Saturday Games Join Playoff Coverage

November 8, 2017

By John Johnson
MHSAA Director of Broadcast Properties
 

A pair of games Saturday (Nov. 11) have been added to the online live video coverage of the MHSAA Football Playoffs – powered by the Michigan Army National Guard – and produced by participants in the association’s School Broadcast Program.
 
A Division 5 Regional Final pitting Algonac at Frankenmuth will be produced by the SBP at Montrose High School, and a Division 6 matchup with Ithaca at Montague will be covered by Cedar Springs High School. Both games will be live on MHSAA.tv at 1 p.m.
 
A month’s subscription to watch live on MHSAA.tv is $9.95, which allows access to the full schedule of MHSAA Tournaments during the month of November:

  • Nov. 16-17 – Girls Volleyball Semifinals & Finals
  • Nov. 18 – Lower Peninsula Girls Swimming & Diving Finals
  • Nov. 18 – Football Playoff Semifinals (12 games)

Those games will join the third week of games on the PrepZone on FoxSportsDetroit.com and FOX Sports GO! on Friday (Nov. 11) at 7 p.m.:

  • West Bloomfield at Utica Eisenhower (Div. 1)
  • Traverse City Central at Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central (Div. 2)
  • Riverview at Dearborn Divine Child (Div. 3)
  • Grand Rapids West Catholic at Portland (Div. 5)

The Riverview at Dearborn Divine Child game will receive bonus coverage, streaming live on the Fox Sports Detroit Facebook page. 
 
All PrepZone games will be archived on MHSAA.tv.
 
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. Pixellot is used by schools wishing to stream games but which lack the ability to staff the events. The SBP program also gives schools the opportunity to raise money through advertising and viewing subscriptions.

All sporting events – Live or On-Demand - 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.

A complete list of participating schools can be found on the School Broadcast Program page of the MHSAA website.

Schools interested in becoming a part of the School Broadcast Program should contact John Johnson at the MHSAA Office.

This week’s highlights package on MHSAA.tv comes from last weekend’s Boys Soccer Finals.
  

Highlights of playoff games this weekend will be featured on the State Champs! High School Sports Show on FOX Sports Detroit at 9 a.m. Sunday - with multiple replays on FOX Sports Detroit and Comcast Channel 900 throughout the week. The weekly program is also archived on the State Champs YouTube Channel. Consult your local listings for additional playback times.
 
Here are some of the playoff games to be featured this week on the State Champs! High School Sports Show:

  • Traverse City Central at Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central
  • Riverview at Dearborn Divine Child
  • Grand Rapids West Catholic at Portland
  • Detroit Catholic Central at Canton
  • Ithaca at Montague
  • Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central at Madison Heights Madison
  • West Bloomfield at Utica Eisenhower
  • Williamston at Escanaba
  • Algonac at Frankenmuth
  • Jackson Lumen Christi at Watervliet

The MHSAA also has content on the State Champs Scoreboard! High School Radio Show on Friday nights during the football and basketball seasons, originating on WXYT-FM (97.1) in Detroit and carried on more than 10 radio stations across the state. This Week In High School Sports and Be The Referee are weekly features on the program.

MHSAA.tv Live Postseason Views Approach 1 Million for 2020-21

By Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor

July 14, 2021

Live postseason events streamed on MHSAA.tv during the 2020-21 school year were viewed nearly 1 million times, with 15 events drawing more than 10,000 live views apiece. 

The final championship weekend of the Spring – featuring Girls Soccer Finals and Baseball and Softball Semifinals & Finals, all across four divisions June 17-19 at Michigan State University – saw nearly 70,000 live views on MHSAA.tv despite record attendance of those events at Old College Field. 

The Division 2 Softball championship game – which ended with Owosso claiming its first Finals title in any sport, drew a weekend-high 5,677 live views on the network. The previous weekend, the Division 1 Girls Lacrosse Final won by Rockford on June 12 led the way with 4,284 live views.

The total number of live postseason views on MHSAA.tv for 2020-21 was 962,371. The most-viewed live tournament events were the Individual and Team Wrestling Finals, which with all rounds over all four divisions combined drew 244,044 live views. Among individual games broadcast solely by MHSAA.tv, the Division 3 Boys Basketball Semifinal matching Iron Mountain and Schoolcraft (15,393 live views) and the Division 1 Volleyball Semifinal featuring Novi and Lowell (13,484) ranked among the most watched.

MHSAA.tv is a partner of the NFHS Network. Postseason events streamed on MHSAA.tv included most sports’ Finals, and Semifinals and Quarterfinals for some – especially sports where multiple concluding rounds were hosted by the same tournament site.

MHSAA.tv also ranked second among NFHS Network contributing states with 18,973 live events (postseason and regular-season combined) streamed during the 2020-21 school year. That total of nearly 19,000 live postseason events was an increase from 7,710 events streamed live during 2019-20 and 3,900 during 2018-19, and placed Michigan behind only Illinois.

The School Broadcast Program is responsible for nearly all production of regular-season events. Having now concluded its 13th year, the SBP 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. Rockford – one of the state’s largest schools with nearly 2,500 students – broadcast 242 events, drawing an SBP-high 74,437 live views and 89,604 total with on-demand replays included. Much smaller Pewamo-Westphalia, a school of 300 students, received the second-most views of SBP members in 2020-21 with 56,009 including live and on-demand. Marquette, Lake Orion, Cedar Springs, Montrose and McBain also were among top SBP providers.

In addition to bringing local events on air nationally, the School Broadcast Program gives schools the opportunity to raise money through advertising and viewing subscriptions. NFHS Network subscriptions begin at $10.99 per month. Subscribers receive access to all live and on-demand video from across the country. School Broadcast Program participants receive a portion of every subscription sold by a school to benefit its program.

Broadcasts from the majority of Michigan schools – especially those lacking the ability to staff events for production – are streamed using a Pixellot automated camera. Michigan schools have 774 Pixellots in service, third-most in the country behind only Texas and California. Most Michigan schools have one camera at an outdoor stadium and a second at the main indoor gymnasium.

A complete list of participating schools can be found on the School Broadcast Program page of the MHSAA Website.