ESPN+ or ESPN3

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sealhall74
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If all else fails, I guess I could do a Dickie V and Periscope what is happening during the MSU game from inside the Bobcat stadium, assuming they have WIFI of course. I think I know the layout of Dick's house, yard, and Mercedes Benz interior, etc. after watching a few dozen of his daily broadcasts. I even know what his favorite restaurants are in the Sarasota area as well as what he likes to eat there. It's a little out of my character to pull off such a feat. Any volunteers to do your best Dickie V imitation this season? You can start early and let us know what is happening during training camp. ;)

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tjbison
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leatherneckcountry wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 7:38 am
tjbison wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 6:50 am
ST_Lawson wrote: Sat Aug 11, 2018 10:55 pm

Well crap. I thought all the Big Sky home games were streaming on PlutoTV. That's going to be very annoying to not be able to watch our season opener. I'll do some more digging to see if I can find some other options for viewing the game.
ESPN+ is 10 times the service Pluto TV is, the big sky broadcasts are terrible on that free service
The game that we had on Pluto was really well done better than any of the MVFC games in my opinion but we all know I hate the ESPN 3 games especially the home ones 4 hrs for football games is ridiculous
You got lucky then, i guess maybe im spoiled as all our games are on Statewide TV here and even our ESPN3 is the local NBC feed so they are all HD

But watch a lot of BSC on Pluto with UND being still there and they are elementary at best in quality, Montana schools are different but they are usually on Root sports not Pluto and available on Directv sports pak
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tjbison wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 10:33 am You got lucky then, i guess maybe im spoiled as all our games are on Statewide TV here and even our ESPN3 is the local NBC feed so they are all HD

But watch a lot of BSC on Pluto with UND being still there and they are elementary at best in quality, Montana schools are different but they are usually on Root sports not Pluto and available on Directv sports pak
I'm not trying to be mean, but you kinda are spoiled...at least in terms of what you get for your broadcasting. NDSU probably has the best setup for live distribution of their games of any of the FCS schools anywhere. Broadcasts are produced by your local NBC station, KVLY. You guys have 6 TV stations broadcasting your games in HD all across the state. Anyone with in ND with a cable package that includes local channels likely gets one of the stations that NDSU is on and anyone with an antenna just about anywhere in ND, eastern MT, western MN, and probably a bit into northern SD and southern Manitoba can probably pick up Bison games for free over the airwaves.

To compare, our games are produced by WIU students. They do an amazing job considering their level of experience, but they're still students...not professional broadcasters. TV stations in our region that carry our games are...none. Someone living 2 miles from Hanson Field (or 20 miles or 30 miles) can put up an antenna and...not get any Leatherneck games. I live in Macomb and have cable TV...I get no Leatherneck games over my cable TV. Our options for watching games are: pretty much whatever ESPN decides to do with the feed we send them. They might have it through ESPN3...might be available on one of their miscellaneous sports channels that they spin up on a game-by-game basis...might be on ESPN+. Thankfully I do have access to ESPN3 streaming over my computer or through my Roku because of my cable subscription, but if it weren't for that, I wouldn't get any games without spending a HUGE amount more than I currently do (like $100+ more per month).

NDSU's radio network covers pretty much all of North Dakota and most of Minnesota.
Our radio network is supposed to cover most of west-central Illinois, a bit into eastern Missouri and eastern Iowa, although I can tell you that last season, I had to miss a game due to a family funeral in Clinton, IA. Well, luckily for me, one of the members of our radio network is actually based in Clinton (KCLN), and the game ended up starting about the time we were leaving the reception after the funeral. So, I get in the car, flip over to 1390 AM and I hear...country music (and an occasional farm report)...no Leatherneck game.

Maybe Montana comes close, but outside of them, I'm pretty sure you guys have the best broadcasting setup in the FCS by far.

Given what we have, some days I'd just be happy with a static camera pointed down at the field from the pressbox in standard-definition and with no commentators. The fact that we often get HD and usually have commentators at all, even student ones, is just "gravy".
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wiu712
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ST_Lawson wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 7:43 pmNDSU probably has the best setup for live distribution of their games of any of the FCS schools anywhere.
The Dakotas also have the Midco Sports Network.
https://www.midcosn.com/
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wiu712 wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 9:09 pm
ST_Lawson wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 7:43 pmNDSU probably has the best setup for live distribution of their games of any of the FCS schools anywhere.
The Dakotas also have the Midco Sports Network.
https://www.midcosn.com/
Right, although they're more into Summit League sports than MVFC Football.
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sealhall74
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ST_Lawson wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 11:42 pm
wiu712 wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 9:09 pm
ST_Lawson wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 7:43 pmNDSU probably has the best setup for live distribution of their games of any of the FCS schools anywhere.
The Dakotas also have the Midco Sports Network.
https://www.midcosn.com/
Right, although they're more into Summit League sports than MVFC Football.
NDSU also has an hour long live I think football pre-game show (locally produced by KVLY TV station?) which would make most colleges and even some NFL teams jealous. Lots of interviews, they get out into the tailgate area before the game, etc. That kind of publicity is a huge advantage. Theirs is a culture that covers the gamut. Another example is their 50-50 raffle that I believe is state-of-the-art in terms of automation, not just a bunch of kids running around with a roll of paper tickets to tear apart.
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tjbison
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sealhall74 wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 8:20 am
ST_Lawson wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 11:42 pm
wiu712 wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 9:09 pm
The Dakotas also have the Midco Sports Network.
https://www.midcosn.com/
Right, although they're more into Summit League sports than MVFC Football.
NDSU also has an hour long live I think football pre-game show (locally produced by KVLY TV station?) which would make most colleges and even some NFL teams jealous. Lots of interviews, they get out into the tailgate area before the game, etc. That kind of publicity is a huge advantage. Theirs is a culture that covers the gamut. Another example is their 50-50 raffle that I believe is state-of-the-art in terms of automation, not just a bunch of kids running around with a roll of paper tickets to tear apart.

To be fair guys I did say maybe i'm spoiled :oops:

But yes you can watch in ND, SD, MT, MN and Manitoba via TV, pretty much the same coverage for Radio. We do have a dedicated Radio station Bison 1660 that this year added another talent to bring Gameday Pre, During and Post to 9 hrs of coverage. Yes the 50/50 is computerized, they print your numbers out.

That doesnt discount that ESPN+ is a better service than Pluto or ESPN3, although I did like 3 I hated the same over and over commericals, granted I always watched the NDSU games on NBC i keep tabs on other Valley games on the ESPN networks, so needless to say ill throw my $5/MO at them till Nov.
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tjbison wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 12:23 pm To be fair guys I did say maybe i'm spoiled :oops:

But yes you can watch in ND, SD, MT, MN and Manitoba via TV, pretty much the same coverage for Radio. We do have a dedicated Radio station Bison 1660 that this year added another talent to bring Gameday Pre, During and Post to 9 hrs of coverage. Yes the 50/50 is computerized, they print your numbers out.

That doesnt discount that ESPN+ is a better service than Pluto or ESPN3, although I did like 3 I hated the same over and over commericals, granted I always watched the NDSU games on NBC i keep tabs on other Valley games on the ESPN networks, so needless to say ill throw my $5/MO at them till Nov.
It's ok. Just know that pretty much every FCS fanbase would love to have what you guys have in terms of facilities, fan support, broadcast situation, and on-field success.

I personally haven't tried ESPN+ yet, used ESPN3/WatchESPN.com quite a bit over the last few years and have watched maybe two games total through Pluto. The two that I saw on Pluto were both pretty decent, but I'll admit that's a pretty small sampling. WatchESPN.com, which I would usually watch either on my PC or streaming through my roku on my TV, would usually come through ok, but sometimes would have issues with streaming/buffering.
If ESPN+ is better at handling streaming than WatchESPN was (especially on my roku), I'll gladly sign up for a couple of months to catch a few of the games that I can't make it to personally.
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For those of you familiar to the times when WIU's games aren't on ESPN3 or ESPN+ and you have to pay to get them, that's basically what we're looking at for the Montana State game. We'll need to pay roughly $10 to watch the game. Yes it stinks that we have to pay, but at least we'll be able to see the game if you're willing to pay money. All other games we should be okay.
https://msubobcats.com/schedule.aspx?path=football
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Devin Biggs
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catbob
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Unfortunately I think you are correct for the MSU game. I live in WA now and watching Cat games can be tricky. I don't have cable and ROOT isn't a part of any streaming package except for DirectTVNow via the Audience network, and we have 5 games on ROOT this year.

Pluto (Big Sky TV) is for conference only games, so OOC like WIU are PPV. The PPV quality can be hit or miss...

If you live in the SWX coverage area you can stream in there, but that's only like MT, ID and Eastern WA.
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