Life From Final Four: Big East's Digital Push Reaches the Big Stage New live, digital-exclusive show, BIG EAST Shootaround, brings its breakout brand to San Antonio By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Monday, April 2, 2018 - 1:32 pm
Print This Story
Story Highlights
A Final Four run is a huge development not only for the school involved but also for the conference office that supports it. It has been a big year for the Big East, especially in terms of its digital and social efforts.
Most notably, the league made a strong play in the live environment with the debut of a weekly series called BIG EAST Shootaround. With Villanova the favorite heading into tonight's National Championship Game, the show is ending its Season 1 run with an emphatic exclamation point.
A crew, headed by the Big East Director, Digital and Social Content, Brad Zak is onsite here in San Antonio, gathering content and live-streaming shows to Facebook, Twitter, and the Fox Sports Go app. The centerpiece? Special editions of BIG EAST Shootaround.
We were very pleased with the show [this season], says Zak. It's been good for us to build our basketball brand. That was the main goal. We wanted to get out there and differentiate ourselves in the space. We're a league that, since we reinvested ourselves' five years ago, has to find ways to set ourselves apart. This has been a perfect way for us to do it.
From left: The Big East's Ujash Patel and Brad Zak are joined by BIG EAST Shootaround hosts John Fanta and Jay Alter in covering Villanova's fun at the Final Four in San Antonio.
For the Final Four weekend, Zak has served as producer, overseeing creative direction of the Big East's content efforts. He's joined by Coordinator, Digital Production, Ujash Patel, who is acting as director and lead technician. Patel is largely credited with playing a major role in the BIG EAST Shootaround's success both technologically and in establishing a consistent brand. Also here are the show's on-camera hosts, John Fanta and Jay Alter.
The conference saw consistent growth for BIG EAST Shootaround throughout the season. It most notably saw a viewership spike when the show aired live from Cincinnati prior to a top-five matchup between Villanova and Xavier in February, with more than 50,00 viewers tuning in. The show also went live four or five times a day during the Big East Men's Basketball Tournament at Madison Square Garden.
According to Zak, he and his team have been pleasantly surprised by the numbers and engagement that the show has seen on Periscope (Twitter). He notes that it's easy for school accounts to easily share and direct their followers to the show in real time.
Typically, when the show is aired from the conference's offices in New York City, Zak and Patel use the encoder in their NewTek TC1 production switcher to split the streams and send the show to its multiple destinations. At the Final Four, however, the digital team did not want the stress of potentially unreliable connectivity at either the Alamodome or the Villanova team hotel. So the show is being fed to New York via a bonded-cellular unit and streamed from there to viewers via the TC1.
Zak notes that the past month has been a learning experience for him and the Big East when it comes to digital strategy. Most significantly, though, he feels that, when a season ends with drama like this, it's best to stay the course.
The best thing you can do, he observes, is have your year-round plan in place and don't deviate from it just because it's a big event. Find what you do really well, stick to it, and just carry that over into the major event. Don't let the moment catch you blindsided.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
12/05/2026
Beyond the Hype: A Strategic Post-Hoc Analysis of NAB 2026 If NAB Show 2026 had an underlying theme, it was a quiet, industry-wide pivot from the high-energy sp...
12/05/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D), a Panoptec Technologies Group company, and CT Square, led by Chandresh Shah, have announced a joint venture to distribute G&D and V...
12/05/2026
With 30 days until the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Telemundo, the exclusive Spanish-language home of the tournament in the United States, has announced th...
12/05/2026
The NHL has announced the return of Stanley Pup for its third consecutive year, a 90-minute special featuring adoptable rescue dogs competing on a miniature rin...
12/05/2026
NBCUniversal presented its 2026 Upfront to advertisers at Radio City Music Hall, detailing upcoming programming across NBC, Peacock, Bravo, and Versant properti...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced funding for the Fandom and Social Connection Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Publ...
12/05/2026
TNDV and Live Media, both divisions of Live Media Group, supported live broadcast coverage around NCAA Final Four weekend in Indianapolis, including the March M...
12/05/2026
The European Football Alliance (EFA) has announced a content distribution agreement with Fubo Sports Network, the free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel ...
12/05/2026
For the first time, Spanish-speaking fans in the U.S. will have two separate tel...
12/05/2026
CP Communications led a comprehensive spectrum management initiative on behalf of Churchill Downs during Kentucky Derby week, coordinating RF assets across the ...
12/05/2026
LiveU has announced a strategic partnership with DRONERESPONDERS, a 501(c)3 non-...
12/05/2026
Open Broadcast Systems has announced that BMC TV, a specialist in IP transport of broadcast content, has selected the Open Broadcast Systems 5G Flyaway solution...
12/05/2026
NEP Europe, part of NEP Group, has announced it will deliver broadcast solutions...
12/05/2026
Grass Valley has announced continued collaboration with Ravensbourne University ...
12/05/2026
Stats Perform has announced the launch of Opta Pulse, an AI-assisted video creation and distribution platform for leagues, rights holders, and broadcasters. The...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced a collaboration with Sesame Workshop to integrate Sesame Street characters into FOX Sports' FIFA World Cup 2026 programming. Conten...
12/05/2026
To date, NHL Productions has produced 19 broadcasts with commentary in American Sign Language
NHL in ASL (American Sign Language) may be just one show, but the...
12/05/2026
Google's Brian Albert: creators, athletes, highlights, nostalgia, second-scr...
12/05/2026
A still from Past Lives by Celine Song, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | p...
12/05/2026
Spotify is where fans and artists come together, turning discovery into somethin...
12/05/2026
Features patented Marco-MMC clocking technology
Black Lion Audio's latest release combines the company's expertise in clocking with their renowned p...
12/05/2026
New Track Panel, sequencer upgrades & more
Following their recent public beta release, Reason Studios have announced the full release of Reason 14. With the...
12/05/2026
One month to go! SBS reveals expansive FIFA World Cup 2026 lineup beyond the pi...
12/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz presents its advanced solutions for power electronics testing at...
12/05/2026
aconnic AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), Munich, has developed a modified fund raising p...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Tyrell Corporation, specialists in high-end live sports and entertainment broadcasts, was tasked with delivering compelling broadcast coverage of premier equest...
12/05/2026
Registration is now open for IBC2026 as the global media, entertainment and technology community prepares to converge on the RAI Amsterdam from 11 14 September ...
12/05/2026
Ross Video, a global leader in live video production technology, will present its latest innovations and integrated production workflows at BroadcastAsia 2026, ...
12/05/2026
500 selected leaders from around the world across start-ups, corporates, and venture capital. Over 50bn in assets under management among attending investors, a...
12/05/2026
CVP, one of Europe's leading suppliers of professional video and broadcast solutions, has appointed Randy Koeman as Sales Manager, Netherlands, marking anot...
12/05/2026
Taiwan Television has expanded its HD content ingest workflow capabilities by investing in the PlayBox Neo Suite - a leading multi-channel multi-server UHD/HD/S...
12/05/2026
Jigsaw24 is strengthening its media team with the appointment of Tom Laker as Client Director and Ashish Chauhan as Project Manager. These strategic hires bring...
12/05/2026
Broadcast playout leader showcases hybrid IP infrastructure and workflow automation with Videoland deployment as regional benchmark...
12/05/2026
dzjinius, the all-in-one production management platform for the media and entertainment industry, will showcase its centralised approach to production workflows...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
NUGEN Audio will debut Version 1.1 of DialogCheck, its intelligent dialog intelligibility and compliance tool, at the 2026 Media Production & Technology Show (S...
12/05/2026
The reactive visuals can adapt to any stage or screen setup and comprise 50 layers of Notch content
Today, Disguise announced that its high performance GX 3 m...
12/05/2026
Snapgrid , Snapbag & Airglow Expand Creative Control for the ARRI Modular LED BarFollowing the launch of the ARRI Omnibar, DoPchoice introduces a dedicated li...
12/05/2026
May 12th, 2026 Press Materials Available Here
TRIBECA FESTIVAL UNVEILS 2026 GAMES PROGRAM
Tribeca Celebrates Its 25th Anniversary With World Premieres and Pl...
12/05/2026
May 12th, 2026 Press Materials Available Here
MADONNA BRINGS THE WORLD PREMIERE OF CONFESSIONS II TO 2026 TRIBECA FESTIVAL
The Global Icon Will Unveil a Cine...
12/05/2026
Customer demand for data continues to grow in the first quarter of 2026 at Magya...
Life From Final Four: Big East's Digital Push Reaches the Big Stage New live, digital-exclusive show, BIG EAST Shootaround, brings its breakout brand to San Antonio By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
