‘Braves on Gray’ celebrates home team advantage in broadcast design

When Atlanta Braves fans tune in to broadcasts on Gray Media this season, they’ll see graphics that boldly favor their team. No equal-sized logos here. No neutral presentation. This is Braves territory, and the broadcast package makes it clear from the first frame.

Gameday Creative crafted the broadcast package around the theme of “home field advantage,” deliberately magnifying the Braves’ presence. Diamond motifs and team colors dominate every frame, ensuring viewers know where they are and where they belong.

“There is a lexicon. There is a known sports media language,” said Eric Say of Gameday Creative. “Gray Sports wanted fans to turn on the TV and know that they were watching a sports broadcast. They wanted to be speaking that sports graphics language.”

This approach surfaces throughout the package, with the Braves logo taking center stage in every graphic. Unlike national broadcasts where competing teams receive equal visual weight, “Braves on Gray” embraces the regional network advantage.

“When they do a match-up graphic, they got to put them at equal sizes. Both logos have to be the same size,” Say explained about national broadcasters. “When it’s a regional sports network… you know who you’re cheering for, you can make that logo bigger.”

Even in the package’s hero frames, the hierarchy is unmistakable.

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“The Braves logo is the biggest thing by a mile,” Say noted. The hierarchy extends to the Gray branding, which is nested with withe Braves logo in many use cases. 

“We want the viewer who doesn’t care about broadcast rights and deals… They want to just tune in to watch their favorite team,” said Scott Flato of Gameday Creative, on the viewer-first approach.

Building a modular system ready for any sport

While the 2025 baseball season marks the debut, Gray Media’s ambitions stretch far beyond baseball. The company is positioning itself as a player in regional sports broadcasting across multiple sports and markets — a strategy reflected in how the design system was developed.

“This is just iteration one,” Say noted. “Gray is going to support other sports… So from a design standpoint, it made a pretty interesting project.”

The diamond shape is the foundational design element for baseball – a visual cornerstone that will evolve as Gray expands its broadcasting portfolio.

“We wanted a hero shape language for every sport,” Say explained. “This really small fundamental thing can be echoed across the entire package. And we came up with the diamond for baseball, for very obvious reasons.”

This modular approach allows Gray Sports to maintain brand consistency while adapting to different sports.

“You just change out the diamond for whatever the shape language is going to be for football, maybe it’s a gridiron… or basketball, maybe it’s the basketball lines,” said Say. “You have a formula to update this going forward.”

The package is designed to be easily updated by local creative services teams across the Gray Media footprint.

The package utilizes Cinema 4D with compositing and layering tricks for color updates and sport-specific elements. When baseball graphics need to transition to basketball or football, the system allows for efficient modifications.

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“Where you see the repeated baseballs, that’s a separate pass in 3D that’s composited on top of the background so those can change to basketballs or footballs,” Say explained about the technical implementation.

The delivery format required extensive templating to accommodate various skill levels at different broadcast locations. The system was designed with flexibility and ease of use as priorities.

Dave Bachman and The Academy of Lower Thirds handled the insert elements, including the score box and lower thirds, with elements controlled via Vizrt.

The theme music was composed by Stephen Arnold Music and features live orchestration including strings, brass and French horns mixed with drums, guitars and bass. The package, like the graphics, is modular to allow updates for future sports or marketing usages. 

Motion-first philosophy

While 3D renders and static design elements form the package’s visual identity, Gameday Creative emphasized motion design.

“One area that we feel has been slept on [in the larger sports world]… is the motion logic of it,” Say said. “We knew this package wanted to move. We wanted to put motion first.”

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The team also avoided certain trendy sports graphics elements like echoing type, aiming to give the package longevity. 

“The more disruptive a graphics package is, the lower its shelf life,” Say noted. “We still wanted it to be modern and to be on brand,  where sports graphics are at, but we wanted it to have a little bit of a staying power.”

This balance reflects regional sports networks’ financial realities. “These RSNs and these deals, like money and budgets are finite. They have to be strategic about their graphics package.”

Flato and Say credited Gray Sports as an ideal partner that provided creative freedom.

“They got out of our way and just let us design,” Say said. “That trust meant so much to us.”

Debuting with the Braves this season, the package will appear on additional Gray Media regional broadcasts across multiple sports in the near future.

Motion Graphics

Braves on Gray

View a gallery of this project…

Project Credits

Gameday Creative

• Eric Say – Owner/Creative Director
• Scott Flato – EVP/Partner
• Nathan Raabe – Art Director
• Kulani Jenkins – Producer

The Academy of Lower Thirds

• J. Marty Dormany – Managing Director
• Dave Bachman – Senior Graphics Designer, Sports

Gray Media/Raycom Sports

• Rob Reichley – Senior Vice President/Executive Producer at Raycom Sports
• Bill Stafford – Vice President of Engineering and Technology Operations
• Amanda Curry – Director of Marketing Gray Television

Theme music by Stephen Arnold Music