Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Bally Sports Southwest Grows Its Texas High School Football Coverage As State Playoffs Heat Up

28/11/2022

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,
LINK: https://www.sportsvideo.org/2022/11/28/bally-sports-southwest-grows-it...
See more stories from svg

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

07/10/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Media Operations from Ingest to Distribution

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

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

13/08/2026

LaLiga Renews Broadcast Agreements with ESPN and DSports in South America Through 2031/32

LaLiga has renewed broadcast agreements with ESPN and DSports covering Spanish-l...

13/08/2026

Rockstar Energy Open Builds Third Portland Show Around AI-Powered Vertical Feed, Remote Operators

Three days of skateboarding competitions, live music, and other programming will...

13/08/2026

IBC 2026: Matrox Video to Showcase IP and Software-Defined Technologies

Matrox Video will showcase its portfolio of IP and software-defined technologies at IBC2026 (Booth 7.B15, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14). The portfolio includ...

13/08/2026

IBC 2026: SMPTE to Present Sessions, Workshops, and Networking Events

SMPTE will present expert-led sessions, professional workshops, and networking events at IBC2026. The organization will be located in the IBC2026 Owner Pavilion...

13/08/2026

IBC 2026: Clear-Com to Showcase Communications Solutions

Clear-Com will exhibit at IBC2026 (Stand 10.D29, September 11-14, Amsterdam), showcasing FreeSpeak Cell, Avalon IP Station, updates to Arcadia Central Station, ...

13/08/2026

Advanced Systems Group Appoints Eran Binyamin Zeitoun as Senior Technical Program Manager

Advanced Systems Group (ASG) has appointed Eran Binyamin Zeitoun as Senior Techn...

13/08/2026

2026 SVG Venues & Teams Summit Heats Up Kaseya Center in Miami

Miami HEAT, Florida Panthers, Orlando Magic, University of Miami join leading vendors for a day of gameday-production talk in South Florida The 2026 SVG Venues...

13/08/2026

MLB at Field of Dreams Returns as Netflix Joins the Effort, Leans Into Cinematic Look at Newly Permanent Ballpark

NBC Sports is producing the Twins-Phillies game alongside the streamer, which is...

13/08/2026

IBC 2026: Oracle to Showcase Cloud Media Workflows

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) will exhibit at IBC2026 (Hall 5, Booth 5.A21, September 11-14, Amsterdam), demonstrating cloud-based workflows across low-late...

13/08/2026

IBC 2026: Dalet to Participate Accelerator Programme with AI Live Sports Workflow Demo

Dalet will participate in the IBC2026 Accelerator Media Innovation Programme, co...

13/08/2026

Cox Media Group Announces Local Broadcast Deals with Orlando Magic and Charlotte Hornets

Cox Media Group (CMG) has announced multi-year local broadcast rights agreements...

13/08/2026

Jnger Audio to Demonstrate Cloud-Based DTV+ Workflow at SET Expo 2026

J nger Audio will join Fraunhofer IIS and industry partners to showcase a cloud-based, DTV+-compliant workflow at SET Expo 2026 in S o Paulo, August 17-20. DTV+...

13/08/2026

IBC 2026: Olympic Broadcasting Services to Receive International Honour for Excellence

IBC has announced that Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) will receive the Inte...

13/08/2026

NESN Expands Red Sox Broadcast Distribution for Jimmy Fund Telethon

NESN has partnered with WSBK-TV38 to broadcast Boston Red Sox games on August 17 and 18 over the air, extending the reach of the 24th annual WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fun...

13/08/2026

LiveU and Panasonic LUMIX Launch Live Anywhere Mobile Production Workflow

LiveU and Panasonic LUMIX have announced the Live Anywhere workflow, demonstrated at NAB 2026 and InfoComm 2026 in collaboration with Social180Group. The work...

13/08/2026

IBC 2026: Chyron to Showcase Sports Workflow Solutions

Chyron will demonstrate its sports analysis, graphics, remote production, virtual production, and venue control solutions at IBC2026 (Booth 7.A23). This year...

13/08/2026

Ratings Roundup: Pro Football Hall of Fame Game Draws 7 Million During Quiet August for Sports

Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...

13/08/2026

ESPN/ABC, NBC/Peacock, Prime Video Set National Slates for Year 2 of NBA Rights Deal

Season tips off Oct. 20 and runs through April 11; Christmas Day, NBA Cup, All-S...

13/08/2026

VAEMI announce the Synterra

Company preview bio-interactive' synthesizer VAEMI have announced the upcoming launch of a new standalone bio-interactive' generative synthesizer....

13/08/2026

Ravine DSP update Inter::State

Plug-in host gains new Slot Scenes feature Ravine DSP have recently updated their innovative plug-in host, kitting it out with a new feature that brings yet...

13/08/2026

Tubi Media Group Partners with Gracenote to Unlock Additional Value in Content Discovery and Programmatic CTV Advertising

New Agreement Aims to Leverage Gracenote Infrastructure to Create More Relevant ...

13/08/2026

CMG Expands Local Sports Offering With Two NBA Deals

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

13/08/2026

Olympic Broadcasting Services to receive IBC2026 Internat...

IBC today announced that its most prestigious honour, the International Honour for Excellence (IHFE), will be presented to Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), ...

13/08/2026

Dalet Demonstrates the Future of AI-Orchestrated Live Spo...

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced its participation in the IBC2026 Accelerator Media Innovation Pro...

13/08/2026

dzjinius to showcase new dzjinius on-set application at I...

dzjinius, the all-in-one production management platform for the media and entertainment industry, will showcase its new application, dzjinius on-set , at IBC20...

13/08/2026

BCE Demonstrates Sovereign Cloud Media Workflows powered...

Broadcasting Center Europe (BCE), a leading European provider of media services, system integration and product development, will demonstrate an end-to-end sove...

13/08/2026

Clear-Com to Showcase Communications Solutions for Broadc...

Clear-Com is returning to IBC 2026, taking place September 11-14 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. At Stand 10.D29, Clear-Com will spotlight the award-winning FreeSpe...

13/08/2026

Leader to highlight advanced Test and Measurement solutio...

Test & measurement innovator, Leader Electronics of Europe, will showcase its comprehensive portfolio of Leader, PHABRIX and LeaderPhabrix test and measurement ...

13/08/2026

KRK Brings Advanced Wireless Control to Professional Monitoring With New V Series Five Studio MonitorsKRK Brings Advanced Wireless

KRK Brings Advanced Wireless Control to Professional Monitoring With New V Serie...

13/08/2026

Anthony Noack Captures Artist's Journey in Estonia with Blackmagic Design

Anthony Noack Captures Artist's Journey in Estonia with Blackmagic Design Brie Clayton August 12, 2026 0 Comments Solo filmmaker documents concept...

13/08/2026

ARRI Image Science makes its mobile debut in the HONOR Robot Phone

ARRI Image Science makes its mobile debut in the HONOR Robot Phone Brie Clayton August 12, 2026 0 Comments Hero image displays the HONOR Robot Phone, ...

13/08/2026

ASG Adds Eran Binyamin Zeitoun as Senior Technical Program Manager

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

13/08/2026

Vinten To Feature Manual, Robotic Camera Support Offerings At IBC 2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

13/08/2026

SMPTE Unveils IBC 2026 Plans

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

13/08/2026

IP Showcase on the Water Announces Schedule for IBC 2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

13/08/2026

Spectrum, Optimum Ink New Deals for News Carriage and Ads

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

13/08/2026

IAB Tech Lab Updates Privacy Standards

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

13/08/2026

Suitest Highlights New AI-Powered Device Testing and Qual...

Suitest's Test Automation Platform Simplifies Video Quality Assurance, Monitoring, and Device Certification Across the OTT Ecosystem At IBC2026, Suitest, a...

13/08/2026

Cinegy showcases powerful, agile, cost-effective media so...

Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, will have its key software solutions ready to demonstrate at SET Expo 2026 (18 20...

13/08/2026

Scripps Research establishes endowed chair honoring Peter K. Vogt, influential pioneer in cancer research

Scripps Research has established the Peter K. Vogt Endowed Chair, a new faculty ...

13/08/2026

New research offers fresh insights for how to make better vaccines

LA JOLLA, CA-A vaccine's molecular structure plays a key role in determining how the immune system responds and prepares to protect the body from future exp...

13/08/2026

Venera Technologies Showcases AI-Powered Innovations Across its Media QC Platform at IBC 2026

Venera Technologies Showcases AI-Powered Innovations Across its Media QC Platfor...

13/08/2026

Surviving Fred and Rose West: Inside Cromwell Street for U and U&W

New U and U&W Documentary Features Kathleen Richards, One of the Last Surviving Witnesses to Fred and Rose West Kathleen is Reunited with Childhood Friend and ...

13/08/2026

Official trailer released for the return of Tea with Judi Dench Coming to Sky Arts on 31st August

Thursday 13 August 2026 Official trailer released for the return of Tea with Ju...

13/08/2026

Dalet Demonstrates the Future of AI-Orchestrated Live Sports Workflows at IBC2026 Accelerator Programme

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

13/08/2026

Vale MP praises Wenvoe's broadcast role and engineering expertise

Wenvoe serves over 1 million people across South Wales 13 August 2026, Winchester, UK - Vale of Glamorgan MP, Kanishka Narayan, has praised the engineering exp...

13/08/2026

Event Marks New Season with the RT Concert Orchestra

RT 's Miriam O'Callaghan welcomed a range of specially invited guests to the National Concert Hall last week for a unique event to mark a new season wit...