For the last eight years the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) has been streaming high school sporting events on their network.
Now, the NFHS is stepping up their game giving away two Pixellot automated cameras to every school in the country to allow for streaming on their web site.
"Currently five thousand of these cameras are out nationwide," Mark Koski, NFHS Network CEO said. "We will have double that come the fall. We are cranking them out with this new announcement."
Grand Rapids Christian has been using one at the Quest Center for the last year and a half and the staff there says it has been beneficial for coaches as much as anything.
"Coaches can program it themselves if they want to video their own practices," Jason Heerema, Grand Rapids Christian Athletic Director said. "They also use it to video their games so they don't have to tape their home games anymore, upload directly to whatever program their using to share their videos and be able to analyze and critique their games so it has been a very positive addition for us."
The cameras cost five thousand dollars a piece. Schools will be charged only an installation fee of $1,250 per camera.
The fee for access to the NHFS Network's entire library is $10.99 per month. Ten percent of that goes to the schools.
The way it's going, even at the high school level, people want content when it comes to sports.
"It is getting there were fans are expecting to see the game on their phone," Koski said. "They can't make it, they want to watch it on their phone."
Grand Rapids Christian athletic director Jason Heerema says the benefits have been great, but there is some extra work involved.
"You will need a good tech department to help you," Heerema said. "They'll do the initial installation but you need people to help you with the trouble shooting. And you will also need to create some time to be able to enter all the games in, double check them, make sure that you are adjusting them as you have to adjust game times and dates and whatnot."
While no decisions have been made about sports for the upcoming school year, if games are played with limited or no spectators, the ability to stream games will be important.
