With more than 30 years of production experience at ESPN, Jed Drake currently serves as Senior Vice President and Executive Producer of Event
Production. Promoted to a position as Coordinating Producer in 1989, Mr. Drake
made an immediate impact in spearheading development of several new areas of
programming, including Major League Baseball (MLB). He notably helped the
network reach a $400 million agreement with MLB that gave ESPN four-year rights
to broadcast 175 ball games each season.
Beginning in 1990, ESPN featured 11 live MLB broadcasts each
week, with studio coverage incorporated seamlessly into on-site productions.
These broadcasts included the flagship Sunday Night Baseball and Wednesday
Night Baseball brands. In addition, ESPN aired numerous double header events on
Fridays and Tuesdays, and special coverage on Opening Day and during major
spring and summer holidays. This unprecedented coverage notably guaranteed
nationwide exposure to every single MLB team from its home ballpark.
Baseball on ESPN has been a significant revenue generator over
the years, with record ratings achieved during extended coverage of Mark
McGwire and Barry Bonds’ single-season home run record quests. Other memorable
moments included live coverage of several Wild-Card tiebreaker game in the late
1990s, with Joe Morgan and Jon Miller in the sportscasting booth. ESPN
continues to provide industry leading coverage of MLB regular and postseason
action and also brings fans the daily highlight program Baseball Tonight.
Jed Drake’s efforts to improve baseball viewers’ experience have
extended to the technological sphere with the introduction of the K Zone. This
innovative ball tracking graphic let sports fans clearly view the ball’s path
from the mound to the plate, and judge for themselves the pitcher’s accuracy
and the umpire’s strike zone. The K Zone interface notably earned Jed Drake and his team a 2002 Sports Emmy Award in the Innovative Technical Achievement
category.
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