People across the globe may now view Choate sporting events through a streaming service known as PlaySight. Four venues — the Class of ’76 Field, the Larry Hart Pool, the wood courts in the Worthington Johnson Athletic Center, and Remsen Arena — now have cameras that record and stream athletic competitions and even practices. Members of the Choate community can access the service by logging on to the school’s main portal. There, games can be watched in real time. The service also records all games, allowing fans to watch them later.
Having a live streaming service for athletic events has long been a priority for the Choate athletics department. After extensive research — and consultation with Information Technology Services, Communications, Facilities, and Head of School Dr. Alex Curtis — the athletics department selected a company called Playsight to run the live streaming service. “It was a long process that involved many different live stream companies,” said Director of Athletics Mr. Roney Eford. “We really wanted a company that was innovative and essentially didn’t require someone to physically be filming. So that eliminated a lot of companies.”
The process of choosing and implementing the streaming service at Choate required input from not just the Choate athletics department, but also from Information Technology Services and Communications. The group chose PlaySight for the live streaming last year, and Facilities installed the cameras at athletic venues last summer.
The athletic live streaming technology from PlaySight allows teams to stream and record practices and games without having someone actually standing behind a camera and filming. PlaySight has a wide experience in athletic live streaming including operating cameras for professional, college, and other prep-school teams.
At Choate, the athletic streaming cameras are located at the turf field, the wood and tartan courts, the hockey rink, the stadium squash courts, and the pool. In the future, the service will expand to other fields around campus. Mr. Eford said that one day he hopes every athletic venue on campus will be equipped with PlaySight technology.
Choate coaches have already learned how to benefit from the program. Coaches have received training on how to best utilize the service, not just in reviewing game film but also in practice, to give their athletes immediate feedback. Mr. Eford said, “Many of our coaches partook in the innovative ways they can utilize the live streaming as a coach in practice mode. Now, it’s for the benefit of the student-athlete in practice that they can stop and give the student-athlete real-time feedback.”
The athletic live streaming service appealed to Choate because of its uses to benefit the athletic program as well as connecting families and alumni to Choate athletics. Mr. Eford said, “We are a very innovative school, and this is a very innovative live streaming service that many of our peers are starting to get or have inquired about.” PlaySight was “perfect,” he said because “it required nobody to run it and also because of the coaching application that is available in that space.”
A large benefit of the athletic live streaming is for parents and families of Choate student-athletes. Mr. Eford said, “The basic benefit is their games can be live-streamed and parents, families, siblings, and friends can now watch so it has a multi-layer effect of being able to now have all those things.”
Most parents cannot always come to athletic competitions, so the service makes it easy for parents to watch while not being present at the game. Varsity Football player Luke Foster ’21 said, “Obviously, my family has been to every game back home, but now they can’t make every game, so they just watch the game on their computer.” He added, “If they weren’t watching, I would feel like something was wrong.”
Despite only being up and running for only a couple of weeks, the streaming service has already benefited Choate athletic teams. Now instead of having someone film games, the service records the games that can then be watched later by teams. Varsity Water Polo player Jack Sun ’21 said, “It is a pretty good thing to have because it’s better than having our managers take a video, and it is easy to find on the portal.”
However, there are some early problems with the streaming service. Users have said that he quality of the video can sometimes be blurred, and that the live feed can occasionally disconnect. “My parents have said that the live stream quality has cut out around the third quarter a few times,” Foster said.
Photo courtesy of Ross Mortensen
Sun added, “The quality is not that great, but you can still sort of tell what’s going on. Also, I think it would be better if you could download the footage from the website, so you could watch the games on your laptop without wi-fi.”
