For 3-time National Championship winners Florida State Seminoles, football is an integral part of their culture. The NCAA Division 1 FBS football team just ended their 2016 season, and are already beginning preparations for their upcoming 2017 season in 4 months. With everyone expecting a big year for the Seminoles, FSU’s Athletic Department decided it was time to up their livestream game on Facebook and give something to their online audience.
“We were looking for a product that made it easier for us to live stream our press conferences,” said Eric Todoroff, Digital Media Specialist for FSU’s Athletic Department. “For sports, it’s pretty important to be active online to keep people engaged and interested. Going live is going to be a part of that effort.”
The Play
Because of an exclusive contract with ESPN to broadcast games, FSU’s Athletic Department is prohibited from live streaming their football games. They can, however, live stream the renowned Coach Jimbo Fisher’s press conferences that are held once a week. And boy does he get an audience!
For one of the last press conferences of the season, FSU decided to test out their newest streaming encoder, the Teradek VidiU. Mounted to the top of the digital media team’s Sony PXW-FS7 camera system, the VidiU took the FS7’s 1080p30 video feed and delivered it directly to Facebook Live in full HD quality.
In addition, local radio and news stations are there broadcasting as well. In order for every organization to share the same microphone audio, the digital media team connected Coach Fisher’s microphone on stage to a mult box for multiple audio outputs. A hardwired auxiliary connection was made between mult box and the VidiU’s analog audio port to get their share of the audio. That way they were able to live stream with crisp sound and video.
Touchdown!
Thanks to the VidiU, FSU was able to achieve broadcast-quality livestreams on Facebook Live with ease. The final broadcast (above) garnered over 23k views, 380 comments and 96 shares in just 28 minutes of live coverage.
For Todoroff and his digital media team, it was a much smarter alternative to having large-scale productions and traditional broadcasting gear. Not only that, it allowed the athletics department to make use of gear they already owned to deliver high-quality video, saving money from having to hire broadcasting crews and other enterprise-grade equipment.
“We’re a little undersized compared to other Division I football programs. I know several schools and NFL teams with huge production teams and video/audio equipment,” said Todoroff. “For us, the Teradek VidiU supplemented all that and helped us go live on Facebook in HD. We’re really excited to use it in the Summer and Fall seasons.”