JCHRebel21 and Jsbertexag:

Thought I would start a forum on this subject to see if we can build some support. In an e-mail exchange with Coach Cass he suggests we copy Milton Overton on our e-mail with the Web Projects staff under Drew Martin. Milton is very computer knowledgeable and now oversees tennis.

If you looked at the cost versus the
return on the investment of doing the Tennis streaming now, we would likely find it
would be much cheaper to get the video from the tennis courts to the web than doing the softball or volleyball matches.

We do not have to have an announcer doing play by play, we just need the score and a camera on the courts, all of which are already in place.

Add the streaming and we are hooked up!! Sounds easy, but bandwidth will be an issue.

If we can get fans signed up this fall to see the spring matches matches and this would help the revenue issues of providing the streaming.

The stadium tennis courts already have video cameras and the video is multiplexed in the press box. We have live scoring set up and all that may be needed is settting up a feed from the press box to the video streaming server to display on the web.

This would be great for far away alumni and parents that would like to see the team play, it would be great for the NCAAs coming to Aggieland also. We nee dto build interest and get it conveyed to the right people.

Again, I think this is a great idea.

Like you said, most of the system is already in place. And no reason for an announcer, like you would need for softball.
How would they select thought? Would they stream all 6 singles matches?


Well I would like to help how ever I can. Who is in charge of the streaming over the web?

Also, you said we need to drum support... should we be doing this in the A department or with fans?
Just let me know where we should go with this.

Also, I can talk to Kleinecke if need be.

Thanks
Jeff

I have been e-mailing occasionally with Drew Martin who is in charge of the Website projects. Here is what he said:

Please understand that if the demand and viewers aren't there, a possibility exists that we will suspend streaming events. Having said that, the best thing you personally can do is encourage Aggies to subscribe to AUA and watch the events we offer online. That is the sure bet way that we will be able to continue this service and extend it to all of our sports, which is our primary goal.

Currently, we have only scheduled out the remainder of soccer, volleyball and football season.

As soon as more events are added, they will appear on http://AggieAthletics.com/aua_live.php.

Thanks for your interest in and support of Aggie Tennis, and Gig 'Em!

Drew Martin

Thats awesome. So should we find interested fans and have them email (him) or somebody telling them they support the idea? I mean, how many people are actually watching the volleyball and soccer ones online? (ideally, whats thier goal for number of viewers)?
Also, I support this, and would buy a subscription, but I would never use it since I go to every Aggie sporting event anyways!

Good questions and I have been off talking to some more folks. We have two or 3 things to consider and work on.

Local fans, may not be all that interested in the video streaming, the majority of interest will come from ag fans that are say farther than a 3 hour drive from Aggieland, in other states, and other countries.

We can have more people contract Drew Martin and let them know they are interested; Tim Cass asked to copy him and the new Tennis Athletic Director on any e-mails. I will be contacting the parents of the players this week to let them know about this forum, and I will be giving them info on who else to contact. It may be we just need to have them start signing up for the current access to gain attention from the web folks.

I also will create a note for the local Aggie Mom chapter in my town, if there is a powerful way to communicate it sure would start here.

What about you any other ideas on how to get the word out?

I am sure local folks would not really care about this service. I think it would be fans at least a 3 hour drive away, in other states or countries.

I am contacting the parents of the players to get them interetsed in this forum as well as possibly signing up for the service. Seems they want us to get the service before they have a product we want to see.

I also am working on a note or announcement for the local Aggie Mom newsletter for the chapter in our area. I figure we can get them involved with getting the word out!!

Any other ideas?

The different Aggies Mom's Clubs are definitely a good way to go. I would possibly recommend a form letter that you can send out to all the different mom's clubs, letting them know about the services that are available, including all the Aggie sports. You'd probably be a walking advertisement for AUA, but hey, if it gets you what you want...

To be honest, I wouldn't buy the service, but I'm still a student here with an All-Sports Pass. So reaching out to those who are far away is the way to go.

I recently bought AUA. It us worth the money if you really like Aggie Sports.

The idea about going out to the Mom's Clubs and other organizations is a great idea. I assume that most people stil do not know about AUA and do not realize the potential it could have including Aggie Tennis.

I can be emailed at jsobertxag@yahoo.com

The thing about Demand is a load of crap I think personally, dont mean to offend anyone but it doesnt cost that much, hell add a $5 charge to sports passes and you have without a doubt $50,000 - $75,000+ that could go to streaming all the sports... I know for a fact that A&M can afford another server to run it off of and it wont even be slow with a new server. Servers cost around 7500 which is top of the line for video streaming servers and would easily run video streams with a low enough latency that even antes parents wouldnt have a bad lag with the stream. Someone might want to inform the athletic dept of that.

Any updates on this?

ttt

Hey Ags, sorry I have not updated what I have been up to on the video streaming in awhile. Darn work thing has gotten in the way the past couple of weeks.

Anyway: I have contacted Aggie Moms and Tennis Team parents (not lack of desire on their part). Aggie Moms club in North Texas will be putting an article in their newsletter soon and I may also go talk to one of their meetings before the end of the year.

The Athletic Department is behind the idea. I have talked with coach Cass about it and getting a server is not the issue if we can identify what is needed we can get it funded. I expect to be talking with him about it this weekend, and if the new AD is there, we will get it on his radar screen also.

We were looking at doing it ourselves, until the web server geeks said they had the thing going with UAU and there were plans to add tennis. When we checked inot that further, they backed off to their current story. The main reason is they have had bandwidth issues an some payment issues with the supplier so they need subscribers.

They said we also need cameras (gotem) and announcers (not) and this adds to the cost. I have sense that unless they get enough subscribers this service will not continue. I have no idea how they would know a tennis fan wants to see tennis. So that is kind of an over view. I think we would hae the option to setup a streaming serer at the tennis facility, get a tcp/ip address for it go for it if we put a plan together.

We have the video, we need to get it to the web.

The only thing an announcer would do is cause the server to have worst latency. It would be better if they just had game updates on the screen which someone is already doing so just run those feeds together. If they had someone announcing it would sound pretty bad for most people because of connection speed so I think they should stop trying to give run arounds and just hook the feeds up to the network.