Can a cartoon bring fresh faces to the challenging business of regional sports networks? The New York Yankees think so. The Yankees’ YES Network is launching its first animated series, part of a strategic effort to expand the programming that an RSN can program, and one that can, hopefully, engage young fans.
The series is called Bronx Buds (actually the complete name is HexClad Presents Bronx Buds), and it follows the antics of a Bronx-based youth baseball team, The Pinstripes. The show will debut the morning of Saturday, August 17, and will be available in the YES app. Tzero Studios is producing the show for YES.
“We just want to develop the next generation of baseball fans,” says Jason Feneque, senior director of distribution & special projects for YES.
The goal of Bronx Buds, according to TZero Studios founder Justin Shenkarow, was to recreate some of the magic of Saturday morning cartoons, a habit that has faded away in an era of Netflix and YouTube.
“We missed the nostalgia of waking up having a bowl of cereal, throwing on those Saturday morning cartoons, and also watching them with your with your parents and with your family and that bonding experience,” Shenkarow says. “We realized there was such a great opportunity to create a cartoon that spoke to sports fans, and really we weren’t seeing that. And we love sports,wWe love animation, and the show we wanted to create around the Bronx.”
Bronx Buds episodes will run about seven minutes in length, with the kids in the show being played by real-life child actors. It was something important to Shenkarow, who was a voice actor himself in the Nickelodeon series Hey Arnold!
“There’s just that authenticity of real kids, plus the diversity of real kids, and that New York sound,” he says.
For YES, it is also original programming that touches on baseball without being about the games themselves. The YES app already has programs about food and local Bronx businesses, but Bronx Buds expands on that further.
“It’s original IP, as you know, there’s a lot of kind of rehashing existing IP that’s going on, which is fine,” Shenkarow says. “But we really wanted to create something original, and that connects with the Yankee fans and connects with an audience to find something new and innovative, right out of the gate. But also, in addition to that, this is about baseball, and it’s about it’s about adventure, and it’s about kids coming together.”
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