Sports media students to air live pregame broadcast every Friday
Associate professor Galen Clavio noticed a change in the hiring landscape for sports media graduates.
It’s becoming more difficult for students to get starting positions broadcasting games, so Clavio pitched an idea to the athletics department for students to gain experience with those specific skills: a weekly, student-produced pregame show using the resources of the Mark Cuban Center for Sports Media and Technology.
The idea stuck. On Friday, The Media School, in partnership with the Cuban Center, produced the first Big Ten Student U Pregame Show, which will be broadcast to IU fans every Friday night.
“I’ve always believed that what separates broadcasters, particularly in their 20s, is repetition,” Clavio said. “One of the things I like most about game broadcast is there is no going back and doing it over again. You have to just ride the tiger, and if you get it right, you get it right, and if you don’t get it right, it’s a learning experience that hopefully you process and figure out for next time.”
Each week, interns from the Cuban Center, including sophomore Kinsey Browning, senior Joshua Smith and junior Christian Luna, help with the production of the show on Facebook Live. With the supervision of senior technologist Brian Hulley, they operate the audio and Wirecast live video streaming technology.
The content of the show is created by sports broadcast students at The Media School. Students write new scripts each week and create packages to appear on the show. The sport featured each week will rotate, as will the anchors hosting the show. Two anchors from a core team of six appear on the show each week, presenting their content to the fans.
“It’s a really great coequal partnership because it allows (the Cuban Center) to focus on the production of the show without having to worry about getting people ready to do the show, and it allows us to basically do the exact opposite,” Clavio said.
This past week, junior Zain Pyarali and senior Griffin Weinberg anchored the show before the men’s soccer game against San Francisco. After being involved with Big Ten Student U throughout college, Clavio contacted them both about getting involved with the pregame show. Both agreed without hesitation.
“What we have here is pretty outstanding,” Pyarali said. “We have a full room with a green screen and the production, so I don’t see why this wouldn’t propel us to the top. This has a lot of potential.”
Getting to use top-notch production equipment is only one selling point to joining the pregame show team. Real-life experience and learning how to react to live broadcasting mishaps is another.
“I came in here not knowing what I was doing at all as a freshman, but now I’m doing this with Zain, and when something breaks down at the last second, we can still have fun with it and feel comfortable in that position,” Weinberg said. “The program here is really good, and Galen does a good job of working with everyone and trying to get them to be the best broadcasters they can be.”
The Big Ten Student U Pregame Show is a place for sports broadcasting students to aspire to get to, as well as somewhere experienced students can fine-tune the skills they have acquired during their time in The Media School.
“Learning the impulse of having to do it live and having to have an audience that you’re accountable to, I think that that’s a cornerstone to being successful in any form of media,” Clavio said.
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