Inside a High School Sports Broadcast Program

Learn how one Broadcast – Video Production teacher trains students, assigns crew positions, selects equipment, and produces more than 40 high school sports broadcasts each year.

By Michael Westbrook, Bryant High School, AR

Building a High School Sports Broadcasting Program

As an avid sports enthusiast with 20 years of play-by-play experience on radio and television I’ve seen my fair share of amazing comebacks and heartbreaks. Just this week I witnessed both in the same game in our first football broadcast of the season. A pay-per-view event for the annual Salt Bowl rivalry game between the Bryant Hornets and the Benton Panthers in Arkansas. For many years 25,000 fans would gather in Little Rock on the final Saturday night of the first week of the season to see the two teams from the same county begin their season. However, interest plummeted in recent years with Bryant winning 19 of the last 20 games, the one time they didn’t win, the game was called in a tie. That all changed on August 28th. Bryant led 42-14 with 10-minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. Another snooze fest or so we thought. Benton mounted a comeback for the ages outscoring Bryant 29-0 in the final quarter including a successful game winning two point conversion with no time remaining on the clock. While all of this is happening I am providing play-by-play and seven Bryant High School Hornet Media students are remaining as focused as I’ve ever seen them. I am not what you would call a homer when broadcasting, I call the game as I see it. This trait carries over with our students as they know they have a job to do no matter the outcome of the game.

So, thanks for reading that little story of the last 24-hours, but I’m actually here to tell you what we do and how we do it, so here’s the story you actually came here for. 

Giving Students Real Broadcast Experience

At Bryant we broadcast 40+ sporting events a year. My goal is to provide opportunities for my students to learn while providing quality coverage for our community. I think it is important as an educator to remember the end goal there and not get too caught up in pleasing everyone with your broadcasts. 

It can be done with one camera or it can be done with an elaborate production truck, I like to think we are somewhere in the middle.  I have a sports production class that meets for 50-minutes a day. It’s worth mentioning that we have a fairly robust news production operation as well, but the reality I’m seeing on my campus of 2,200 students is that they are flocking to the sports class more so than the news class. I hope to add a second sports production class next year.

Training Students for Every Broadcast Position

Student positions for each broadcast include 

• analyst
• sideline reporter
• technical director
• replay operator
• graphics
• four camera operators

For volleyball, girls basketball, baseball and softball the students serve as the play-by-play announcer. I handle those responsibilities for football and boys basketball. The first three weeks of the school year is spent getting to know one another. This year I don’t have a single returner to sports production. A large senior class from the year prior will do that to you every once in a while. 

I always spend one day showing a game from the year prior. We don’t make it very far into the game, because I stop it about every 5-10 seconds to explain what each person on the broadcast is doing behind the scenes during the play. The next 4-5 days we set up all of the equipment in the classroom and practice the different jobs focusing in small groups on one broadcast position each day. Students are usually terrified of being a technical director, but typically I find one or two who realize they want control of the broadcast. Replay is perhaps the most well received position among the students. A good replay operator makes the camera operators happy when they know their shot is being played back during a broadcast and even better when it’s in slow motion. 

Let Students Find Their Role

After those lessons students sign up for a position they are comfortable performing. Students are required to work at least five games each semester. They are also required to sign up for at least one of the first four games of the season (football or volleyball) that way all students are involved early in the year. Usually, I end up with two or three students who want to be technical directors, this creates some consistency for the broadcasts. Football is an especially steep learning curve for the students since I’m on the air the entire time, I’m not able to guide them in game. That responsibility falls on the student. 

Building Your Sports Broadcast Equipment Kit

As far as equipment, I’m blessed with a supportive administration and a dedicated IT department. Here’s a list of our gear by function:

Production: Bento box, running vMix 

Replay: run off a stream deck.

Cameras: Sony PXW-x70 XDCAM. 

Tripods: Magnus VT-4000 tripods and Libec ZC rear control handle zooms.  

Camera Controls: Libec ZC rear-control handle zooms. 

Announcer Headsets: Sennheiser HMDC 26

Audio Mixer: Mackie ProFX

Audio Interface: Focusrite

Wireless Video: Hollyland Cosmo C2

Crew Communication: Eartec

The Bento box is a custom box manufactured by a company in Little Rock, AR.  We have two of them and use them for both home and away games in a variety of sports. Our broadcast headsets are Sennheiser HMDC 26 dual ear and we use a Mackie Pro FX sound board sending the audio from the sound board to the Bento box through a Focusrite audio interface. During basketball season we operate out of our production booth which has one computer running vMix for livestreaming purposes and one machine running tricaster software for the video board. 

Don’t Let the Technology Intimidate You

Over the years, I’ve found one of my biggest downfalls as a teacher has been understanding how to piece all of the technology together to make a broadcast work. If that is you as well, there are plenty of YouTube videos out there these days to show you how to do this. I do highly recommend vMix though as your streaming software, the online tutorial videos available are amazing. 

For the most part the students learn how to set everything up and after a few weeks they become solely responsible for their space. Students are expected to arrive 90-minutes before game time. Which is generous in my mind compared to a professional production where crew members can spend all day on site.

Equipment Lessons I’ve Learned

Here’s a few more notes to consider in terms of equipment. Figure out if your cameras have HDMI connections or SDI, I recommend the extra expense for SDI that way you have a more secure connection. Don’t forget to buy plenty of cables and teach students how to properly roll them so that they last longer. There are several great wireless options now as well. We use the Hollyland Cosmo C2 kit in order to have two wireless cameras each game. We also use Eartec headsets to communicate among the team during the broadcast. It’s a com system that works, but in our venues where we don’t have a closed off production booth, it is a bit challenging for the technical director. They have to listen to the game broadcast with headphones on one ear to hear the announcers and the Eartec headset on the other ear to hear the crew members.

Game-Day Preparation Goes Beyond Equipment

Another item you do not want to overlook is communication with your athletic staff and visiting teams. As you prepare each week for a game, 

• Student Credential Lists: Send a list of names to the athletic secretary so the student can get into the game without any hassle in case they forget their ID or press pass. 
• Press Passes: Maybe you haven’t even thought about a press pass, well you have now and you can make those easily in Canva. 
• Visiting Team Rosters & Depth Charts: Communicate with the opposing coach to gather rosters and depth charts. 
• Coach Interviews: Carve out 10-minutes to talk to your head coach to receive updates on your team. 
• Team Practice Information: Also, ask the students what they have heard about practices from their classmates. 
• Pregame Preparation: Then as your students become proficient in the basics of livestreaming, if time allows then you can branch into highlight packages, player and coach interviews, more advanced graphics and scoreboard reports to help bolster your pregame, halftime and post game shows. 

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go prepare for next week’s game.