TIPS FOR LIVE STREAMING SPORTS Today, we shared tips from eight top sports streaming professionals from around the world. The stage for sports streaming in 2018 has been set, as Facebook announces plans to spend over 1 billion dollars on bringing sports to their live streaming platform. It’s going to be an exciting year for sports fans as who will be tuning in to their favorite sports games places they might not have dreamed of only a few years ago. The presentation above was made to share tips for live streaming sports from professionals who have experience broadcasting sports from K-12 to professional Olympics. You will see practical tips Christopher Sabato, of Willamette University, who shares insights into his experiences broadcasting college level basketball, swimming, and soccer. We hear from Rick Vanderwielen who began webcasting in 2004 when we landed the contract to stream all NCAA National Championships not televised by their TV partner (CBS, Turner, ESPN). Rick instantly went from zero to the most prolific sports webcaster in the US instantly. At some days, Rick had 7 full crews webcasting 7 national championships simultaneously. The tips captured in our webcast and free guide will surely help any school, company or athletic department start to think intelligently about broadcasting sports online. You will hear stories about connecting students with scholarship opportunities and families with their children playing sports around the country. We hope you enjoy this very special broadcast and subscribe to our YouTube channel to learn more.

1. Live Streaming Sports
Technology Setups from PTZOptics Camera Users

2. Tips for Live Streaming Sports from Industry Experts
Presentation Agenda:
1. Camera Settings Tips
2. Tips from Industry Experts
3. Levels of Sports Video
a. K-12
b. College Level
c. Minor League
d. Professional
e. Olympics / Sports Analytics
4. Live Streaming Systems Layouts
5. Customer pictures from around the world

3. Quick Camera Setting Tips
1. Camera Settings Ideal for Live Sports
a. Remember there is no post production in live! Get your settings right before the stream.
b. Operating a joystick controller. Let the play develop. More on this in next slides
c. Use a multiple camera system to have one camera to fade to during fast movements and
another for close up
d. High Frame Rates. We are creatures of habit and used to 24 fps. When live streaming sports
we want higher fps such as 60fps. A good rule of thumb is to double the shutter speed such as
60fps = 1/120 shutter speed.
e. A large f/stop = a small aperture. A small

4. Presentation includes Tips from 8 Industry Professionals!

5. This Presentation Includes Tips from Experts
Eastern Shore Broadcasting,
Alabama, USA
Independent
Indiana, USA
Willamette University
Oregon, USA

6. Panel of Sports Streaming Professionals
PrepSpin
Kentucky, USA
MKBWebinar
Utrecht, Netherlands
Ryan Vance
Marshall University,
West Virginia USA

7. Panel of Sports Streaming Professionals
12th End Sports
Fairport, NY, USA
KB Productions
Orangevale, CA, USA

8. Understanding the Audience w/ Christopher Sabato
If you are just starting, know the audience expectation. Are they
expecting nothing? If that's the case then anything is better than
nothing.
Professionals may tell you to do it "Right" or don't do it at all. While
that is generally a good rule of thumb, it's not always the best answer.
We stream for our parents, if we don't stream then many parents don't
see their child compete. So for them if the option is a low quality
broadcast, or none at all, they want to see something. When we
started we used one camera and sometimes just crowd noise. That
was "better than nothing" and made parents happy. As you grow and
learn so will your product. Sometimes it's ok to start at the bottom and
work your way up. - Christopher Sabato

9. Live Streaming College Sports w/ Ryan Vance
1. Always allow more time than you think you need
to get ready. Something will always go wrong or
need changed.
2. Don't overthink or overproduce. The viewer is
more interested in the game than anything else.
As long as they get to see that they are happy.
Don't do anything to distract them from that.
3. Observe the 180 degree rule. Don't break the
plane so that teams switch directions.

10. Live Streaming High School Football w/ Ken Benedict
1. Have backups for
most everything you
can afford
2. Keep your camera
shots wide enough to
see the surrounding
players.

11. Sports Streaming Tips from Tom Sinclair
● Cameras guys should use zoom more than
they use pan. Pan tends to get very blurry
very quickly.
● Camera guys should not attempt to follow
the ball. Just follow the play. Like a punt in
football.
● All cameras should be on the same side of
the field. Exception is a camera that is on a
person (like a coach or spectator) not on the
play.

12. Sports Streaming Tips from Tom Sinclair
● Directors should have cameras that show
different things. Rookies mistake to have
two cams showing essentially the same
shot.
● Directors should not switch cams
frequently and a lot. Confuses the viewer.
● Compression should be used on the
announcers' mics. They get excited and
shout.

13. College Sports Streaming w/ Christopher Sabato
Audio:
Having good audio is key to any broadcast, sports are no
different. With great video and crappy audio people will tune
out, crappy video and good audio people are more likely to stay
tuned. A good play-by-play person is important, but at the bare
minimum having a crowd mic where you can hear the crowd
and the whistles and the PA announcer, makes the stream
more watchable. The next step is to hard wire the PA directly
into the broadcast. It’s not as good as having PxP, but it’s an
improvement over just a crowd mic.

14. College Sports Streaming w/ Christopher Sabato
Audio:
For clock sports (football, basketball, soccer), incorporate the clock in your
broadcast. A full cg scorebug looks great, but can be costly or difficult to set up. A
simple way to get the clock on your stream is to have a camera pointed at the
scoreboard. Crop and overlay it on your primary camera. It’s not pretty or fancy, but
it gets the job done.

15. Olympics Sports Streaming w/ Joe Calabrese
1. Use similar cameras...we use 6 PTZOptics
cameras and 8 Sonys. That way it is easier to create
similar settings and your look can be uniform.
2. Use headsets and cough buttons (We use Henry
Engineering Talent Pods). Your sound will be more
professional and your talent can control their levels.
3. Test, test, test... Then test again. Be sure that
your destination is receiving your stream and that you
can be heard.

16. Olympics Sports Streaming w/ Joe Calabrese
4. Automate as much as you can. Use vMix shortcuts,
autohotkey, and scripts when possible to automate
processes. We also use an Xbox controller and two
xkeys units tied to there shortcuts.
5. Use replay to push clips if great plays to social. We
use Dropbox and Zapier to push clips to social media.
This means with preparation, it only takes a save of a
replay to a specific dropbox folder to push clips to
Facebook and Twitter. It is a great way to advertise
your event in media you may not be streaming on.

17. Final tip from Joe
Use as many close ups as possible...it makes the cast more personal

18. Tips from Rick Vanerwielen
1. Revenue isn’t easily obtained from advertisers. Being
paid to produce ‘by others’ is the best business model.
2. You can produce 90% of the big truck’s produce at 10% of
the cost. Stay simple with graphics. Refrain from
complicating the show.
3. Get good cameramen. Everyone thinks they can run a
game came, but unfortunately, only about 10% can.
4. Watch other productions. See how they articulate their
camera. Listen to professional announcers.
5. Find a mentor. Ask questions. There is no book written
on the subject of webcasting sports.
Rick in the middle between Hall of Famer and
former Voice of Pacers Jerry Baker and HOFer
Bob Lamey, current voice of the Colts.

19. Tips from Rick Vanerwielen
6. Audio is very important. Don’t waste your efforts with poor audio.. or poor commentary.
7. Put your webcast everywhere. “If you’re not everywhere, you’re nowhere”. (FB, YT, OTTs, Webpage,
Periscope.)
8. Webcasting is by permission. You’ll need relationships with the games ‘owner’ or school.
9. Consider a bonded cellular internet solution like Live U or the Teradek Vidiu Pro. Internet access will
be problematic if you travel to produce.
10. Incorporate. Purchase insurance.

20. Sports Streaming Tips w/ William Warfield
1. Focus on your audience and promote
your stream on social media
2. If your broadcasting high school sports
make it all about the kids and the
community.
3. Build your network as a community
service rather than just a network. You
really have to lead with a passion to drive
forward your purpose.

21. Sports Streaming Tips w/ William Warfield
1. College sports is a different animal because your a small fish in a big
pond. Focus on the things that set your broadcast apart. Connect with
your audience by providing exclusive content. Realize that your not espn
with a million dollar budget but you can still do most of what they do with
little budget.

22. Sports Streaming Tips w/ William Warfield
1. VMix tip of the week - Don’t forget to set your computer power settings to
high performance. By default the power settings is set to balanced. This
makes your computer run at a much less pace than when on high
performance mode. You will drop frames on balanced mode.

23. Live Streaming Setups for Sports

24. Outdoor Camera Enclosures
This outdoor camera enclosure
(picture from Christopher Sabato) is
a Dotworkz D3 enclosure.
These outdoor PTZ camera
enclosures have weather tight cable
seals allowing for multiple cables to
feed into the protected dome area.

25. Outdoor Camera Enclosures

26. Basketball Live Streaming
Here you can see the
live streaming setup
from the Willamette
Bearcats. This
Basketball broadcast
features multiple
cameras, Wirecast, a
PTZOptics Producer Kit
and uses the NewTek
NDI in a very creative
way. (see next slide)

29. Pictures from Ken

30. Big thank to all of our Facebook User Group
Contributors!
www.Facebook.com/Groups/PTZOpticsPals

31. User Group Member Sports Applications
PHOTO CRED: ANDREW SEABROOK PHOTO CRED: MATEUSZ LEMIESZKO PHOTO CRED: DOMINIK MüLLER
PHOTO CRED:
KEN RICHER
PHOTO CRED:
ERIC HIMES

32. KICK-BUTT SPORTS SETUPS CONT’D
PHOTO CRED: NIKOLAJ KANNIK
PHOTO CRED: SCOTT DUPLER
PHOTO CRED: KEN BENEDICT