Major enhancements are about to arrive on the screens of fans tuning into Pittsburgh Pirates games.

Over the last year, SportsNet Pittsburgh, which televises the vast majority of Pirates games and is managed by New England Sports Network, has been working on a significant overhaul of its broadcasts.

When the Pirates play the New York Mets on Saturday, this “creative refresh,” featuring a modernized scorebug, enhanced statistical integrations and heavy incorporation of Pittsburgh’s black and gold colors, will debut in full.

“When you see the Pirates colors and logos, it’s a whole series of associations and memories and nostalgia and family connections,” said David Koppett, executive producer for NESN and SportsNet Pittsburgh. “I think all those same feelings you get when you go to a game at PNC Park — a lot more of that will come through our presentation and the look.

“The whole presentation is more colorful and based on team logos and colors much more strongly than the look we’ve had in the past. That to me is not just a visual attractiveness element, it’s an emotional element. That’s what sports is all about.”

SportsNet Pittsburgh’s on-screen statistical overhaul is in part an attempt to meet baseball where it is in 2026, placing a larger emphasis on Statcast analytics that have increasingly dominated discussion and dissemination of the game over the last decade.

For example, around the scorebug at the top-left corner of a screen, SportsNet Pittsburgh broadcasts will now include pitch type, velocity and exit velocity during every at-bat, all uploaded to the screen in real time via Sportradar, MLB’s official stats provider.

MLB’s new ABS challenges, which can overturn balls or strikes, will also be showcased on-screen, as will all batter exit velocities over 90 mph.

That said, avoiding an information overload was something taken into consideration during the lengthy design period, which involved dozens of SportsNet Pittsburgh personnel, requiring thousands of man hours.

“The whole functionality and presentation of information — I think this look is just a step up in the way the information is presented,” Koppett said. “It’s laid out in a modern way, and it’s easy for your eye to go to the appropriate place at any given moment, so I think it should be easier to consume for fans in that way.”

Identifying a north star, or an “overall design theory,” as NESN/SportsNet Pittsburgh’s director of creative services Bethany Marshall put it, was a key early overarching objective.

Quickly, trading cards were settled on as something to design around. As a result, fans will notice that theme prominently featured by the graphics utilized in the leadup to first pitch.

“We did want to think about foundational and not fad parts of the sport and parts of what people love,” Marshall said. “Things within the game and even beyond the game, and then taking those and twisting those in new and fresh ways. For that, it’s three-fold.

“One, this is a team with a long tradition. How can we honor that with a world-class broadcast? Two, how can the form meet function? Three, how can we make this custom for Pittsburgh and for the audience, highlighting the colors and the team branding that can draw an emotional response?”

For the past two-plus baseball seasons, starting in August of 2023, when Fenway Sports Group bought AT&T SportsNet from Warner Bros. Discovery and rebranded it to SportsNet Pittsburgh, Pirates broadcasts have utilized the same graphics package that NESN uses for Boston Red Sox games.

Per Koppett, that was the result of Warner Bros. Discovery owning the graphics previously seen during Pirates broadcasts in the AT&T SportsNet era.

Now, that’s changing, with Pirates broadcasts taking on a signature look and feel.

“This is really our first opportunity to give the Pittsburgh teams a customized package, with imagery that’s about Pittsburgh, the colors that (everyone is) so familiar with that belong to all the teams there and are the colors of the bridges and the city,” Koppett said.

This season, SportsNet Pittsburgh will broadcast 153 of the Pirates’ 162 regular-season games, Thursday’s season opener at the New York Mets on NBC/Peacock being a notable exception.

Back as the club’s primary play-by-play voices are Greg Brown and Joe Block, to be joined in the broadcast booth by familiar color commentators Bob Walk, John Wehner, Neil Walker, Matt Capps and Kevin Young.

Rob King, Dan Potash and Hailey Hunter will handle studio host and reporting duties, with Hannah Mears returning as sideline reporter.

Young, Capps, Michael McKenry, Steven Brault, Alex Presley and Jordy Mercer will provide studio analysis, while SportsNet Pittsburgh will also broadcast a variety of additional signature programs, such as “Unobstructed Views,” “Bucs BP,” “Inside Pirates Baseball” and more.

Saturday’s broadcast between the Pirates and Mets will be the culmination of an intensive design process, with Koppett, Marshall and their peers eager to see how fans react to the changes.

But already, Koppett hinted at some similar improvements on the hockey side of things being in the pipeline.

“It is on the roadmap, and it will be based on the same concepts, customized to hockey and the Penguins,” Koppett said. “It’ll be in the same graphic family.”

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