Riedel Communications today announced that the Savannah Bananas, the exhibition baseball team based in Savannah, Georgia, has deployed the RiMotion R8 instant replay system for use in their control room at Grayson Stadium. Since installing the system in January, the Bananas have been able to grow the scale of their streaming and social media clips, especially for broadcast on YouTube. Supporting a flexible workflow, the R8 allows the Savannah Bananas production team to capture and share exciting moments from the team’s fast-paced games for quick and easy replay — for both home and away games — allowing their fans to experience even more exciting moments.
“It’s been such a huge benefit to get into these clips quickly and easily and post them to social media, and to have the ability to grow our social media presence as we turn around content,” said Griffin Ellis, Broadcast Engineer, Savannah Bananas. “Being able to create those clips without ripping them from our YouTube stream — instead, it’s a clean feed with no bug or anything — is very big with the way the social media team at the Savannah Bananas turns around content. The goal is that you see something live, and then there will probably be a clip on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook very quickly.”
While they often play against the Savannah Party Animals, the Savannah Bananas occasionally go head-to-head with guest challengers such as the Kansas City Monarchs or the MLB Players Alumni Association. A major contributor to the team’s popularity has been their instant replays of backflips and other trick plays on social media. One such event occurs every game during the third inning, second batter, and second pitch, where the pitcher, infielders, and outfielders perform dances that have lately become a TikTok trend. Having shown six games on ESPN last season, the Bananas are working on producing content for NESN and other local networks. The RiMotion R8 is helping the team come closer to achieving this goal.
The Bananas were able to get the RiMotion R8 up and running quickly, with even student workers learning the system in a matter of hours and progressing to more complex operations using either the touchscreen or desktop controller. All camera feeds, from either the stadium or remote locations, return to the Grayson Stadium control room for production, where they are cut, replayed, and edited with audio and graphics before being exported to social media via RiMotion R8 as clips.
The R8 system provides extensive slow-motion capabilities and supports productions with up to eight cameras — two more than the Bananas had before — while keeping delay low, delivering strong performance and functionality at an attractive price point. And because the R8 system enables remote replays and clip creation for away games, the Bananas need only send cameras and flypacks, with just crew members to carry and operate the equipment.
“The Savannah Bananas reached out to us after speaking with ESPN, looking for a reliable, flexible, and growth-enabled system that was also cost effective and easy to use,” said Greg Macchia, VP of Business Development, Live Production. “After working with our team, they discovered how powerful our replay system is and the range of replay we offer with the RiMotion line. They were delighted that we were able to bundle it for an affordable price, and since then, their productions have taken off! It’s been exciting to watch.”
