Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski / Photo illustration by Nick Anna
Members of the Claysburg-Kimmel High School’s “CK-TV” YouTube channel crew broadcasts the school’s varsity football game with visiting Tussey Mountain. Pictured (from left) are seniors Tyler Tayor, producer; EJ Eckard, videographer; and Nathan Maslanik, play-by-play announcer.

With restrictions on the number of fans permitted to attend high school football games and other athletic contests, more schools are livestreaming their events.

Livestreaming is new for some area schools — such as Tyrone Area High School — while others have done so in the past.

“Even prior to the pandemic, we had talked last year about looking to move to offer some events through livestreaming, but since there are fan restrictions, we definitely had to move faster. At this time, we will be livestreaming all home varsity football games and junior high, junior varsity and varsity volleyball. We may offer some other events once we get things going,” Athletic Director Luke Rhoades said.

Eagle Eye advisers Eric Feather and Todd Cammarata — with a lot of support from network administrator Glen Drager — are heading up the streaming, accessible through the Tyrone Eagle Eye YouTube channel. Students are also helping out, Rhoades said.

Bellwood-Antis is livestreaming events on YouTube at Bellwood-Antis Event Livestream for free, said Athletic Director Charlie Burch.

“Adults are trained to use the equipment for the Padcaster. Football uses a recent graduate to help out. We didn’t do livestream in the past, but we were talking about starting to do this as we’ve seen other schools livestreaming,” Burch said. “We take it to all events, but we can’t livestream if the opponent has NFHS Network.”

Northern Bedford County High School, which hosted Bellwood-Antis last Friday, is among the schools that have subscribed to the NFHS Network, which covers 27 different regular season and postseason sports as well as other high school activities.

The cost for fans to use NFHS is $10.99 a month or $69.99 for a calendar year.

“In the past, we had not streamed. We are doing it because of fan limitations,” said Athletic Director Jeff Batzel. “All other schools in our conference (Inter-County Conference) are either using NFHS Network or providing free YouTube or Facebook livestreams.”

“If a fan signs up for Glendale, they have access to all NFHS Network games home or away. If an away school has a different way of broadcasting, I’ll try to post it to our Glendale Athletic Facebook page,” said Athletic Director John Matchock of Glendale High School, which is also using NFHS Network.

“We’ve streamed in the past using Facebook Live. Facebook Live worked out well, but I thought being in the times we are in, something more professional was needed for the fans. We are still working out a few bugs, but I’m hoping we get everything running smoothly soon,” Matchock said. “The broadcast is done with a two-camera system that is run through a computer. For football games, the (public address) announcer is able to be heard. As for volleyball and other indoor sports being televised, no play-by-play has been worked out as of yet. This is something we are working on for the winter.”

Hollidaysburg Area and Altoona Area high schools have streamed football games for years.

Hollidaysburg’s Golden Tiger Football Association has improved the product for this year’s games.

Association Secretary Stephanie Wolfe credits group President Steve DiPangrazio with coming up with the improved product.

“We started with our Facebook page, but we wanted to try to make it better. We realized we may not be able to have fans in the stadium, and we wanted to do something for the parents and fans to have access to see these kids play,” Wolfe said.

“Prior to this (pandemic), we were working with a local radio station (HANK-FM 96.1) to do a professional broadcast,” she said. “We didn’t want to do anything to take away their radio listeners. We saw the benefit of having the game on the radio. We wanted to see if there was a way to include the broadcast on our page. Steve figured out a way to do it. We connected the radio broadcast to our video without a delay. He put in the time to create a nice experience for our fans.”

The games can be viewed on the Golden Tiger Football Association Facebook page with Nate Bowen handling the play-by-play, with Garett Mansfield providing color commentary. Skip Dry will replace Mansfield later in the season, Wolfe said.

“Our first broadcast was Friday night. We had some glitches, but we got a lot of great feedback from fans — some even put up big screens in their backyards. We are finding the quality was pretty decent. We will do all home and away games this year,” Wolfe said. “To be able to put the radio broadcast in sync with our livestream, we are thrilled we were able to put it together. As a booster club, our goal is to support these boys and create a great experience for everyone involved. We think of ourselves as a football family.”

Altoona Area High School fans will be able view the Mountain Lions games.

“MLTV (the AAHS student television station) will be streaming all Altoona’s home high school football, boys soccer and girls soccer games,” Athletic Director Phil Riccio said. “Our football games will also be on radio, and the MLTV stream will be picked up by FOX 43. The Altoona Curve will also be picking up our MLTV stream and showing inside of PNG Field on game night,” Riccio said.

Claysburg-Kimmel High School home games can be seen free at YouTube.com/cktvlive.

“We developed the concept of CKtv late in 2018 and began streaming in 2019. It is great to know that we have a program in place to serve our community and local sports fans. We have had parents/family members of our athletes/participants tune in from around the country (and in some cases, around the world). We take pride in the program we have developed,” said Brian Helsel, assistant to the superintendent, director of special services.

The area schools are happy to provide access to the games for their fans.

Matchock said, “With fans and parents not being able to view the games in person, this is an excellent way for fans to watch and cheer on the kids. It’s not the same as being there, but it’s the next best alternative.”

“We felt like it would be a neat way to keep people out of the area connected,” Rhoades said. “However, now in the cases of volleyball and varsity football, it is serving as a way for people that would normally attend to watch the event. I will be honest — as a coach — I like having people in the gym to provide that atmosphere, so I am hoping that after restrictions are lifted and we are still livestreaming, that people who are close enough to attend, come and support the students.”

Mirror Staff Writer Walt Frank is at 946-7467