As we get closer and closer to wrapping up the summer and kicking off the fall with our two biggest signature events, exciting news about national broadcasts of both the Underclass Elite and Main Event weekends have been revealed.
The New Balance Baseball Future Stars Series is proud to announce a partnership with one of the top sports content providers, DAZN, a live and on-demand streaming service that give sports fans around the world affordable access to sports anytime, anywhere.
Well-respected and highly-rated particularly for boxing coverage, among a multitude of other platforms, it was only a natural fit to bring that “big fight feel” over to some of the biggest amateur baseball events of the season.
“As the global initiative for amateur baseball across all of New Balance, we couldn’t be more excited to have the biggest events for the Future Stars Series broadcast on a truly global sports entertainment platform like DAZN,” said President and CEO , Jeremy Booth.
“We’ve lined up some of the best broadcast crews in the business for both the Underclass Elite and the Main Event, and are excited to create that added value for our players, their families and our partners. We’re confident that having that ‘big game feel’ on top-of-the-line, professionally produced broadcasts will only enhance the experience for everyone involved.”
Scheduled for September 16-18 at Riders Field, home of the Double-A Frisco RoughRiders, in Frisco, Texas, the second annual Underclass Elite event is limited to a maximum of 50 players selected directly out of this summer’s Underclass Combines, and primarily features some of the top talent in the country among the 2024 graduating class.
Set to be livestreamed on YouTube and then stored on DAZN, the broadcast team is set to be comprised of long-time big-league play-by-play man Victor Rojas, award-winning sports reporter Jill Painter-Lopez and Booth, himself a TV veteran who has covered the Astros and their postseason runs along with the All-Star Game, MLB Draft, and Futures Game for KHOU-TV in Houston.
Another star-studded crew is set to call the action one week later at the prestigious Main Event at Dunkin Donuts Park and Boston’s legendary Fenway Park on September 23 and 24; long-time SiriusXM MLB Network Radio star Mike Ferrin, former MLB GM and current media personality Jim Duquette and beloved MLB Network reporter Alanna Rizzo will make up the crew.
The event will be broadcast live on DAZN.
“Taking myself out of the equation, I would put these two broadcast teams up against anyone at any level of baseball,” Booth said. Big league talent deserves big league broadcasters, and we’ve got that and more with this talent.”
“We couldn’t be more grateful to everyone involved for taking the time out to do these games for us, and believe that having high-profile crews at both events will help generate a significant amount of exposure for the players in them given the large followings of those behind the mics, who will also get a first-hand opportunity to see and interact with some of the players they’ll be covering in the big leagues in the near future.”
After going under the “International Week” moniker for the first four years of its existence, this will be the second annual “Main Event,” which makes its return to the home of the Boston Red Sox, who hosted in both 2019 and 2020 before a very successful trip to Citi Field last year.
Regardless of name or venue, the event has helped produce some of the top prospects in baseball, including Grayson Rodriguez (2017), Bo Naylor (2017), Daniel Espino (2018), Zac Veen (2019), Dylan Crews (2019), Ricky Tiedemann (2019), Markevian “Tink” Hence (2019), Mick Abel (2017, 2018, 2019), Braden Montgomery (2020), Edwin Arroyo (2020), Cam Collier (2020, 2021) and seemingly countless others.
