Blue Jays: Spring Training broadcast team and schedule announced
Earlier on Wednesday, Sportsnet made several announcements regarding their broadcasts of Blue Jays games for the 2023 season.
The question on a lot of people’s minds around this time of year is, “how many Spring Training games will be on TV?”.
Sportsnet was happy to inform us that all home games and select road games will be available on their network through the spring. Other team’s broadcasters have yet to announce their own schedules, which is presumably why Sportsnet has yet to make firm commitments on which road games they’ll be airing.
The last spring road broadcasts produced by Sportsnet (to my knowledge) came way back in 2013. Nowadays the network airs the opponent's feed over their channels. Further announcements from the other broadcasters should come in the following days, including AT&T Sportsnet Pittsburgh, who would be carrying the Jays first Spring Training game of the year from Bradenton.
In other news that was released today, it was announced that the broadcast booth will feature Dan Shulman on play-by-play, with Buck Martinez and Joe Siddall acting as analysts (Siddall being on select series). Ben Wagner returns to the radio booth, and all of Jamie Campbell, Siddall, and Caleb Joseph reprise their roles on Blue Jays Central.
The on-field reporters for this season will be once again, the wonderful Hazel Mae, and a newcomer to the regular crew, Arden Zwelling.
Notable omissions from last year's broadcast crew are Pat Tabler and Arash Madani. It was reported in the offseason that Tabler’s contract was unfortunately not extended by Sportsnet, and he’ll no doubt be missed in the booth by many. Madani’s omission comes as somewhat of a shock, as he still appears to be an employee of Sportsnet with him being in Arizona covering the Super Bowl. However, the intrigue level is high when it comes to Arden Zwelling's thoughts and insights more often throughout the summer.