How John DeMarsico, a former NC State bullpen catcher, is revolutionizing MLB TV broadcasts

John DeMarsico was ready to take a chance. He sat in the director’s chair for the New York Mets’ television broadcast on SNY, a regional sports network in the Big Apple, for two years, but had itched to deploy a more cinematic approach to his job. 

An early August 2022 evening provided the perfect backdrop for DeMarsico to experiment. His approach was more than just the cookie-cutter baseball broadcast that millions of Americans have become accustomed to ever since the sport made its way onto television in the late 1930s. 

At the time, the Mets were leading the Atlanta Braves 5-2 going into the top of the ninth. Star closer Edwin Diaz was ready to embark on the more than 300-foot jog from the home bullpen in right-center field to the pitcher’s mound to seal a key win for New York. Instead of going to commercial, however, DeMarsico kept the broadcast live, focused on the bullpen. 

Diaz’s walk-out song, “Narco” by Blasterjaxx and Timmy Trumpet, was fed into the television broadcast with a camera following the standout reliever from the end of his warm-up routine to the rubber on the pitcher’s mound. The song provided the perfect opportunity to build up to a key moment in the game, almost as if he was a boxer walking to the ring for a heavyweight title match. 

Sound 'em. 🎺🎺🎺 pic.twitter.com/wPv2R0GDxt

— SNY (@SNYtv) August 7, 2022

It wasn’t the traditional execution, but DeMarsico wanted to put his own spin on an critical moment of the division tilt as he intentionally chose a unique shot on the reliever’s trot onto the field. It set the scene for Diaz to strike out the side on just 14 pitches, 10 of which were strikes. Little did DeMarsico know at the time, this moment would soon help redefine how Major League broadcasts would be viewed for years to come. 

“That was the beginning of everything,” DeMarsico, a 2009 NC State graduate, recently told TheWolfpacker.com. “It was a day that changed everything for me. I took a few chances that paid off, so it gives you a little more leeway with the next chance to take.”

DeMarsico has since used his cinematic approach on the regular inside the SNY Mets production truck, looking to find new ways to keep viewers engaged throughout the 162-game regular season. Not only has he skipped commercial breaks from time to time, but DeMarsico has turned Mets’ fans television sets into mini movie screens each night, paying homage to the likes of Brian De Palma and Quentin Tarantino films on a routine basis. 

After all, that’s exactly what DeMarsico fell in love with as a child. Now, he’s utilizing those inspirations to revolutionize how Major League television broadcasts are viewed each night as he sits in front of a wall of monitors inside the SNY production truck, ready to call out the next shot.

The origins are at NC State

A son of New York transplants living in Belmont, North Carolina, DeMarsico grew up enamored with two subjects: baseball and movies. Both held a special place in his mind as a child, and quite frankly, he grew obsessed with both. 

DeMarsico, who grew up a Mets fan, had a baseball bat in his hands just months into his life as a newborn baby, which seemingly birthed a love for America’s Pastime. Add in a movie addiction that has infiltrated his entire life — he owns more than 3,000 DVDs after growing up surrounded by films on various mediums, from VHS tapes to Blue-Ray discs. 

But when DeMarsico arrived at NC State as a freshman in 2005, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his future. Like most first-year students on campus, he flipped through the course catalog before film studies classes caught his eye. DeMarsico, at the time, thought college was just full of the usual topics — English, Biology, etc. — but he quickly realized it was more than that. 

A young DeMarsico looked for any film class to take, but with all the introductory courses full, he decided to take the only one available: English 492 — subversive film as art. That class, taught by Dr. Joe Gomez, seemingly altered DeMarsico‘s life. 

“I saw things in that class that I’d never been exposed to in my entire life, things that opened up my eyes and broadened my horizons to what college could be,” DeMarsico said. “It could be something that captures my passion and interest. It started when I was a kid, but it really launched when I was at NC State.”

While DeMarsico‘s film journey was kickstarted nearly by accident at NC State, his baseball path continued in Raleigh, too. He tried out for NC State’s club team, but ended up as the Division I squad’s bullpen catcher for three seasons.

DeMarsico was surrounded by the likes of longtime skipper Elliott Avent, baseball lifer Tom Holliday, the pitching coach at the time, and standout pitcher Andrew Brackman, which appeared to feed his love for baseball even more. He was also in the bullpen as the Wolfpack lost the 2008 Athens Super Regional at Georgia — a defeat that Avent’s 2024 squad was able to avenge to return to the College World Series. 

As he worked his way through NC State’s film studies courses, DeMarsico was set on looking for a way to make both baseball and cinematography a career. Soon enough, NC State professor Dr. Devin Orgeron helped DeMarsico land an internship at SNY in 2009. That entry into baseball broadcasting had DeMarscio hooked, landing a job at the station once he graduated from NC State. 

And he hasn’t left since. DeMarsico rose from intern to fill-in associate producer on the graphics to a full-time role a year later before climbing the ladder to associate director with the replay packages. By 2020, DeMarsico replaced longtime director Bill Webb, who retired after more than four decades behind the controls. 

That career path seemed to be inspiring for many around NC State, including Orgeron, who watched his student rise through the ranks with his two passions married together into one career. 

“He was definitely one of the first students that I had who parlayed film studies into something really customized to his particular interest,” Orgeron said of DeMarsico. “I just loved it. I loved seeing somebody take a thing that’s taught for history and personal edification and turning it into his own career. … It was really fun to have a student who knew this was possible.”

An intentional way of storytelling

DeMarsico isn’t afraid to use unconventional shots on a routine basis. From using a roaming camera to look through fans’ glasses to frame a batter or setting up a tense at-bat with a close up of a pitcher and hitter’s faces to set up an old-fashioned dual 60 feet, six inches away from each other that looks like a quickdraw from an old Western movie, DeMarsico has always looked to create a compelling storyline. 

After all, he believes that baseball provides the best medium to pull drama from to create a compelling story within a three-hour long broadcast. 

“As far as I’m concerned, the confrontation between the pitcher and the batter is the most unique thing in team sports,” DeMarsico said. “It’s always reminded me of the classic Western — the standoff, the two gun shooters in the Old West staring each other down. It builds up to the awe.”

DeMarsico has gone viral for his ability to set the scene with movie references. From more recent films like “Challengers” to classics like “Goodfellas” and everything in between, DeMarscio has found new ways to present a baseball game. Most of the time, these ideas are born from DeMarsico watching movies in his free time.

“I’m not a passive viewer when it comes to film,” DeMarsico said. “I’m watching the nuts and bolts of the story. I’m watching anything that captures my attention sitting in my seat. When I’m watching a movie on the big screen, if something jars me visually, I think to myself, ‘Wow, that might be interesting within the context of baseball.’ If something story-telling wise really captures my emotion, I feel like that could be universal, no matter what kind of visual medium you’re working in.”

This season, DeMarsico has recreated several famous movie shots. He used a panning overhead shot of Citi Field that nearly resembled the crown of the Statue of Liberty from the “Planet of the Apes.” DeMarscio also reengineered his Diaz entrance to the mound as if he was Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz,” going from black and white to color as he stepped onto the field after emerging from the Citi Field bullpen. 

But no matter how DeMarsico decides to use a movie reference in his broadcast, none are done on a whim. Instead, they’re all carefully crafted and executed at the right moment instead of randomly inserting them in moments that don’t seem to carry as much weight. 

“I never want to take a shot just to take it,” DeMarsico said. “I want there to be cinematic intention with every cut. I want every camera person, when they frame a shot, to really have some intention behind it. There should always be intent behind it. There’s a deliberacy. There’s nothing passive about what we’re doing.”

Take, for example, a shot of the moon. Instead of just showing it in the sky during the broadcast, DeMarsico used it as a way to transition from a commercial back to the game, fading it into the shape of a baseball. He was also able to use it later in the same summer night earlier this year as a backdrop for passing planes leaving one of New York’s busy airports, creating another cinematic shot to keep the viewer interested in the next cut called out by DeMarsico.

There doesn’t seem to be a week that goes by without one of DeMarsico‘s creations making waves on social media. He has left fans all over the country waiting for the next creative shot, using the television set of many Americans as his film festival on a nightly basis. 

DeMarsico‘s different techniques, most notably the pitcher-batter face off in a high-leverage situation, have been used by teams all over the world. That shot has made its way from setting up an Anderson Nance 98-mph fastball for a strikeout at NC State to a Japanese NPB broadcast this year.

But for DeMarsico, it all comes back to NC State. Without his four years in Raleigh, there’s a high likelihood that he would be doing something else in life. Instead, DeMarsico has used his two loves — baseball and film — to create compelling storylines with his cinematic thinking.

“It’s so beautiful and inspiring,” Orgeron said. “One of the things that I love about teaching film is the way those influences and ideas are parlayed into something that can be used for highlight reels. What’s fun for me is it’s just so fun to see that material and the influence of it having a life outside of the classroom and a life outside of the movie theater.”