Quick view:
- The Savannah Bananas played the Texas Tailgaters in the inaugural Banana Bowl championship at Nationals Park in D.C. before a sellout crowd, broadcast on Disney+ and YouTube.
- Shure became the official audio provider for the Bananas, deploying wireless solutions like DCA901 microphone arrays, ANX4 scalable receivers, and Axient Digital to handle complex RF environments.
- Veteran audio engineer Michael Abbott and Shure utilized over 132 wireless Dante-connected mics to capture field action, dugouts, and crowd energy to make home viewers feel like they are in the stadium.
On Oct. 10, the Savannah Bananas, whose unique style of Banana Ball is sweeping across some of Major League Baseball’s largest stadiums, played at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., in front of a sellout crowd. The game, which pitted the Bananas against the Texas Tailgaters, was the inaugural Banana Bowl, the championship game of the Banana Ball Championship League and aired on Disney+ and YouTube.
To bring the musical performances of the Bananas and special guests to life, veteran audio engineer, Michael Abbott (along with production A1, James Shugart), used Shure wireless solutions, including DCA901 broadcast microphone arrays, to capture sounds from the dugout and beyond. Shure's partnership with the Savannah Bananas began as the Bananas popularity grew and the audience expanded into livestreams and social media.
If you are unfamiliar with the Bananas style of baseball, it's very interactive, as much a theatrical production as it is a game. The Bananas team wanted to enhance the audio experience, no matter where fans were watching, so they began working with Shure to capture more of the energy, player interactions, crowd reactions, and on-field moments that make Banana Ball unique.
Per Everett Salyer, senior specialist of business development at Shure, the collaboration started with the deployment of DCA901s and expanded into a broader relationship, with Shure becoming the official audio provider of the Savannah Bananas.
Abbott, who is currently working on some World Series festivities and is the audio producer for the Grammys, is a longtime Shure user. Live production reliability, especially in RF capabilities, is what Abbott cites as the top reason he turns to Shure. This was especially true at Nationals Park, when he was tasked with bringing the Banana Bowl sonically to life.
“Nationals Stadium is a very intense RF environment that when you're outdoors, you're basically a sponge of RF,” Abbott said. “We do RF over fiber for antenna connectivity, and we set out multiple zones of coverage knowing the area of playing field, which was the entire infield and 10 rows up into the stands for some performances. With Shure Axient Digital, we can come up with workable frequencies—I can't remember the last time I had any kind of hash, noise, or artifacts with RF using Shure Axient.”
In general, baseball is an elaborate production. As Abbott explained, every sport has the basic talent audio with color commentary and sideline reporters, then you add in the effects mics. In baseball, that includes mics at first, second, third, and home plate, plus mics in the outfield and parabolic mics around the ring of the field.
At Nationals Park, the three DCA901s that were deployed use a single network connection for audio, power, and control. The Bananas audio package uses the Shure ANX4 scalable wireless receiver to create a Dante network. It has a small footprint that can provide up to 16 channels of Axient Digital receivers. More than 132 wireless mics were used for the Banana Bowl were connected via the Dante network as well.
Throughout his work in live production, Abbott has approached every show—whether a staged or sporting event—by attempting to recreate the sound field in the facility and bring into people’s homes. “I'm trying to place that viewer at home in the 10th row, in front of a stage, or behind home plate and give them the sense of the space sonically," he explained. "And I think that's one of the most important things that I see from a lot of the engineers that I work with. We all try to do that.”
Having done as many high-profile events as Abbott has, he must go with what works best time and time again. As audio producer of the Grammys, one aspect of his job is to guide the artist’s teams on integrating into the show with best practices—with the gear that his team provides for them, or the gear they provide themselves. As he put it, the expectation is always the same: that there is no failure.
“We build in contingencies based on failures that we've experienced,” he said. “Anytime there's technology and humans involved, there's a potential for failure no matter what you plan on. And it's all how you recover.
“I've seen the trends for the artists using specific RF microphones over the years,” Abbott continued. “And I would say the overwhelming majority of the artists use Shure RF devices for IEMs. There isn't a better proof of performance for Shure being the leader in the industry for what they provide to these artists. I've witnessed it firsthand.”
Banana Ball is a unique environment, even for someone like Abbott. It isn’t simply baseball—it's singing, dancing, and roughly 400 performers that took the field for the Banana Bowl at Nationals Park. No matter what event Abbott is doing, there is usually a creative pivot, but his experience, and Shure solutions, have always kept him ahead of the game.
“I spend an inordinate amount of time doing pre-production,” Abbott said of the secret of his success. “It’s just staying on top of it. I have directors I work with, and the only way that I can work with them successfully is staying one step ahead of them and anticipating their needs. I'm fortunate that I've worked with a wide variety of directors that I know their workflow, and each one has a unique approach to what they do for the show. But I know that is 90% of my success: staying ahead and anticipating what they want.”
