FOX O&Os TAKE VIEWERS OUT TO THE BALLGAME

Detroit had three inches of snow on the ground when I spoke with Jeff Murri, VP and general manager of Fox’s WJBK. But Murri didn’t care. He was ready to talk baseball.

For the hometown Tigers and most other big league teams, today is Opening Day. And Fox O&Os in three markets are making the most of it.

“The Tigers’ Opening Day is one of our market’s biggest events and that’s how we’re handling it from a news standpoint,” Murri says. “We’ll be on the street, in the park. We’ll have live weather from the field and live traffic updates from the air all day long.” The Tigers take on the Kansas City Royals this afternoon.

Meanwhile in Minneapolis, Twins fans will be nice and warm inside the Metrodome for the opener against the Los Angeles Angels tonight, but not the hardy news team from Fox’s KMSP. They’ll be celebrating Opening Day outdoors in the expected 40-degree weather.

So says Assistant News Director Mim Davey: “We’ve got four reporters plus our anchors all around the stadium. Weather and traffic will be key. Fans are interested in the temperature and commuters want to know how well the new light rail system is working. Those trains drop an unbelievable number of people at the Metrodome.”

Opening Day’s an even bigger deal in St Louis, where the Cardinals expect a relatively balmy 72 degrees, with a threat of thunderstorms, for the their late afternoon opener against the Colorado Rockies.

But at Fox’s KTVI, they know they’ve got Cardinals fans and maybe the Almighty on their side, according to VP and General Sales Manager Kurt Krueger.

“The Cardinals are a bit of a religion in St. Louis,” says Krueger. “Opening Day has always been a high-profile event. Our midday news will be right in the midst of the celebration where all the fans are wearing red.”

After seven successful years outdoors at Kiener Plaza, KTVI accepted an invitation to base its coverage this year at another local landmark, J. Buck’s Restaurant, operated by the family of Hall of Fame Cardinal’s broadcaster Jack Buck.

Jack Buck’s daughter Julie Buck has worked with Clear Channel radio on Opening Day events and wanted Fox2 to be part of the day, says Krueger. “[Fox play-by-play man] Joe Buck will be there to give away tickets to the fans.”

J. Buck’s has arranged for appearances by local radio personality Asher Benrubi, better known as Smash with his Smashband, not to mention Cardinals mascot Fredbird and even a Budweiser Clydesdale or two.

Not to be outdone, in Minneapolis, KMSP will team with the other half of Fox’s duopoly, WFTC, for a day-long celebration that begins with live cut-ins from the Twins’ free annual Breakfast on the Plaza. 

“MyTV29 carries the Twins games, which are produced by Fox Sports North,” explains Scott Brady, who is the duopoly’s VP of creative services, “and the Twins’ deal is with both stations, so naturally we always cross-promote.” 

KMSP Sports Director Jim Rich, who does weekly color commentary on Twins games, will join co-anchors Robyne Robinson and Jeff Passolt as they take Fox9 News on the road to celebrate at a rally at the Mall of America and a late afternoon concert on Metrodome Plaza where WFTC will give away 15,000 “MyTwins on My29” baseball caps.

Live Tigers’ Opening Day coverage will fill WJBK air and Web pages  starting at 5 a.m. on Fox2 News Morning, says GM Murri. “We’ll have Dan Petry, the Tigers pitcher who was part of the 1984 World Series team, co-hosting our extended pre- and post-game shows with our head sports anchor, Dan Miller.”

In fact, Dan Miller’s already been hard at work on the Web with his lively blog and with a new video feature called Ask Dan Petry. “We’re already seeing what rich content that generates both on the air and on the Web. The fan questions and Dan’s answers really engage Fox2 and MyFoxDetroit.com viewers throughout the day.”

Other WJBK innovations include a cadre of still photographers who will fill the Opening Day Web page with shots of fans, which they can download. And fans themselves are already uploading their own snapshots of favorite ballpark memories back from the days of old Tigers Stadium.

“And this may sound corny, but we’ve partnered with the Tigers themselves and we’re holding a contest with fans singing Take Me Out To The Ballgame,” says Murri. “We’ll stream some of that video live to the Web, we’ll also air some as video hits throughout the pre-game show, and all season long, the Tigers will play them on the Jumbotron.”

As a rule, Fox stations don’t discuss sales figures, except to agree that more is generally better. Unlike KMSP and WFTC in Minneapolis, KTVI and WJBK don’t broadcast their home teams. They do, however, carry Fox’s regular season and playoff games, about 10 in all. 

But that makes the Opening Day hoopla all the more valuable, says KTVI’s Krueger.

“We’re always working to grow our business with existing clients and our association with the Cardinals is one of the ways we do that. Normally we only tie in three clients at most. This year it’s McDonald’s, R&S Pool and Spa, and the Clear Channel radio stations.”  In addition to their incremental buys, the Opening Day sponsors get booth space at the J. Buck’s event.

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But beyond the obvious sales opportunity, why make such a big deal over yet another Opening Day—especially following an off-season, dominated by the Mitchell Report and the subsequent Senate hearings on player steroid abuse?

I had the pleasure of knowing Bart Giamatti, Major League Baseball’s seventh commissioner, and the only one who was also a professor of Renaissance literature. In his essay Baseball As Narrative, Giamatti focused on baseball’s deeper meanings, meditating on the game’s unique and intimate connection to the concept of “home:”

“Home plate or home base. … Home is an English word virtually impossible to translate into other tongues. No translation catches the associations, the mixture of memory and longing, the sense of security and autonomy and accessibility. … Home is a concept, not a place; it is a state of mind where self-definition starts; it is origins—the mix of time and place and smell and weather wherein one first realizes one is an original, perhaps like others, especially those one loves, but discrete, distinct, not to be copied.”

In this the Fox stations in Minneapolis, St. Louis and Detroit remind us that local television is more than a transmitter, a newsroom, and airtime or even our favorite shows. It’s a part of the fabric of the community.

In that context, you might even call it a public service when they remind us that spring has arrived and they once again they take us out to the ballgame.

When not driving his editors crazy with literary asides, Arthur Greenwald writes the weekly Market Share column every Monday in TVNEWSDAY. Let us know about your station’s successful promotions. Send the details to Arthur at greenwald@tvnewsday.com.