| By: Carolyn Braff, Managing Editor | Published: August 10, 2009 |
Nearly 300 colleges and universities nationwide take part in intercollegiate athletics outside of the jurisdiction of the NCAA. Until this season, student-athletes competing under the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) have, for the most part, been off the national broadcast radar. Thanks to College Fanz Sports Network, however, a different pair of schools will enjoy some national coverage every week throughout the 2009 football season, during the inaugural season of the NAIA Football Game of the Week.
The brainchild of ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen, College Fanz Sports Network is expanding its three-year-old online college-sports community with video offerings, starting with one live NAIA football broadcast each week. The games will all be available free of charge at www.CollegeFanz.com.
“The NAIA just doesn’t get very much exposure — you might even say none — from a TV point of view,” Rasmussen says. “We’ll go to each campus, and it will be an event when we come in. Our van is all wrapped with College Fanz branding, and sponsors and the students otherwise don’t get to experience this.”
The game broadcast, complete with pre- and post-game shows produced live on location, will use nine cameras housed in a modified 16-foot Wells Cargo trailer, which serves as an innovative mobile broadcasting unit.
“Everything today is miniaturized, so we’ve outfitted a van with a production trailer,” Rasmussen explains. “Our van carries nine cameras, and we’ll do pre-game, halftime, and post-game shows. We’re going to do real, live television on all of these campuses.”
Nine Canon XL2 lightweight cameras are on board the College Fanz Van, along with a NewTek TriCaster and thousands of feet of cable. NAIA campuses are not as television-ready as the top-flight NCAA arenas, but every campus that will host the College Fanz productions will enable Rasmussen’s team to tap into the campus network to stream the games live online. The broadcasts will be produced in 16:9 SD.
“We’re going to do an NAIA game-day pre-game show, which will be a mini version of what ESPN does,” Rasmussen explains. “But, for the kids who never get to see television cameras or all the signs around the field and people paying attention to them, it’s pretty exciting.”
Rasmussen will serve as executive producer for the NAIA Football Game of the Week. Jason Dannelly, a veteran NAIA sports commentator and director of college relations for College Fanz, will produce and provide color commentary, while John Thayer will do play-by-play. Brandi Benson and Adam Maser will host the pre- and post-game shows, and director Wade Tracy and associate director Bret Beachner round out the production team.
The entire operation is centrally located and highly mobile — the College Fanz Van can sleep four when not being used for broadcast purposes — allowing for the utmost flexibility in game schedules.
“Our production group is centered and based in Grand Island, NE, which is not quite the center of the country, but it’s pretty close,” Rasmussen says, adding, “We can go in any direction from there.”
College Fanz also has studio space in Grand Island, so the network’s other video feature, a new daily offering titled The College Fanz Report, can be produced either from the studio or on the road.
“We have four guys and one young lady that will do their own set of daily reports because they all have different opinions and they’re covering different topics,” Rasmussen says. “We’ve got volleyball and soccer and field hockey and lots of other sports to cover through the reports, as well as any breaking news in the NAIA and also in NCAA Divisions I, II, and III. We can go in any direction that we want.”
The 2009 football schedule is set, with 21 games slated to be played at campuses from California to Georgia. For basketball season, the schedule is a bit more flexible. “Who knows who’s going to get on a winning streak,” Rasmussen says. “We’ll be able to go and do their games.”
The member institutions of the NAIA, which puts a premium on displaying character and respect in athletics alongside academics, tend to be smaller than NCAA schools, but the competition among them is just as fierce.
“When you get two NAIA teams playing for a conference title, it’s going to be an entertaining afternoon, and we’re giving them a visibility that they’ve never had before,” Rasmussen explains. “I know CBS does one game a year, but nobody’s ever paid attention to the NAIA on this level. It’s not broadcast television yet, but it’s a step in the right direction. Coming to campus with all the colorful vans and cameras and all of the hoopla that goes with putting on the telecast becomes a big event at a small school.”
The inaugural NAIA Football Game of the Week kicks off Saturday Aug. 29 with the first-ever meeting between Avila University, Kansas City, MO, and Doane College, Crete, NE, at 2 p.m. ET.
Related Stories
Sponsor Microsite Spotlight
Sponsor Microsites
Team SVG
