical directors and two audio guys in my headset at the same time.
0:33:16 - (Mike Rhyner): That's a lot ready for clean.
0:33:18 - (Joe Cronin): That's my, my wife wonders why I don't listen when at home because I do my listening at work.
0:33:23 - (Mike Rhyner): 6 It's a good excuse, that's what.
0:33:25 - (Joe Cronin): Except you tell me.
0:33:28 - (Mike Rhyner): I watch the games, I know what they look like and now I kind of have a little idea of why they look that way. You got, you got good guys in there.
0:33:39 - (Joe Cronin): A lot of really talented people with a lot of experience doing what they're doing. And it's just a lot of, like I said, listening and talking at the same time, which most people have a hard time doing. These guys have kind of mastered that art. You know, they can listen to one group and talk to another group at the same time.
0:33:54 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah. Every woman I've ever been around has said, you will never. You'll never master that. And they're right, too. They're all right. Well, thank you, man. You're very welcome.
0:34:04 - (Joe Cronin): Nice to meet you.
0:34:05 - (Mike Rhyner): Nice to meet you. And let's go Rangers.
0:34:08 - (Joe Cronin): Go Rangers.
0:34:09 - (Mike Rhyner): And let's go Rangers. TV man. Yep.
0:34:12 - (Joe Cronin): Rsn.
0:34:13 - (Mike Rhyner): Yes. RSN is what it's all about.
0:34:25 - (Angie Swint): All right.
0:34:27 - (Mike Rhyner): I'm gonna go take my pants off. Your Dark Companion is a stolen water Media presentation.