If your institution is not audio or video streaming on your Web site, you need
to start. What better way to deliver your institutional message directly to your
fans, or what better way to have world wide exposure for your sports, than using
your athletic department Web site for live and archived audio and video
streaming.
Wisconsin maintains an in-house Web site and has invested considerably in video
equipment to allow FREE live streaming of our weekly news conferences, post
event news conferences, and live event coverage. Visitors to our site are
increasingly interested in viewing the coaches and their immediate, unfiltered
message offered in weekly and post-event news conferences.
Samples of Streaming on the Official University of Wisconsin Web site,
uwbadgers.com
1. All Monday news conferences throughout the year (coaches, sometimes
administrators, and occasionally athletes)
2. Regular game post event news conferences (football, mball, wball, mhockey,
vball); these are also broadcast to the Kohl Center suites and are live video
streamed on the Web after the games and archived for later viewing. The opposing
coaches are also live streamed but there comments are not archived.
3. Video 'game action' clips of sports (taped from TV or provided by scoreboard
feed at the Kohl Center)
4. Highlight video for sports-this is the 4-5 minute game-action only (can have
non-commercial music background)
5. Special news conferences (coaching hires, NCAA news, etc.)
6. Historical clips in the Hall of Fame and history sections; when Elroy "Crazylegs"
Hirsch, a football legend, passed away in January, the TV networks literally
videotaped the historic action footage of Hirsch ONLY available on our site
7. Audio web casts of football, mball, wball, mhockey, (those 4 on Yahoo)
softball, vb and occasionally whockey. Patrons will have to get the College
Sports Pass from yahoo next season to listen to the four sports available there.
The other three sports are free through our web site. We use the local student
station as announcers.
8. Live video streaming of women's basketball game and men's hockey game free in
2004-05. We paired the scoreboard video with the radio announcers for the
stream.
9. Wrestling was live streamed both video (twice) and just audio (once).
10. If we had data connections to our softball field we would have tried video
streaming softball this year paired with the student radio announcers. We will
experiment this fall with live streaming volleyball for the first time. Our
restriction is our one- camera setup which is not optimal for watching the
match. We will pair with student radio announcers for the audio broadcast.
Equipment used to live video stream news conferences
Camera: Canon 3CCD Digital Video Camcorder GL1 NTSC
Lens: Canon Video Lens 20X Zoom, 100X Digital Zoom
Video Display: JVC BM-H1310SU
Computer: Dell GX400 1.8MGhz, 512MB RAM
Video Card: Osprey 200
Sound Board: Macklie 1202-VLZ Pro
Video Distributor: Kramer 1:5 s-Video Distributor VM-50YC
Audio Distributor: Kramer 1:5 Audio Distributor VM-50A
Tripod: Manfrotto 3068
DOIT Costs
The Department of Information Technology on campus has provided us server space
and advised us on streaming as a pilot project. Prior to this year, we were not
charged for the just over 15GB server space we used. Starting in 2004-05 our
costs were $1200 for the year.
Cost/month Service
$50.00 Streaming Media Account for hosting on-demand rich media assets.
$50.00 5-15GB disk allocation for rich media.
SCOREBOARD Video Streaming
With the new video scoreboard installed at the UW's basketball/hockey facility,
we were able to live video stream all of our mhockey and wball home events that
were not televised. Three cameras detail the action at each game, and we will
'borrowed' the radio broadcast if games were on the radio. The exception was if
FOX Sports Net was broadcasting the game, and then we were prohibited from
streaming.
We also streamed the Wisconsin Public Television broadcasts with their
announcers when available (about half the schedule). We had nearly 1000
connections with hockey from as far away as Australia and Antarctica. For
women's basketball we averaged around 100 connections. These games were NOT
archived on our site.
Wrestling was live streamed both video and just audio. Knowledgeable announcers
are the key to this. The number of hits rivaled men's hockey with 400-800 page
views recorded.
OTHER NOTES OF INTEREST
The Speed of Doing Business: Broadband Penetration Over 50% By July, 2004
According to Comcast, overall broadband grew by 0.82% in March 2004, with 45.97%
of Internet- enabled U.S. households enjoying a high-speed connection. There was
growth of 12.2 percent from March 2003. 54.03% of US home users dial into the
Internet with "narrowband" connections of 56Kbps or less. Canadian broadband
penetration grew by just 3% from 64% to 67% over the same time period. 78.8% of
US users at work enjoy a high-speed connection, up from 77.2% in February.
Internet users earning upper-level incomes have a higher concentration of
broadband adopters. Broadband surfers made up 69 percent of the total audience
for those with incomes of $150K and above, as compared to 31 percent accessing
via dial-up. Those earning between $100K-$150K showed a 61/39 split favoring
high speed, while Internet users with incomes between $75K-$100K posted an even
split among narrowband and broadband users.
Middle and lower income surfers accessing the Internet via broadband posted much
smaller concentrations. Almost two-thirds of individuals with household earnings
between $25K-50K log online via narrowband. Broadband composition is even less
for lower income surfers earning between $0-25K, with just 25 percent accessing
via cable, DSL or other high speed.
MANY Companies are Offering Streaming
I get at least one call monthly from companies wishing to stream our UW events.
They say they will revenue share with us (60/40 split), or they can produce a
better quality stream than we have. With the pressure to gain new revenue
streams, these companies are being looked at with their six-figure promises.
Uwbadgers.com however currently remains a free site for video streaming.
Real One has several subscription services used by Notre Dame, Washington and a
number of other schools. The College Pass has two levels. The basic one is 6.95
a month or $44.95 a year. That one lets you listen to audio of the games of the
schools that use it. It also lets you see their streaming video.
MSBN calls itself the premier "live" broadcasting company for College and
University sports on the internet today. Technologically the broadcast leader in
the field, MSBN develops $$ revenue for athletic departments while reaching a
worldwide audience. Take a look at our website http://www.MSBN.tv <http://www.msbn.tv/>.
For $5,000 base rate includes as many broadcasts as you can provide. You provide
camera and content (have to video them with your own camera). They send you a
server and T1 connection for your audio and video broadcast. There are some
additional fun things with this group…live chat, clipboard for fans to write in.
They make it look like your site also.
Oregon, Oklahoma, and quite a few others have oZone where a Premium one year
subscription is $84.95; monthly subscription is $9.95/mo. They have a special
break for audio only users at $4.95 per month. The premium broadband includes FB
and MBall games, coaches shows, season highlights, live video streaming of games
on internet, weekly and post game news conferences.
There is a danger of streaming with an unknown company that they may not be in
business the whole year. Check out who else they are representing and what their
performance has been first before you sign a contract.
