MHSAA TV Kickoff Returns Highlights
August 22, 2017
By John Johnson
MHSAA Director of Broadcast Properties
Weekly statewide football highlights return to cable viewers across Michigan in 2017, with the Michigan High School Athletic Association and the State Champs! Sports Network teaming up to launch “MHSAA Extra Point” beginning this week.
The half hour program will feature highlights from more than a dozen games each week, including clips from games produced by MHSAA School Broadcast Program members. Lorne Plant and Daniella Bruce from the State Champs! Sports Network will host the show, which will air multiple times each weekend on FOX Sports Detroit and Comcast Channel 900 and be archived on the State Champs YouTube Channel. Consult your local listings for additional playback times.
Here is the projected list of games to be featured on this week’s first edition of MHSAA Extra Point:
- Belleville vs. Brighton at Ann Arbor
- DeWitt at Grand Rapids Christian
- Walled Lake Western vs. West Bloomfield at Detroit
- Davison vs. Southfield A&T at Detroit
- Rockford vs. Saline at Ann Arbor
- Rapid River vs. Powers North Central
- Lowell vs. Warren De La Salle at Detroit
- Detroit U-D Jesuit at Birmingham Brother Rice
- Ishpeming vs. Iron Mountain
- Byron at Montrose
- Lake Orion at Clinton Township Chippewa Valley
- Bay City Western at Traverse City Central
- Bay City John Glenn at Freeland
The MHSAA also will have a presence on State Champs! Network programming throughout each weekend with the “MHSAA Minute” making its debut on this Sunday’s (Aug. 26) edition of the weekly State Champs! High School Sports Show on FOX Sports Detroit at 9 a.m., with multiple replays on FOX Sports Detroit and Comcast Channel 900 throughout the week. The program also will be archived on the State Champs YouTube Channel. Consult your local listings for additional playback times.
This week’s MHSAA Minute is the first of a three-part series on football rules changes for 2017; the first edition talks about blind side blocks. The MHSAA also will have content on the State Champs Scoreboard! High School Football Radio Show on Friday nights during the football and basketball seasons, originating on WXYT-FM (97.1) in Detroit and being carried on more than 10 radio stations across the state.
The MHSAA.tv Website starts the 2017 football season in a big way this week, with the NFHS Network streaming 14 games over three days from the Vehicle City Gridiron Classic at Flint’s Atwood Stadium on Thursday (Aug. 24), the West Michigan Sports Commission Gridiron Classic at Grand Valley State University on Saturday (Aug. 26), and all three days of the Prep Kickoff Classic at Wayne State University, running Thursday through Saturday. The first two days of coverage at the PKC will be produced by the NFHS Network; Saturday’s games will be a live stream produced by Comcast to air on a delayed basis on Channel 900.
Topping off the weekend’s streaming activity will be a number of games produced by MHSAA School Broadcast Program members – including the first gridiron and volleyball events in Michigan to be streamed with a new product from the NFHS Network.
In its ninth year, the School Broadcast Program gives members an opportunity to showcase excellence in their schools by creating video programming of athletic and non-athletic events, with students gaining skills in announcing, camera operation, directing/producing and graphics. The program also gives schools the opportunity to raise money through advertising and viewing subscriptions.
A number of new schools are joining the program using an automated production solution – Pixellot – which was first installed in Michigan earlier this year at Otisville Lakeville. Most Pixellot schools will install their first unit in the gymnasium, but several schools – Novi, Freeland, Plainwell, Norway and Ovid-Elsie – also are installing a second unit at multi-purpose fields to cover sports like football, soccer and lacrosse. The Pixellot system requires only that a schedule be entered online to cover an event, making things like a basketball double or tripleheader easy to stream without staffing worries.
Freeland will use Pixellot to live stream a volleyball match with Bay City Western on Thursday at 1 p.m., followed by a football game against Bay City John Glenn at 7 p.m. Other Pixellot schools are Calumet, Fremont, Harrison, Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest and Otisville Lakeville.
All sporting events – live or delayed - are available on a subscription basis only for their first 72 hours online. They become available for free, on-demand viewing approximately 72 hours following their completion.
Here’s this week’s MHSAA.tv schedule of video streams being produced by SBP members:
Tuesday, Aug. 22
- Boys Soccer - Haslett at East Lansing – 6:30 p.m. (On-Demand)
Wednesday Aug. 23
- Freshman Football – Grand Rapids Northview at Comstock Park – 4:30 p.m.
- Junior Varsity Football – Grand Rapids Northview at Comstock Park – 6 p.m.
Thursday, Aug. 24
- Football – Vehicle City Gridiron Classic – Flint
- Goodrich vs. Burton Bendle – 1 p.m.
- Flushing vs Linden – 4 p.m.
- Flint Carman-Ainsworth vs. Grand Blanc – 7 p.m.
- Prep Kickoff Classic – Detroit
- Walled Lake Western vs. West Bloomfield – 4 p.m.
- Davison vs. Southfield – 7 p.m.
- Girls Volleyball – Bay City Western at Freeland – 1 p.m. - Pixellot
- Football – Byron at Montrose – 7 p.m.
- Football – Lake Orion at Clinton Township Chippewa Valley – 7 p.m.
- Football – Bay City John Glenn at Freeland – 7 p.m. – Pixellot
- Football – Bay City Western at Traverse City Central – 7 p.m.
- Football – Haslett at Fowlerville - 7 p.m.
Friday, Aug. 25
- Prep Kickoff Classic – Detroit
- Almont vs. Grosse Ile – 4 p.m.
- Lowell vs. Warren DeLaSalle – 7 p.m.
Saturday, Aug. 26
- West Michigan Sports Commission Gridiron Classic – Allendale
- Grand Rapids NorthPointe Christian vs. Spring Lake – 10:30 a.m.
- East Kentwood vs. Macomb L'Anse Creuse North – 1:30 p.m.
- Kent City vs. Ravenna – 4:30 p.m.
- Greenville vs. North Farmington – 7:30 p.m.
- Prep Kickoff Classic – Detroit
- River Rouge vs. East English Village Prep – 12 p.m.
- Oak Park vs. Utica Eisenhower – 3 p.m.
- Detroit Martin Luther King vs. Indianapolis Cathedral – 6 p.m.
Tuesday, Aug. 29
- Boys Soccer - Grand Rapids West Catholic at Comstock Park – 6:45 p.m.
Wednesday, Aug. 30
- JV Boys Soccer – Whitehall at Plainwell – 4 p.m.
- Freshman Football – Breckenridge at Freeland – 4:30 p.m. – Pixellot
- Boys Soccer – Whitehall at Plainwell – 5:45 p.m.
- Junior Varsity Football – Chesaning at Freeland – 6 p.m. - Pixellot
NFHS Network subscriptions begin at $9.95 per month. Subscribers will have access to all live video and streaming statistics across the country. All content becomes available for free, on- demand viewing 72 hours after being shown live. School Broadcast Program participants will also be selling Season and Annual Passes at a discounted rate. A portion of every subscription sold by a school goes to benefit its program.
A complete list of participating schools can be found on the School Broadcast Program page of the MHSAA website.
Ford Field Trip Gives Students Taste of Football Finals Broadcasting
By
Jon Ross
MHSAA Director of Broadcast Properties
December 7, 2021
Four levels above them, in the press box, a group of prospective broadcasters were touring the facilities. The high school students had spent the Fall sports season streaming games to the NFHS Network and now were learning about a career in broadcasting from Eric Vandefifer, a Montrose High grad currently serving as the radio voice of Saginaw Valley State University basketball and as a contributor to a variety of high school broadcast channels including the MHSAA Network.
Seven years ago, Vandefifer was in a similar situation. He was part of a field trip to Ford Field for the Finals that helped him realize sports broadcasting was a career he wanted to pursue. Those field trips were headed by Tom Skinner and Thom Lengyel, who became mentors to Vandefifer. As a high school junior in 2017, Vandefifer was named Best Student Broadcaster nationally by the NFHS Network.
“With Tom Skinner now deceased and Thom Lengyel retired from the broadcast business, I just felt like I had to continue this and their legacy,” Vandefifer said. “It was important to me to keep it going because when I was in school, it was something I looked forward to.”
Nearly 50 students from Lowell, Montrose, Lake Orion, Mount Pleasant and Ann Arbor Greenhills high schools made the Nov. 26-27 trip to Ford Field. They were able to film highlights, interview players, practice announcing the games, meet other members of the press and more. For Vandefifer, giving back to students who are in the position he once was is very rewarding.
“We had the ability to feel like real media members for a day. I wanted to be able to give other students that same opportunity,” Vandefifer said. “Seeing kids who have a love for sportscasting and that drive to get better gives me real hope for the next generation in this business.”
And after the field trips were done each day, Vandefifer put his headphones on, got behind the microphone and called the two afternoon games for the MHSAA Championship Network.
PHOTOS (Top) Eighth grader Sam Belill, left, and freshman Owen Leitelt from Montrose practice calling a game from the Ford Field press box. (Middle) Mount Pleasant make a stop at the press conference room. (Photos provided by the Montrose and Mount Pleasant School Broadcast Programs.)