Difficult Conversations: How College Video-Production Pros Can Manage Interdepartmental Expectations in Busy Months To Come All you can do Is the best you can do,' says Penn State's Jim Nachtman By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Tuesday, December 29, 2020 - 2:00 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Crossover season.
Those words can strike fear in any college athletics administrator - or, at least, cause them to cringe a little.
Although most in college sports-video production will be overjoyed to see the return of the sports that have been shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic, an ominous cloud hangs over that joy: if and when fall sports get their chance to play in 2021 - in either the winter or the spring - collegiate athletics is staring at the crossover season to end all crossover seasons.
At Clemson University, the front bench produces a live softball game in February.
For example, Jim Nachtman, assistant athletics director, media and video production, Penn State University, expects that, at some point this winter/spring, the Nittany Lions could have as many as 30 intercollegiate athletics programs competing simultaneously.
Many live-video-production departments (or individuals) within athletic departments around the country have set themselves up over the years so that they are capable of broadcasting and/or streaming hundreds of live games per year for basketball, soccer, softball, baseball, volleyball, field hockey, and other programs. However, with so many programs expected to be competing at once, it doesn't take much math to see that the numbers don't add up. Resources will be at a premium in collegiate athletics during the first half of 2021.
There are some [athletic departments] that are lucky enough to have four or five control rooms on campus, says Nachtman. Even that's not going to be enough to do 30 multicamera shows at the same time. Somebody is getting a single-camera stream with nat sound' and OBS for clock and score. It's about establishing expectations. That's going to be huge come the winter and spring.
All you can do is the best you can do, he continues. We can do anything, but we can't do everything.
University of Central Florida's John Kvatek: It's not that we want to say no. This isn't a normal year. Everybody is going to have to be a little bit equally unhappy.
That is a difficult prospect for collegiate sports-video-production professionals themselves. Many are ambitious by nature and have grown to love their ability to shine a light on many of the non-revenue sports their departments support. Saying no isn't easy, but it's about being realistic.
It's not that we want to say no, explains John Kvatek, associate athletic director, multimedia and creative, University of Central Florida. We'd love to have five-camera productions of every sport and be at every venue, but we've got only two control rooms. We've got only so many cameras. There's only so many students. There's only so many hours in the day.
In a different era, he continues, I might be able to tell you that we can meet you halfway on some things. But this isn't a normal year. We're down 40% of staff right now. Students are off campus [doing] remote learning. There's still all of these restrictions. So everybody is going to have to be a little bit equally unhappy.
As someone who oversees live or creative athletics-video production on your campus, what can do you? The answer, as always, lies in open communication.
You need to be communicating with your athletic directors and the key stakeholders, Nachtman says, making sure that they understand that if, hopefully, things start to lighten up and we get students back on campus, with all of these competitions going on, expectations have to be different.
Kvatek advises that those conversations, if they haven't started already, need to begin in earnest. Don't be caught flat-footed when winter sports schedules begin to be finalized and expectations haven't been set.
We've been prepping those conversations for months, he notes. My boss is very understanding, he listens, and he's realistic. He has already been talking to the sport administrators. We've had multiple months where we've been saying, When this breaks loose, not everybody is going to get everything, and we're all going to be equally unhappy.' That's the goal: equity in this situation is that everyone is equally unhappy.
Penn State University's Jim Nachtman: We can do anything, but we can't do everything.
Although it's common to prioritize certain event days to maximize programs' valuable exposure to recruits, current students, alumni, and donors, it's more critical than ever right now to ensure that programs have, at least, a say in what they hope to achieve from a video perspective.
Go to each program and ask, what is your most important home series? says Nachtman. That's the series we will commit to a full production, and another program might have to get a single-camera stream. You might need an administrator to help you sit down with the coach and do it together. You might be looking at [the schedule], and they might say, This game is big right here because it's the one recruits are going to watch, alums are going to watch, someone who might give us money is going watch, a corporate partner that [we] care about is going to want to be associated with it.'
He also suggests simply asking a coach what the most important thing is to them. Coaches value different things. Perhaps a certain coach prefers creative video for social-media distribution over 20-25 full live games. That could allow you to change your allocation of resources and utilize the creative and marketi
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
31/08/2025
Legrand | AV, a global specialist and industry leader in audiovisual solutions, returns to CEDIA Expo 2025, taking place Sept. 4-6 in Denver, with a powerful li...
31/08/2025
Global media technology company Backlight will unveil new capabilities in its Iconik, Wildmoka, and Zype product lines at IBC2025 (booth #1.D09), September 12 1...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
Difficult Conversations: How College Video-Production Pros Can Manage Interdepartmental Expectations in Busy Months To Come All you can do Is the best you can do,' says Penn State's Jim Nachtman By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
