Bally Sports Southwest Grows Its Texas High School Football Coverage As State Playoffs Heat Up Live coaches interviews fly in from around the state, thanks to solutions and services by The Video Call Center By Brandon Costa
Monday, November 28, 2022 - 3:08 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
In Texas, it doesn't get bigger than high school football.
You know this, and, at Bally Sports Southwest, the regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group, the data backs that up. Last year, the most-watched program on its air was a high school football game. This is the network that exclusively carries live coverage of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks and San Antonio Spurs, the MLB's Texas Rangers, and the NHL's Dallas Stars.
On a typical Friday night during the high school football season, Bally Sports Southwest offers more than six hours of live highlights and interviews from its studios in Irving, TX. (All photos: Bally Sports Southwest)
Texas High School Football may be exciting - and an instant winner with local viewers - but covering it effectively and equitably is a monumental task. The state is home to more than 1,200 high school football programs ranging from 6-man divisions to the very largest programs in the state.
Doing justice to all those conferences, divisions, and programs is nearly impossible, but, with more than 25 years of covering high school football and a blossoming technology partnership with The Video Call Center (VCC), Bally Sports Southwest has built a strong reputation as a go-to destination on Friday nights. Offering more than six hours of live programming each week, it brings the latest from gridirons across the state to the homes of all Texans.
There are schools in El Paso that are in a different time zone, laughs Jason Walsh, VP/executive producer, Bally Sports Southwest. That's a long way away from us. VCC gave us the ability to talk to coaches or players from around the state. It has been very successful and opened our eyes to what could be.
As VCC has grown, he continues, our high school product has grown, and we've used [the company] more and more. Now we're at the point where we use multiple endpoints with them, so that we can rapid-fire one interview after another interview. While one interview's being done, the next one's being set up right behind it. Again, it's about making our high school product look as big as this state. VCC has been a very helpful partner when it comes to that.
What VCC offers is a service that reliably ingests and transmits live video from smartphones, both simplifying and expanding the ability to conduct live interviews with coaches from all over of Texas. It allows Bally Sports Southwest to be in significantly more places without having to send full crews to cover hundreds and hundreds of games.
During the regular season, Bally Sports Southwest offers studio coverage of live highlights from around the state on Football Fridays, which airs from the network's studios in Irving, TX, at 7:00-11:00 p.m. CT. Then, when all the games are in the books, High School Scoreboard Live kicks off at 11:00 p.m. ET.
Football Friday, produced by Bally Sports Southwest's Brian Smith, is a well-oiled machine providing whip-around highlights virtually non-stop for four straight hours. High School Scoreboard Live, produced by Patrick Modrovsky with help from Coordinating Producer Greg Flick, wraps up the night's action with highlights and live interviews with 15-20 winning coaches.
The Eagles are flying high! @NewtonEaglesTx HC Drew Johnston joins the show to talk about the HUGE opportunities that lie ahead! @uiltexas | #TXHSFB pic.twitter.com/Pljvk476zC
BallySportsTXHS (@BallySportsTXHS) November 27, 2022
Since Bally Sports Southwest (then named Fox Sports Southwest) started using The Video Call Center in 2018, the concept of bringing a coach on live with a smartphone video call has grown from a fun occasional bonus to the core lifeblood of the network's coverage.
When we started this, says Walsh, VCC was trying to add a cherry on top of a sundae. As we've sat down and explored our high school product and thought about it, the truth of the matter is that VCC is our high school product. It's the central point of what makes us successful. The technology they have - and how easy it is to integrate into our studio - makes our show dynamic. They have become the central piece in our ability to do high school football and to cover this state equitably.
Says VCC CEO Larry Thaler, As the network has gotten better and more people have moved to [smartphones], the show's getting braver and doing more. When a team wins a game, [the coach] has got to take his players on a 200-mile bus ride back home. Now he can do a live remote on the regional sports network on that bus while the players are behind him in the bus. That happens a lot, actually, and is very cool.
The truth of the matter, he continues, is that our platform has gotten better, too, and our connectivity options are better. The tools that we use to determine the best way to get the coaches on the air have improved, and the whole process has sped up and gotten more reliable. As it has gotten more reliable, it has become a more critical portion of the show.
In Bally Sports Southwest's Irving, TX, control room, the production crew works with The Video Call Center to coordinate calls with high school football coaches from across Texas, bringing them on-air for live interviews.
Bally Sports Southwest combines VCC's Caller Cloud Service with its AirFirst platform, a cloud-controlled management system, for live IP-based remotes. Simply put, VCC sends a coach a link to click on their smartphone and pipes their video feed into the VCC network. For the coach,
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Zixi, a leader in live video delivery and workflow orchestration, and Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) today announced a strategic new integration to deliver ...
16/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Capture Immersive Flight for New Cirrus App
Brie Clayton July 15, 2026
0 Comments
Leader in Personal Aviation taps URSA Cin...
16/07/2026
XenData Announces LTO Archive Appliances with both File and S3 Object Storage In...
15/07/2026
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is a big deal for DAZN, which has distribution rights in three markets: Italy, Spain, and Japan. Each requires a different editorial app...
15/07/2026
As sports-media organizations manage rapidly growing content libraries and incre...
15/07/2026
HBS director of digital Johannes Franken talks SVG Europe through the operation built to serve FIFA World Cup 2026 rights holders remotely from Stratford, east ...
15/07/2026
IBC has unveiled the conference program for IBC2026, with this year's event ...
15/07/2026
Software-defined wideband RF platform supports 96-kHz monitoring, streamlined fr...
15/07/2026
New AI-powered module enables broadcasters and content owners to extract dialogu...
15/07/2026
Weeklong gathering at EBU headquarters will test new IPMX capabilities and expand certified product ecosystem...
15/07/2026
Force Tech has announced the appointment of Bryan Adams, CTS, as Vice President of Integration. Adams will oversee AV and broadcast integration project delivery...
15/07/2026
USA Sports has announced an exclusive English-language agreement with the Bundes...
15/07/2026
ITV Sport's FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage has been produced from one of the m...
15/07/2026
Program will provide professional camera kits, training, and technical support to participating local newsrooms...
15/07/2026
San Francisco church becomes first U.S. deployment of the 2 M/E production switcher...
15/07/2026
Former ESPN and NFL Network executive to advise startup league on media, distribution, technology, and fan engagement...
15/07/2026
The Houston-based RSN is the live-game home of the Astros and Rockets...
15/07/2026
Launched alongside new FreqSoft installer
Designed to bridge the gap between hardware and software, Freqport's FreqInOut FO1 unit provides a simple way ...
15/07/2026
Save up to 55% on software until 23 July 2026
Expressive E have just launched their Summer Offer sale, with discounts of up to 55% now applied across their ...
15/07/2026
Real-time stem-separation tool updated
zplane have recently released a new and improved version of their real-time stem-separation plug-in which they say ma...
15/07/2026
A new benchmark in bass enhancement
Described as a new benchmark in bass enhancement , Baby Audio's latest release has been designed to augment the lo...
15/07/2026
DMC Production's AR 1 and AR 2 units reverse the conventional OB workflow, keeping all production-critical processing at the venue while operators work remo...
15/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
15/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
15/07/2026
GigaCloud, a leading Ukrainian cloud service provider, and Cubbit, the first geo-distributed cloud storage enabler, today announced a new Business Alliance Part...
15/07/2026
SMPTE, the global society for media professionals, technologists, and engineers, has announced the launch of the SMPTE 110th Anniversary Campaign, a fundraising...
15/07/2026
Studio Technologies, a leading manufacturer of high-quality audio, video, and fiber-optic solutions, unveils the new StudioComm Model 762 Stereo Level Control, ...
15/07/2026
COW Jobs: Producer, Virtual Events - Hybrid, Full Time, Salaried
Brie Clayton July 15, 2026
0 Comments
Producer, Virtual Events (Hybrid | Full-time | ...
15/07/2026
Brazilian media organization builds nationwide CDN with Broadpeak's high-performance software for low-latency streaming and new content distribution service...
15/07/2026
DHD announces a new utility designed to increase the efficiency of its audio mixing systems during initial installation and subsequent configuration.
Anyone w...
15/07/2026
BCNEXXT Brings Next-Generation Vipe to IBC2026, Breaking the 1:1 Channel-to-Server Ratio New innovations liberate broadcasters from legacy playout infrastructur...
15/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
15/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
15/07/2026
General-purpose robots and autonomous machines are moving from research labs to ...
15/07/2026
Wednesday 15 July 2026
Screeners and press pack now available: Gomorrah: The Or...
15/07/2026
Trinity's Treasures features Ruth Negga, Eleanor McEvoy, and David Norris, a...
15/07/2026
Join geographer Dr Susan Hegarty, Engineer Tim Joyce and Architect Orla Murphy a...
15/07/2026
Home to leading manufacturers, robotics pioneers, infrastructure builders and iconic gaming companies, of course, Japan is one of the world's centers of AI ...
14/07/2026
South end zone videoboard, cloud-based control system will be ready for 2026 football season...
14/07/2026
Redesigned website, enhanced mobile app unify content, ticketing, and personalized fan engagement...
Bally Sports Southwest Grows Its Texas High School Football Coverage As State Playoffs Heat Up Live coaches interviews fly in from around the state, thanks to solutions and services by The Video Call Center By Brandon Costa 
