Alex Day ’16 reflects on Emmy win, his experiences filming the New York Yankees

The Elon University graduate and his Yankees Productions colleagues earned a 2018 New York Emmy Award for their opening day hype video titled “We Work.” 

The 2017 New York Yankees fell just one victory short of making the World Series, but the Bronx Bombers – an organization synonymous with championships – still had an award-winning season thanks to an Elon University alumnus.

With Yankee Stadium as the backdrop, Alex Day ’16, a production assistant for Yankees Productions, holds his 2018 New York Emmy Award.
Alex Day ’16, a journalism major turned production assistant for Yankees Productions, helped create the organization’s 2017 opening day hype video, titled “We Work” and featuring actor Chazz Palminteri. The two-minute video won the Sports: One-Time Special category in the 61st annual New York Emmy Awards competition.

Day and his team were responsible for video’s development and production, and the journalism major helped craft the script. According to Day, one of the highlights of the experience was filming Palminteri – best known for his roles in the films “A Bronx Tale” and “The Usual Suspects” – at night in an empty Yankee Stadium. 

“The main goal of Yankees Productions is to promote and humanize the players as much as possible,” Day said. “For this video, which was released right before the 2017 season started, our goal was to get fans as pumped up for the season as possible, whether they viewed it on their phone or computer, or watched the video in Yankee Stadium on opening day.”

Day enjoys a light-hearted moment with shortstop Didi Gregorius in the team’s dugout.
Because the Yankees were coming off an underwhelming season, failing to make the postseason for the third time in four years, the production team adapted a theme of “getting back to work” for the 2017 film. The video’s content included clips of Yankees players taking batting practice, warming up and exercising, mixed in with highlights from the previous season.

“Luckily, the reception the video received validated our vision for this project,” Day said.

The former “Elon Local News” reporter and “Elon Phoenix Weekly” host said he has enjoyed working for baseball’s most storied franchise.

“Getting to work in Major League Baseball has always been a dream of mine,” Day said. “I played baseball my whole life, including on the club baseball team at Elon. As a lifelong Yankees fan, it’s been a thrill to walk into Yankee Stadium every day for work – a feeling that never gets old.”