The Sports Video Group:
Assisting Collegiate Athletics Grow through New Media
By Ken Kerschbaumer, Sports Video Group Editorial Director
As the use of broadband video continues to grow exponentially and the cost of HD production equipment continues to fall, the same question is facing every collegiate athletic conference: “How do we take advantage of new video production and distribution technologies to enhance the brand of our schools and drive athletic department revenues?” The Sports Video Group, in association with Collegiate Images, ESPNU, CBS College Sports Television, the Horizon League, and the Broadcast Education Association (BEA), is tackling this question and more with the launch of a new website this summer, SVGU.org.
Time and time again at industry tradeshows, media professionals hear the same questions from conference commissioners, athletic directors, sports information directors, team video coordinators, professors and even students. Common questions include, “What is the best way for my school to begin streaming video coverage of all athletic events and press conferences? What are the current successful revenue models? And how can our existing broadcast communications department serve as the backbone for the production while providing our students with a valuable real-world experience that will open doors to new careers?”
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Evolution of Sports Blogging
posted by gregg g. brandon
collegiate images vice president & general counsel
august 4, 2008 | 10:59 am | ci blogger
...students, alumni and fans agree, sports blogging is currently transforming the sports world the way sports talk radio has over the past decade. Passionate sports fans are no longer simply tuning in to Mike & Mike or Jim Rome for sports news and to offer their opinions, but are instead also visiting blogs such as www.deadspin.com, www.sbnation.com, and www.everdayshouldbesaturday.com for their daily sports fix.
...according to Technorati.com, as of July 2008, more than 112 million blogs have been created worldwide.Who is writing and reading these blogs? Your students, student-athletes, fans and alumni! Today, blogging is part of a large and growing trend referred to as “social networking” and is an accepted part of our daily media diet. With the opportunity for students, fans, and alumni to offer their own news, knowledge, insights, opinions and analysis to a community of likeminded individuals, sports blogging is here to stay and represents the next generation in sports marketing and sports publishing.
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The Importance of Content Preservation and Digitization
By Chris Kesicke, Collegiate Images Director of Partner Relations
Today’s technology, coupled with a world driven by content, has brought the demand for digital video to the forefront of the media industry. To date, many content owners have viewed the content digitization process as labor intensive, time consuming and cost prohibitive. Additionally, the constant evolution of technology has led content owners to be concerned about making an investment in preservation when the marketplace is still in a state of flux. While these concerns may appear to be difficult to overcome, the efficiencies and revenue potential created by digital preservation make the reward far greater than the risk.
As a collegiate content owner, it is easy to get overwhelmed by the magnitude and cost of preserving your entire library. However, digitization is not an “all of nothing” venture. Instead of dismissing library digitization as too time consuming or too expensive, consider breaking down the project into much more manageable tasks. Rather than attempting to digitize your full arsenal of video content at once, consider beginning the preservation process with your current season content. Digitizing and tagging your most recent content will allow your staff to become acclimated with the equipment and processes of digitization. Once the content is digitized, content can be searched and accessed through a digital asset management system based on the metadata that is included. A web based system will increase workplace efficiencies by allowing users to easily search and access the necessary video content for a variety of uses, including placement on the official athletic website, as well as the creation of originally produced programs. With digitized libraries, the days of scouring shelves of tapes to find a specific play from a specific game will be gone.
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The Top Companies You May Have Never Heard of that are Driving College Sports Content Distribution
By Daniel Scalia, Collegiate Images Account Manager
As traditional media channels reach the point of saturation, the market for premium and properly licensed content continues to grow at a rapid pace. In the world of online syndication and digital distribution, opportunities continue to present themselves in various consumer delivery methods and professionally produced content is readily available for consumption via a multitude of web based platforms. Over the past 8 months, numerous companies have utilized innovative business models to create non-traditional channels for content delivery.
As online video maintains its significance in the media licensing space, content delivery and viewer accessibility to collegiate content is becoming an important component for success. One of the most dominant players in the market today is Hulu. An online video portal created by News Corp. and NBC Universal, Hulu, has become one of the top ten video sites within its first three months of activation. With a vast library including CI’s College Sports Minute, Hulu has built a network dedicated to delivering high quality content to viewers via the Internet, while using advertisements as its primary source of revenue. This platform offers content providers the opportunity to maximize viewership while minimizing costs.
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Second Life
By Daniel Scalia, Collegiate Images Account Manager
The purpose behind many popular social networking sites is to build an online community through a controlled and entertaining social environment. The original idea behind the creation of Facebook and MySpace was, and continues to be, to connect with family and friends across the world through one specific networking location. The success of these social networking sites has led to a proliferation of other sites, and has caused many marketers and advertisers to experiment in the hopes of reaching a broad demographic audience that is using a single platform. As these social networks continue to dominate the online marketplace, new technologies have been developed with unique ideas and additional creativity. A new generation of social networking has been created in Second Life, where users create and develop images and personas that may or may not mirror reality.
Second Life is an immersive 3D virtual world that is built by its residents (users). As its namesake suggests, the community draws a parallel path to our current “real world” environment using its innovative technology and experience. Within the Second Life world, users are depicted as individual “avatars.” An avatar is a graphical image that represents a person on the Internet. In Second Life, avatars are fully customizable and are designed and controlled by the resident. The general notion is to build a parallel community and life around a resident’s avatar. Users are drawn to the unique characteristics that can develop in an avatar through their own personal motives. Some choose to create avatars that are analogous to reality, while others choose to create a completely different identity in this online world. Once created, avatars are then able to communicate with one another through an online messaging service. Before joining Second Life, the user has the option to view several pre-established communities and residents. Second life is conceptually similar to the real world. Avatars can build or purchase homes, have jobs, go shopping, attend concerts and watch television. Essentially, all real world activities have a counterpart within this virtual world.
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