Big Ten Program Streams Work By UO Students From Coast to Coast
09/23/24 | General
Through the Big Ten's "StudentU" program, UO video production and broadcasting students are playing significant roles in streaming content for the B1G+ service.
When Brody Napier was a kid growing up in Bakersfield, Calif., he heard Vin Scully doing play-by-play for Los Angeles Dodgers baseball games and had a revelation: I want to do that one day.
Fast forward a few years. Recently a friend of Napier's back in Southern California was watching a B1G+ stream of Oregon volleyball, and she too had a revelation: I know that voice.
Just a few years after being inspired by Scully to pursue sports broadcasting, Napier is a sophomore journalism major at the University of Oregon. And through the Big Ten Conference's StudentU program, he's one of close to 500 current students around the conference contributing to live streams of Big Ten sporting events — as Napier's friend took notice of when watching Oregon volleyball earlier this month.
"She was watching a game with family — they're big volleyball fans — and she was saying, 'I swear I recognize that voice from somewhere,' " Napier related in a phone interview on Sept. 18, while traveling north on I-5 to call the UO volleyball match at Portland State that evening. "When the broadcast was coming to a close and I was saying, 'This has been Brody Napier for Big Ten Plus,' she was like, 'Oh my gosh!' "
Oregon Athletics for the past several years has employed students both in front of and behind the camera and microphone for live streams and broadcasts of Ducks events. But their experiences and development have received a boost as of this fall by the university's move to the Big Ten, bringing Oregon's video and broadcasting department under the umbrella of StudentU.
Equipment has been brought up to date. Feedback from professionals at the conference level is more consistent and robust. And exposure has been magnified by the coast-to-coast footprint of the Big Ten.
"Just like our athletic teams, we too want to be the best school for production," said Scott Labounty, UO associate athletic director for broadcasting and video. "We do everything we can to support our teams and our fans by giving them a product to watch from anywhere. Our first-ever high-level stream for the conference has already been selected to be re-aired on the Big Ten Network — which is quite sure that no other school had ever done that before."
Indeed, the athletic department's production of Oregon soccer's win Sept. 8 over Sacramento State, originally produced as a B1G+ stream, re-aired on the Big Ten Network a few days later. On the call for the game as it re-aired on a network available in tens of millions of households around the country were two student voices of campus radio station KWVA, Jonah Bruneau and Isaac Dubey.
KWVA also produced a standard audio broadcast that day, with UO senior Lily Crane on the call. Earlier in the season, such as Oregon soccer's season opener Aug. 15, Crane's call was simulcast — her voice was utilized both by KWVA for its audio broadcast, and by B1G+ to accompany its stream.
"I put on a recap of the game and it's like, oh, my name's on the screen," Crane recalled. "It was a bit of a cool moment. The first game was a little bit overwhelming, because the Big Ten was posting clips and my voice is on it, and there's like 15,000 views. I had friends and family re-posting me, and I haven't really had that experience as a broadcaster."
One aspect of the StudentU program is its annual Lisa Byington Award, presented to the program's most outstanding female broadcaster, for which Crane hopes to contend. And she has better resources with which to do so. When she was setting up her work station for the first soccer match of the year, Crane could already feel a difference from the soccer and lacrosse matches she broadcast the year before.
"We have some new equipment, we get to see video monitors — it's a little fancier, and it feels more professional," Crane said. "Which is definitely fun and helpful as a broadcaster."
The technology investments made by the Big Ten have been felt off-camera as well.
Caden Kesselring is a UO senior who began broadcasting at West Linn High School, then transitioned to the production room in college. He worked on broadcasts for Eugene's Lane United FC and for major track meets like the 2022 World Championships at Hayward Field, before starting an internship under Labounty with UO athletics.
"Once the Big Ten came around, we got a lot of new equipment, a lot more money," Kesselring said. "We had to re-learn everything we do; I usually do graphics, and we have all new graphics software, like what you see for FOX's college football games. As my boss says, there's a lot more you can do — but a lot more you can mess up on."
The Big Ten makes sure its StudentU broadcasts are educational experiences, though. Kesselring checks in with the conference before and after games, for input and feedback on his graphics packages. After Crane calls a game, she said, she receives a list of three things she executed well, and three elements that could be improved.
Everyone involved in streams and broadcasts from years past took pride in their quality, and maintained that Oregon's work compared favorably with any other school in the country. At the same time, they appreciate the investment by the Big Ten to provide feedback and raise the level of quality even further.
"I know I'm far from perfect, and I just want to absorb as much as I can from people who've been there and done that," Napier said. "That's how you improve; you don't improve by hearing you did awesome. You improve by hearing, here's what you need to work on."
Each summer, the Big Ten invites StudentU participants to apply for its BTN NOW program, which brings students to Chicago for training with Big Ten Network professionals that builds on the skills acquired and honed through StudentU. The Network has hired dozens of BTN NOW participants to work on its live productions, and helped many others find jobs with networks, teams and universities.
Oregon's video and broadcasting team has its own track record of developing talent for professional organizations, college teams and TV networks; this past summer, former UO intern Gabriel Inocente was selected for BTN NOW, leading to a full-time position at Northwestern. Going forward, the UO video and broadcasting team's roster of distinguished alums only figures to grow given the participation with StudentU.
"You can tell with some other schools' broadcasts, they just don't have the quality we do," Kesselring said. "So I think that's a huge head start for someone that's in the program, going into the real world."
