Van Wagner, Solomon Group put finishing touches on massive effort
Major League Baseball dives into the utmost of immersion for many of its tentpole events: Field of Dreams in Dyersville, IA and Rickwood Field in Birmingham, AL, to name a pair. Opting to go all-in on Texan flair for the 2024 MLB Draft, MLB Global Events is relying on two notable partners — Van Wagner, who’s involved for the first time as the in-venue production arm, and Solomon Group for tech needs — to pull off an entertaining handful of days within the historic Fort Worth Stockyards.
“We looked at a couple of sites,” says Emilie Matson, manager, global event experience, Major League Baseball. “This one was the most authentic and gave us the best opportunity to have the most fun and produce a really great show.”
Breaking the Mold: League Goes Hyper Localized for Fourth Event on the Road
When the league decided to move their annual Draft away from MLB Network’s studios in Secaucus, NJ, their first attempt at an onsite production during MLB All-Star festivities was in Denver in 2021. For that year, the show was produced from the Bellco Theatre in the Colorado Convention Center. In 2022, the event was done outside for the first time at L.A. Live in Los Angeles. In 2023, Seattle’s Lumen Field — a venue packed with NFL-standard infrastructure, a massive footprint to handle a ton of foot traffic, and other advantages — was a proper location that was adjacent to T-Mobile Park. This year, however, MLB Global Events went a different route with Cowtown Coliseum — a more intimate venue with a history that matches the town’s longtime relationship with the Wild West. To make a memorable splash in a state like Texas, the building was a perfect fit. A lot of times, fans emotions are conjured by the building that they’re sitting in. For Solomon Group, which has the main goal of augmenting this experience with a myriad of additives, decided to not overdo their portion of the job by letting the space speak for itself.
MLB’s Emilie Matson and Van Wagner’s Lindsay Anson at their perch in the venue.
“Every year, the MLB Draft is crafted to the city that hosts MLB All-Star, but for this one, we asked ourselves how we could make this one look like the state of Texas,” says Steven Fink, co-founder and executive producer, Solomon Group. “Moving into a place like this, we developed a scenic design that would make our job so much easier.”
Surprisingly for a 116-year-old venue, the infrastructure was more advanced than most would expect for a building that opened two years before Rickwood Field. As a beloved location known for cattle, bull riding, and the excitement of a good old-fashioned rodeo, Cowtown Coliseum has kept up with the times with a recent renovation. On the tech side, 17 new LED displays, including a dazzling main videoboard on the far wall, were installed. The lighting quality was greatly improved as well with the addition of a new lighting rig at the building’s center. A few things were added by Engineer Rob Kodadek, including lighting on the beams on the building’s roof.
“I’ve been in a lot of buildings that host the rodeo, but when we walked into this venue and saw what they already had installed, [Cowtown Coliseum] is a couple years into a lot of renovation work,” adds Fink. “The new management team had a pretty impressive, built-in system for bull riding.”
To ensure that the league’s overarching vision meshed with the entertainment elements that Solomon Group supplied, Solomon Group’s Senior Producer Victoria Sumrall has an open dialogue with the league representatives from MLB operations including VP, Global Events, Jeremiah Yolkut, and Coordinator, Global Event Operations, Hikari Shumsky.
Sharing the Space: Game Creek Video Trucks House Van Wagner, Solomon, Broadcasters
Outside of Cowtown Coliseum, two of Game Creek Video’s onsite mobile units — Gotham and B9 — are packed with a full house of onsite staffers. Not only is Van Wagner and Solomon Group using this space, but so is ESPN and MLB Network. MLB Network has provided these accomodations and MLB Network’s Senior Remote Technical Manager Zaac Christopher is the main point of contact for Van Wagner. Operationally, Director, Technology, Jeremy Havens, and Manager, Technical Operations, Patrick Steadman, are leading Van Wagner’s onsite strategy. With a hefty amount of commercial traffic in the area, local businesses are highlighting special events with fans in town. One business is Billy Bob’s, which promotes itself as the World’s Largest Honky Tonk that hosts numerous concerts and musical events, and is located next to Cowtown Coliseum and shares their back-of-house space with the rodeo venue. Van Wagner arrived early to set up their compound, but country singer Hunter Hayes was scheduled to play at Billy Bob’s on Saturday, July 13, which presented a major hurdle that needed to be navigated.
Solomon Group’s Steven Fink is also onsite to assist the league and Van Wagner.
“We were working within half of [the building’s footprint] since they were getting ready for the concert,” says Havens. “We lost some production space for our mobile units, so that was a fun one to work around.”
Technologically, the in-venue show will be driven by 13 total cameras, which includes five from ESPN, five from MLB Network, and three operated by Van Wagner. Those three are a podium POV, a hard camera at a slash position, and a RF SteadiCam. In addition, MLB Network will share its live Zoom feeds of remote prospects and all 30 clubs’ Draft rooms to be displayed on the videoboard.
Deep in the Heart of Texas: Videoboard Elements Reflect City’s, State’s Rural Roots
From a production point of view, Van Wagner and MLB worked together to conceive of a graphics template that mixed the league’s branding and the rodeo. MLB’s Senior Creative Director Jason Yeadon was the lead on this aspect of the project.
“Our Brand Design group managed the overall look and feel,” says Matson. “We’ve gotten a lot of our content from all 30 clubs, and through our relationship with the teams, we also received a lot of additional B roll and video assets that are playing on the videoboard.”
Without prior experience with the MLB Draft, Van Wagner’s production team — featuring President, Productions, Bob Becker, and Executive Producer Lindsay Anson — did their homework by visiting Cowtown Coliseum to see what they were working with.
The building’s interior flipped from rodeo to the central hub of the MLB Draft.
“Bob and I did a site visit here a few months ago, and it was a full dirt facility that was ready for the rodeo,” says Anson. “We put our creativity to the test and tried to picture what it would be like to host the MLB Draft at this unique location.”
Fortunately, Van Wagner is heavily involved with the NFL Draft every year. Through this tangible knowledge, along with their overall involvement at various high-profile events like the Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four, and more, they came up with a plan of attack to leave their mark on this event.
“We took our previous experience, but tailored our show to be unique to what baseball fans potentially want to see by bringing in some local flair,” continues Anson. “With a more intimate setting and being an approachable event from a fan’s perspective, we looked to lean into the creativity that surrounds us [in Cowtown Coliseum and the Fort Worth Stockyards].”
To provide the most accurate details in their material, Van Wagner worked with Senior Sports Marketing Manager Becca Berger and her team with the local commission of the City of Fort Worth.
Remote in Raleigh: Van Wagner’s North Carolina-Based Facility Plays Pivotal Production Role
With the bulk of Van Wagner’s production staff and technologies being used in their remote production facility in Raleigh, NC, their onsite team is a critical conduit that’ll link the North Carolina-based team to the action in Fort Worth. Spearheaded by Broadcast Manager, Facility Operations, Nelson Hurst, the remote crew is alleviating the need for a large logistical footprint. For Anson to fulfill her production duties, a clear line of communication with minimal delay with Raleigh is needed for a successful show.
“I feel like Nelson and the rest of our team back in Raleigh are sitting right next to us [here in Fort Worth],” she says. “Having a dedicated team back at our home base makes us feel a lot more confident going into events.”
This setup is feeding video signals and other elements back to Van Wagner’s facility in Raleigh, NC.
Overall, this is a major and monumental step in the direction that Van Wagner wants to take game presentation and production. Starting out with more straight forward events, Sunday’s event is the company’s first remote production in a longstanding relationship with MLB.
“We’re extremely happy and honored that MLB wants us to be a part of taking the MLB Draft to the next level by producing it remotely from Raleigh,” says Becker. “We’re really trying to push [this production model] because we think it’s something that is the future of game presentation.”
More to Come: Larger Crowds Translates Into Bigger Possibilities for Subsequent MLB Drafts
Like a snowball getting ever larger as it rolls down the hill, the MLB Draft has gained positive momentum and extra attention every year. Despite an extremely busy five days in the host cities where fans have a large list of options for entertainment, crowds always seem to flock to the MLB Draft. Even for the televised product on MLB Network, the in-venue execution and atmosphere has persuaded sports fans to tune in every summer.
“We had a setup with floor seating at Lumen Field last year, and we found that more and more fans were coming into the lower bowl,” says Matson. “This time, we’re ready for a full venue of fans.”
Historic Fort Worth Stockyards is a neighborhood packed with inspiration for videoboard content.
On the overall MLB, and professional sports, calendar, televised Drafts have become a much-watch spectacle where leagues and production partners pour a lot of resources into their efforts. It’s been a decade since the NFL’s last Draft in New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, and MLB is gradually following suit. This may be the fourth onsite MLB Draft, but it’s come a long way since MLB Network’s first televised Draft in 2009.
“Years ago, the idea of a Draft was basically a business meeting, but now, it’s become part of MLB’s event portfolio,” says Fink. “We’ve seen the NFL Draft go out on the road, and MLB is building on that same kind of momentum.”
