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...
18/05/2026
Despite a bumpy start to the year, the provider of event-production support and ...
18/05/2026
Daktronics has partnered with the University of North Carolina to manufacture and install 11 LED displays totaling more than 10,000 square feet and more than 14...
18/05/2026
CBS LA has announced a multi-year partnership with the Los Angeles Rams, covering exclusive local broadcasts of Rams preseason games, weekly year-round programm...
18/05/2026
Skyline Communications has announced an integration between its DataMiner xOps p...
18/05/2026
eCLUTCH, the hybrid esports platform powered by iKOMG, has announced an expansion of its distribution across Europe, MENA, Africa, and Asia, along with new cont...
18/05/2026
Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, includ...
18/05/2026
With 22 games this season, the production team looks forward to tweaking and enhancing the coverage
After 8,660 days off the air, the WNBA returned to NBC yest...
18/05/2026
(L-R) Midori Francis and Natalie Erika James attend the Saccharine premiere during the 2026 Sundance Film Festival at The Ray Theatre on January 22, 2026, in ...
18/05/2026
Last night, the Spotify Podcast Awards in Mexico returned to the country's capital. Now in its second year, the evening honors creators whose voices are hel...
18/05/2026
ZEN-Core synth goes mobile
Roland's powerful ZEN-Core software synthesizer has just been introduced to the iPad, offering a convenient entry point into ...
18/05/2026
Versatile new limiter plug-in announced
Based in Sheffield, UK, fedDSP offer a range of plug-ins that span the music production, live sound and high-end med...
18/05/2026
A new use for convolution?
Viiri Audio's debut plug-in aims to do something a little different with convolution processing, allowing users to adjust all...
18/05/2026
Delta Goodrem shines for SBS as more than 3.27 million Australians tune in for E...
18/05/2026
The Australian Defence Force uses L3Harris T4 and T7 robots for explosive ordnan...
18/05/2026
Continued investment across Europe and Germany is expanding local teams and improving access to stock, regional expertise, and specialist broadcast support.
CV...
18/05/2026
18 May 2026
Dubai and New York, May 18, 2026 - VEON Ltd. (NASDAQ: VEON), a glob...
18/05/2026
Monday 18 May 2026
Sky News offers ad-free podcasts and bonus episodes for just...
18/05/2026
Comscore March 2026 Consumer AI Chatbot Usage Rankings Show Claude Gaining Share OpenAI's ChatGPT maintains lead while Anthropic's Claude continues to c...
17/05/2026
Delta Goodrem's Eurovision Eclipse marks end of a stellar run
17 May, 2026
Media releases
Bulgaria wins Eurovision 2026
Relive every spellbinding mome...
17/05/2026
Back to All News
Oasis Premieres on Netflix June 19
Entertainment
17 May 2026
GlobalSpain
Link copied to clipboard
Summer, sunshine, the beach, parties. T...
16/05/2026
Helps to deliver a clean, balanced midrange
Developed alongside Newfangled Audio, the latest plug-in in Eventide's software collection has been designed...
16/05/2026
Brings onboard stem rendering to RANE System One
Engine DJ have just released Engine DJ 5.0, a free update for their Engine DJ OS embedded hardware and Engi...
16/05/2026
Boris FX Continuum Pairs AI Precision and Advanced Creative Controls
Jessie Electa Petrov May 16, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic de...
16/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
15/05/2026
Seattle Sounders FC and Seattle Reign FC, in partnership with RAVE Foundation an...
15/05/2026
Dan Brumm has served as sound designer on Bluey, the Australian children's t...
15/05/2026
The Professional Audio Manufacturers Alliance (PAMA) and Shure Incorporated are accepting applications for the 6th annual Mark Brunner Professional Audio Schola...
15/05/2026
Netflix has announced an expanded NFL schedule for 2026 and beyond under a four-year partnership extension with the NFL through the 2029-30 season. Each season,...
15/05/2026
Ateme is supporting TVRI (Televisi Republik Indonesia) with a contribution and d...
15/05/2026
Concacaf has announced the launch of a new website and mobile app built on Deltatre's FORGE platform. Concacaf.com and the mobile app, available on iOS and ...
15/05/2026
Eutelsat has announced the launch of QBC Business Economic Channel by Qatar Media Corporation, broadcasting in 4K/UHD via Eutelsat's 7/8 West video neighbo...
15/05/2026
Major League Soccer has announced four original content series timed to the 2026...
15/05/2026
The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) has announced it will exhibit and present at InfoComm 2026, taking place June 13-19 at the Las Vegas Convention Cente...
15/05/2026
InfoComm 2026 will take place June 13-19 (exhibits June 17-19) at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The show will include sessions and exhibits covering broadcas...
15/05/2026
Tracy McGrady's Ones Basketball League (OBL) and FuboTV Inc. have announced ...
15/05/2026
Disguise has partnered with Creative Technology (CT) to deliver visual playback ...
15/05/2026
Sony Electronics has announced two new products for professional imaging: the Alpha 7R VI full-frame mirrorless camera and the FE 100-400mm F4.5 GM OSS super-te...
15/05/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
15/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
15/05/2026
For sports organizations, the most valuable assets are often the most sensitive:...
15/05/2026
The NFL's broadcast partners released their 2026 regular season schedules ye...
15/05/2026
Besides drawing on experience with boxing, the production integrates specialty c...
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 
