Butler Sports Live allows students to have hands-on experience in professional broadcasting. Photo courtesy of @busportslive on Instagram.
LILY O’CONNOR | NEWS EDITOR | lkoconnor@butler.edu
CHARLOTTE HARGROVE | STAFF REPORTER | chargrove@butler.edu
Butler Sports Live (BSL) announced its partnership with sports broadcasting station ESPN, instituting a multi-year contractual relationship, on July 8. This new partnership, through a new six-year digital media rights agreement with the Big East and ESPN, will give BSL the opportunity to broadcast every Butler sports team, except football, live on the major sports network.
BSL is a faculty-run program open to all students and has around 35 students actively working at a time. Students work as directors, producers, camera operators and more on the ground at each one of Butler’s sports teams’ games.
Nick White, a sports media professor and founder of BSL, explained that BSL’s goal is to engage students and give them first-hand experience. As ESPN’s lead producer for BSL, White helps with editing, camera work and graphics so that they match ESPN’s quality.
“The vision of Butler Sports Live is to provide [more than just] experiential learning,” White said. “It’s a high-quality, professional-grade experience. It’s not just saying you got to broadcast games, it’s saying you broadcast as a professional on ESPN, or a national broadcast.”
White explained that BSL employees already helped students continue their careers in sports media, with students from the program going on to work for the Indianapolis Colts and current students working for the Indiana Pacers and the Indianapolis Indians, and the partnership will only open up more opportunities.
Drew Pieschalski, a junior sports media major and BSL student employee, is appreciative of the additional resume boost that the partnership could provide.
“It’s definitely a lot more appealing to a job recruiter to see that I worked for ESPN, and that I was one of the only student broadcasters to work for ESPN,” Pieschalski said.
The first BSL game broadcast on ESPN+ was men’s soccer against Western Michigan.
Korey Festian, a first-year sports media major and BSL prospective student employee, spoke about her experience shadowing the soccer game.
“[The student employees] were very excited when it was going on,” Festian said. “[The game] was able to be live-streamed, and the environment was really cool to be in.”
However, BSL broadcast engineer David Duchnowski is concerned with the quality of equipment going forward and whether or not the BSL technology will hold up with the major broadcasting channels.
“They said I was getting a new truck, and they didn’t lie,” Duchnowski said. “The truck itself is new, but the equipment is old. Trying to integrate the new equipment has been kind of a challenge.”
ESPN has piled new weights on the shoulders of BSL students, requiring them to be more vigilant.
Festian observed that the partnership is a big commitment for students, with some employees having to show up three and a half hours early to games to set up cameras and other equipment, along with having to work quickly to meet the expectations of ESPN.
“It’s more pressure because it’s ESPN, it’s not just Butler Sports Live producing their live streams, just for their audience,” Festian said.
Pieschalski agrees that the partnership increases the stakes for BSL’s broadcasts, however, he feels that the work is worth the reward.
“There’s more added pressure, especially with producing,” Pieschalski said. “Also, the broadcast is definitely added pressure, but it’s definitely cooler to be on ESPN than on [the previous broadcasting service].”
