When I spoke to Nationals team president Stan Kasten just before the start of this season, the one thing — from a broadcasting standpoint — that he was upset about was the team’s inability to complete a radio deal for the Nats fans in Spanish.
Well Kasten has gotten his wish, and so have the many Nats fans that wanted the games in Spanish, as the club joins a growing number of teams that have both English and Spanish language radio broadcasts.
Starting tonight against the Orioles, the first-ever Nats broadcast in Spanish will air on 1390 AM. The team has partnered with Spanish Beisbol Network who also produces the radio broadcast for the Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies.
Starting Friday night with the game against the Orioles and for the rest of this season and beyond, the Nationals will have a Spanish language broadcast team and a radio network.
“The Washington Nationals are excited to bring Spanish language broadcasts to our fan base,” said Nationals Team President Stan Kasten. “We continue to find ways to provide our Hispanic fans with complete, up-to-date coverage of their favorite team.”
The broadcast team of Angel Castillo, Carlos Guillen and Luciano Rodriguez will be doing the games on a flagship station WZHF — with a Spanish format that reaches the District, Northern Virginia and parts of Montgomery County — and MLB Radio. Saturday games will also be broadcast on WMET 1160 AM — a multi-cultural format station. Select Nats games will be broadcast on XM Radio Channel 174, MLB en Español. All broadcasts will begin on the hour prior to each game’s announced starting time.
The team was one a few Major League Baseball teams that has a Spanish language Web site — losnacionales.com, which launched on April 7.
Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer. Check out his blog, Watch this! on dcexaminer.com.
