Live From MLB All-Star 2023: ESPN’s Phil Orlins on Producing ‘Controlled Chaos’ of MLB Home Run Derby

ESPN’s VP of production previews this year’s shows on ESPN and ESPN2

ESPN is onsite at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park to bring baseball fans the fireworks for the 2023 MLB Home Run Derby.

Since the event shifted to a timed format in 2015, producing it has become a bigger — but also more fun — challenge for ESPN. To meet that challenge, the broadcaster is more aggressively integrating real-time augmented-reality graphics and has deepened its partnership with MLB’s Statcast team to layer in data on the spot during the event.

ESPN VP, Production, Phil Orlins spoke with SVG about why this year’s broadcasts — on both ESPN and ESPN2 — feature some of the “most aggressive experimentation” he has seen, what’s new that viewers can expect, and more of ESPN’s work being done in Seattle.

Coverage of the 2023 MLB Home Run Derby begins at 8 p.m. ET on Monday, July 10 on ESPN, with the Statcast edition starting at the same time on ESPN2.