NSC Minnesota Stars Streaming Issues
For those of you who tuned into watch the live stream of the NSC Minnesota Stars vs. Fort Lauderdale Strikers Saturday evening, you were most likely frustrated to find out there was no stream. I’m sure the frustration was particularly bad for those of you who attended watch parties in Florida.
The NASL and Djorn Buchholz, CEO of the Stars, released a statement that isn’t on the Stars website but can be found on the NASL website. I’ll include his statement and then follow that with a few comments of my own since I was hanging around the press box on Saturday evening when this all went down – literally.
Statement on Web Streaming of Minnesota vs Fort Lauderdale
Posted on Sat, May 7, 2011
Due to technical difficulties, the scheduled internet broadcast of the NSC Minnesota Stars vs. Fort Lauderdale Strikers North American Soccer League match will be unavailable. A last-minute internet outage at NSC Stadium left the webcast unable to continue.
“Since our club began webcasting in 2010, we’ve taken pride in the quality of our product, and we’re embarrassed by the failure to deliver tonight,” said Stars CEO Djorn Buchholz. “As a club, we would like to apologize, particularly to Strikers fans who had tuned in to see their team in action on the road. We will take corrective measures to ensure the stability of our stadium web connections in the future so that we can continue to broadcast a high quality web stream.”
The Stars continued with the plans to film the game and will make the complete game footage available on the club’s website, NSCMinnesota.com.
My comments:
The Minnesota Stars have contracted with the National Sports Center (NSC) to do the webcasting of the games for the 2011 season. As most of you know the NSC did a fine job last season of their webcasting. In fact their broadcasts were some of the best in the league except for those that had a local TV contract and used that feed for the game.
From what I was told there was some work done to the internet lines in the press box this past week after having the internet go down for the media in the box the previous weekend. To be clear, the internet line is separate for the media from the live stream, which I was told is a dedicated line. I was also told everything was tested but evidently it didn’t get fully tested because when it came time to stream live on Saturday night they could not make a connection.
I don’t know all the details but I was told at some point they had to make a decision to record the game so others could watch it later or just continue to try to get the stream going. They pulled the plug on the stream and went with recording the game. Those in charge of the NSC live stream were working quite hard trying to get the problem solved. But those were production people and the real problem seemed to lie in the fact there wasn’t an IT person on call and readily available if this sort of problem arose. An IT person did finally show up at the stadium after the first half and got the stream running about half way through the second half.
It seems it should go without saying that the NSC should have an IT person on call at all times for home games, who is able to get to the Stadium in short order should there be issues before a game. Lines should be tested before every broadcast and if something were to happen before or during the game that person needs to be able to be there to solve those issues in short order. Yes, I’m sure that’s expensive. But it’s important if the NASL and its teams are seriously trying to look as professional as possible, as Commissioner Downs stated in an interview last week with IMS. This should be a requirement for every team’s streaming crews.
Comments are closed.
I really hope they don’t, but does the NASL have some penalties in place for failing to deliver this kind of thing? It seems to me like if they don’t right now, then they should at least get some kind of a fine structure decided on by the first time Puerto Rico has one of these problems.
Are the games then archived for watching later? Where might that be?
I just saw that the MN Ft Lauderdale game is on NOW (live) 11:00 am Mon. on USTREAM
http://www.ustream.tv/nasllive1
Ya, not quite sure how that works. I am guessing that eventually the system will be set up to watch a live stream of a game archived on demand. But at this point they are not set up for it so they are replaying now. Not sure who’s going to be able to watch a game live on Monday morning with no prior notice but….
There are not extended highlights available which I will get up on my site now.
The goal is about 1:45 in
http://screencast.com/t/Gg0uY803tw
I can’t afford the Pro version so sorry about the quality, but still fun to watch from another angel.
May get the pro version and share my own Jing highlights of the games important coaching moments in the future…
Ok….? I did not let it load completely before sharing, me bad.
It is there it just takes forever to load. Start it go make a sandwich and maybe it will be ready.
I will say one other thing, after watching the second half again my pair up front is now Bracalello and Amani Walker. We have needed a player that can receive long balls in the air and then actually do something with the ball and he is looking like that player this year.
I have to agree with several who have left comments on this post and others here that Walker at least is due a start after his play. High energy, some good speed and his height doesn’t hurt. I don’t see him up front as you have Del Do and honestly, Nunez may not be a great goal scorer but he holds the ball up really well and his pass completion rate seemed very high if memory serves me correctly.
Bracalello needs to work on keeping his passes simpler and connecting more often but I love his creativity in the final third and his willingness to take a crack at goal.
%#@$^*^% *&%##%* dam Computers! Well I guess that would be me and not the computer.
I guess I should learn how to use it before wasting your time.
Again sorry,
Mixed feelings on this. I was one of the people left wanting to view the webcast, which I had been looking forward to and had carefully scheduled into my life.
First, I am immensely grateful to NASL and the Stars that they would invest in this service. Here I am, 250 miles from the game, wishing I could be there, yet not paying a dime to enjoy this game…. I don’t feel I have the moral right to complain if the effort fell short once. These teams are loss leaders at this crucial stage of their existence, and God bless ‘em for trying as hard as they did, and for spending their money to let me and probably only 150 other fans watch the game at no cost and with no commercials.
Its’ great when it all works, and I hope this issue never happens again, and yes we all want them to look professional, but don’t forget to say Thanks. It’s free, after all.
They’re trying to do the right thing, folks, so lets give them a break. It would have been an easier and cheaper decision at the start of the season to say, “no webcasting, only podcasting.” Or even ” no ‘casting at all.”
Go Stars!