Cal Baseball: Bears Drop Series to No. 2 FSU and Expose Disparities in ACC Broadcast Coverage
California dropped Friday and Sunday's games to the Florida State Seminoles while winning the Saturday matchup, as ESPN and the ACC Network improved their broadcast coverage to the bare minimum.
The nation's No. 2 College Baseball team, the Florida State Seminoles, arrived in Berkeley for a weekend series at Evans Diamond at Stu Gordon Stadium to take on the California Golden Bears. Cal last played on Tuesday night in Stockton against the University of the Pacific, where the Golden Bears went home with a 13-3 win in a shortened 7-inning game, while FSU is coming off a 14-2 7-inning win over Jacksonville University and a conference series win against Clemson at home.
Cal had not faced a top-2 team in the NCAA since March 2018, when Oregon State was ranked No. 1 in the nation, and swept the Golden Bears in a three-game Pac-12 conference series. Now, as members of the ACC, Cal faced the No. 2 FSU Seminoles with the ACC postseason on the horizon, with the Golden Bears ranked dead last in the conference. Florida State is currently sitting .5 games ahead of NC State for first place and a series win against UNC away from securing a first and second round bye in the 2025 ACC baseball tournament.
While I will dive into the regular wrap-up of the series, it was Cal’s hospitality of Florida State for the weekend series that exposed a glaring gap and disparity in the broadcasting and attention that the baseball (and softball) programs are receiving in Berkeley from the ACC and ESPN+.
When Cal was with the Pac-12 Conference, they would broadcast their games locally through the Pac-12’s Bay Area cable expansion channel and stream baseball games exclusively on the Pac’s website and “Pac-12 NOW” app, and they were not alone in the ugly broadcast and production quality that gave audiences an awful viewing experience from home. Cal’s notorious “score bug” (a small graphic overlay that displays real-time information during live sports broadcasts) would have some teams with their abbreviations in capitals- others without. The camera would be in a fixed position behind home plate, and the ability to follow the ball off the bat was limited to the abilities of the camera person operating it.
When Cal and Stanford followed the footsteps of the departing Pac-12 members (USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Arizona, ASU, and Utah), it was understood that non-revenue sports would become more accessible to watch as the ACC is affiliated with ESPN and ESPN+, giving higher production and brand quality to the universities joining conferences with media contracts associated with the Disney-owned sports network.
It was not far-fetched to assume that Cal and Stanford’s baseball fans would be enjoying some of the spoils of the ACC’s ESPN+ gameday production quality, as Pac-12 conference games had utilized multiple camera angles and broadcast transitions/animations at the bare minimum- but more on the Pac-12’s involvement later… For now, Cal and Stanford baseball and fans were hoping to see quality matched to this:
USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington have enjoyed the spoils of the B1G+ streaming service going all in on all non-revenue sports, as their production quality for their baseball and softball programs (minus USC, as they do not field a softball team) have been top notch, as seen in the screen shots below.
Meanwhile, ESPN+ has arguably one of the cleanest broadcasting formats for Little League, high school, and college baseball that the network has left untouched for years. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The ESPN+ broadcasting and score bug are renowned for their simplicity and visual aesthetic in the sports media field, so having the University of California, Berkeley’s non-revenue sports programs get a visually appealing level of exposure through one of Disney’s most pushed products seemed like a huge win for Cal and Cal fans alike- but the production quality at Cal baseball has been atrocious at best. It took Florida State visiting Berkeley for the ACC Network and ESPN+ to give a single care in the world about how awful it looks.
Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah (Colorado does not field a baseball team) have joined the Big 12 conference and have been put on a broadcasting display for college baseball fans to watch in an appealing and clear format. ESPN+ and the ACC supply the teams with a main camera in center field that major league baseball teams use in their gameday shows, as well as multiple angles around the stadiums behind home plate, above each dugout, and scattered throughout the crowd to bring the fans into the productions.
Stanford’s production is a mixed bag. Using two examples here, Stanford has had games where they have used a single behind-the-plate camera to capture the entirety of a 9-inning broadcast with an ugly and outdated score bug, but they have also used the “stock” (not modified) ESPN/ESPN+ score bug with multiple camera angles and an overall higher production effort.
Cal has had it the absolute worst. Cal has played 27 home games this season, and has had three games where they have had more than one camera made available to the stadium- all three over the weekend against Florida State. The same unsightly “Pac-12 NOW” production quality Cal gave to an out-of-conference game against Pacific or San Francisco was the same production quality and limited viewing experience given to new conference opponents like Virginia, Clemson, and NC State.
So, where does the Pac-12 come back into this all? The Pac-12 Network has rebranded itself to the “Pac-12 Enterprises,” and while the conference awaits its official launch, it has been demonstarting what their production team can do out of San Ramon, CA- by assisting in the production of college football games on ESPN, FOX, and The CW, “along with a studio show on The CW, some NBC Sports Bay Area games for the Warriors, and other live events, including the WCC cross-country championships” - John Canzano (Coffee with the Pac-12 Commissioner).
Pac-12 Enterprises’ assistance with ESPN’s college football was with none other than the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University. That makes perfect sense! I would know! I grew up less than two miles away from Pac-12 enterprises in San Ramon, and commuted to UC Berkeley for class every day. Cal and the ACC would be foolish not to have used their services when they are just 24 miles away. So Cal did! Cal has been using Pac-12 Enterprises for their gameday productions across a wide range of sports, as the university will build a production facility for the ACC Network soon, as each member university has done so to contribute to the conference’s programming.
So if Cal and Stanford baseball have been utilizing Pac-12 Enterprises’ production services this season, that could very much explain why there have been the boring copy and paste templates used for gameday broadcasts, but if Cal baseball has not used their services and has been using whatever they had left in-house of the Pac-12 era, then that was what they thought was best to present to the ACC and ESPN+ subscribers up until the Florida State series, when the production was upscaled and marked off as a production of “ACC Network and ESPN+.”
Will this be continued going forward? Cal plays against Boston College this weekend in Berkeley, so there’s an opportunity to continue to display the entirety of Evans Diamond on an ESPN+ broadcast for one more series of the 2025 season while Cal sits dead last in the ACC standings! If the broadcast is reverted to the lone behind-the-plate camera, then it is safe to say that this was an isolated effort by Cal and the ACC to showcase Florida State in the Bay Area more than it was to get the baseball broadcasting up to par in Berkeley.
Friday, May 9th: Bears Drop Their 14th Consecutive Game Against ACC Opponents as Florida State Wins Game One in Three-Game Series
The California Golden Bears opened the series and game one against the Florida State Seminoles with Cole Tremain on the mound in front of 1,106 fans at Stu Gordon Stadium. Tremain leads the Bears’ pitching staff with the lowest ERA and WHIP on the staff, as well as being tied for first with Austin Turkington and Gavin Eddy with four wins. Tremain’s start would be his fourth of the season, and his 20th appearance while holding batters to a .209 AVG in that span. He would surrender a lone single to shortstop Alex Lodise, but would get three fly outs to end the inning and his night with no runs given up, as Ethan Foley would relieve him in the 2nd.
Cal jumped ahead with back-to-back runs in back-to-back innings against FSU starter Jamie Arnold, as Max Handron doubled down the right field line and scored on a Cade Campbell base hit to the right side of the infield in the 2nd, and Jarren Advincula led off the bottom of the 3rd with a double and scored on an RBI-single from Jacob French to put the Bears ahead 2-0 over the nation’s second highest ranked program. The Seminoles would not let this lead last long, however, as Cal Fisher reached base on a single to left in the top of the 4th that would allow Drew Faurot to hit a two-run home run to right field and tie the game at 2-2.
The Seminoles took the lead in the top of the 5th inning with a lead-off home run from Jaxson West off of Foley to make it 3-2 FSU, and the Noles would never lose the lead from there. They would add two more runs in the 6th to make it 5-2, as two runners would reach base on an error and hit by pitch, only to both score on a double by Faurot, who would finish the game going 4-5 with four RBIs. Florida State would add three more runs to make it 8-2, as Max Williams reached on an error by Campbell in the 7th that would score Harrelson, and Myles Bailey singled through the left side of the infield to bring Lodise home before Cal Fisher would plate Harrelson across.
Cal would have no dog in this fight, as the Seminoles would win 8-2 and Cal would lose this game with only six hits and the two runs scored in the 2nd and 3rd innings. Two errors were the difference in four runs for the Golden Bears and Seminoles, which resulted in more opportunities to score for the Seminoles and they won game one with ease.
Saturday, May 10th: Bears Shut Out No. 2 Florida State in Berkeley to Snap ACC Losing Streak
A sunny afternoon in Berkeley, 72 degrees out, 992 fans at the stadium, an Oliver de la Torre/Gavin Eddy combo on the mound. The California Golden Bears came back on Saturday ready to bounce back from a swift butt-kicking from the Seminoles with some fire.
De la Torre got the start for the Golden Bears and retired the first 10 Seminole batters he faced. In that span, he struck out five before allowing his first base runner and a hit to Lodise in the top of the 4th. De la Torre struggled throwing from the stretch, as the Seminoles recorded three consecutive hits to load the bases, but De la Torre got Fisher to strike out swinging and Faurot to ground out to Advincula at second to end the inning and leave the runners stranded. De la Torre would finish his day with 4.0 innings, three hits, no runs, no walks, and six strikeouts before being relieved by Gavin Eddy in the top of the 5th.
Cal’s offense got the lead first for the second game in a row as Ryan Tayman came to the plate with one out in the bottom of the 3rd inning, and hit his fifth home run of the season against FSU’s Joey Volini. Cal would add four more in the bottom of the 5th to get their 5-0 lead that they would win the ballgame with, as Jarren Advicula hit an RBI single up the middle to score Campbell from second, Moutzouridis stole third base on a wild pitch and scored on the play, and Dominic Smaldino homered with Advincula on third to give the Bears the extra insurance runs that they would need to feel comfortable carrying a lead this early in the game.
Eddy was lights out for Cal and mimicked de la Torre’s performance in the best possible way, as he pitched the remaining 5.0 innings, retiring the first seven batters he faced, only allowing three hits, no runs, no walks, and striking out seven. Cal would go on to win game two 5-0, snapping their 14-game losing streak against conference opponents, and go into Sunday morning looking to win their first series against an ACC opponent since March, when they swept Stanford on the road.
Sunday, May 11th: Cal Drops Game Three 1-5 and Loses Series to Seminoles
Put yourself in my shoes. Driving northbound on the I-5 from San Diego towards Los Angeles. My partner is asleep next to me. Her sick dogs are in the back, snoring. I knew I was not able to watch game three of the series live, but I figured I would catch it “on demand” through ESPN+ when I was home. My curiosity got the best of me, and I checked Twitter to see the final score, and I saw this posted by Cal Baseball’s official page:
I had many thoughts in my head, but rational thinking/reason was not one of them. I went through different stages of excitement, then silent laughter at the graphic mistake of FSU being the “home team,” then I celebrated a series win in the Write For California chat, but then I looked at the graphic a little closer. I then began to sweat and came to a complete stop in bumper-to-bumper traffic and checked the Cal Bears website for an official score, and of course, Cal did not win game three 5-1; they lost 5-1, and FSU won this game.
I blame myself, but I also blame Cal Baseball’s Twitter.
Cole Tremain got the start in game three once again for the Bears in this series against FSU’s Wes Mendes, but this time with much looser restrictions on innings beyond opening the top of the 1st. Tremain and Mendes both worked through the first three innings with ease and never allowed more than two runners on base at any given time, until FSU got the first run of the game for their first time this series.
Tremain had retired six consecutive batters before walking Fisher, and following it up with a double to Faurot that would put the Seminoles ahead 1-0 in the top of the 4th. Florida State would add another run in the next inning, as Carns would hit a one-out single and score on a base hit from Lodise to put the Noles ahead 2-0. Cal would claw back with a run in the bottom of the 5th, as Tayman would score on a wild pitch by Mendes to bring the Bears back within one.
That one-run deficit would immediately go back to two runs, as David Shaw would relieve Tremain in the top of the 6th and surrender doubles to Williams and Fisher to give Florida State a 3-1 lead. Shaw would remain in the game and give up two more runs in the top half of the 8th to Williams on a two-RBI base hit to left, giving FSU a 5-1 lead that Cal would not have any firepower to fight back with, as the Bears would lose with just five total hits on the afternoon, and 11 runners stranded on base.
Florida State would go on to win the game and the series to improve to 36-11 and 16-8 in the ACC, while Cal falls to 20-29 with a 7-20 record in the ACC. Florida State is .5 games ahead of NC State in the conference standings, while Cal remains two games behind Stanford for last place (or the #15 slot in the ACC tournament).
Cal returns to action tomorrow night against Boston College at Stu Gordon Stadium for a three-game series to wrap up the regular season- game times will be Thursday, May 15th at 6:00 PM, Friday, May 16th at 6:00 PM, and Saturday, May 17th at 1:00 PM.
All games will be available to stream on ACCNX through ESPN+. Cal also released a memo on their website in regards to the ACC Baseball Championship seedings, stating:
The 2025 ACC Baseball Championship featuring all 16 of the league's teams will take place May 20-25 at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park in Durham, N.C. Pairings and seedings will be announced following the conclusion of the regular season May 17.
I agree, if they're going to broadcast/stream a game, either do it well or not at all. But I can't imagine that a FSU-Cal baseball game would have garnered even a thousand viewers nationwide. Unless these broadcasts are super cheap for ESPN, they're financial losers and might get killed eventually anyway in the next ACC TV contract. Non-revenue indeed.
Any updates on the status of Friday night starter, Austin Turkington? Such an underrated pitcher. He's shut down some of the best offensive teams in the country. Even when he doesn't have his best stuff, he keeps Cal in the game. Always soaks up innings and gives the Bears a chance.