Rarely is the power of college sports more visible than during March Madness approaches. This month, even casual sports fans find themselves wrapped up in the drama of college basketball. Experts estimate that the college sports industry made $18.9 billion in 2019, and the market continues to grow.
For everything from live play-by-play coverage to post-game recaps, college sports broadcasters turn to Comrex to make their broadcasts run. Here are a few of our customers who use our gear to get on the air.
ACCESS NX Serves Airwaves Audio
Airwaves Audio is a small production company that handles live TV and radio remote production. They work with a lot of sports clients, including ESPN, to cover major league and college sports.
Airwaves Audio began using Comrex IP audio codecs in the early 2000s to produce a live broadcast from a Disney cruise ship. Since then, they’ve chosen ACCESS codecs for their remotes.
“When I’m out in the field, about 80% of the people I run into are using ACCESS,” said Thomas Shomper, founder of Airwaves Audio. “ISDN was now the default, but now that’s gone.”
“If I have the choice, I’ll always pick ACCESS NX,” said Shomper.
ACCESS NX Changes the Game for WSCO
WSCO(AM) is a Wisconsin station that serves sports and talk programming to their audience in Green Bay and Oshkosh. They provide live play-by-play for Wisconsin major league, minor league, college, and high school sports. For live coverage, they prefer ACCESS NX.
“ACCESS NX is functional and reliable, and it’s changed the game for our live PxP broadcasting,” said BJ DeGroot, assistant brand manager for WSCO and co-host of “BJ and the Bear”.
“As far as quality and ease of use is concerned, we have been so happy. If you’re looking to take your station to the next level, it’s the way to go.”
Neumann Goes Live from the Field with LiveShot for Video
Neumann University offers a large media program to their students, which includes an FM radio station, a sports network, television networks, and a student magazine. As part of their television programming, students handle live coverage of their college sports games.
When Sean McDonald, Media Director at Neumann, learned about LiveShot, he felt it was a great fit for students.
“LiveShot is easy to use,” said Neumann. “I can get it up and on the air in seconds.”
Neumann students even won a Student Emmy for their LiveShot sports coverage. “We used LiveShot to create a pathway between our TV studio and our arena, so we could do a pregame, halftime, and postgame show for our NCAA basketball team,” said Neumann. “LiveShot connected our hosts to our play-by-play announcers in the arena, and we used the return feature to provide them with studio feed during the game.”
“LiveShot is one of the unsung heroes of bonding technology – it provides so much capability in such a small package.”
Bare-Bones BRIC-Link
Sometimes, portability isn’t required.
Stadiums and arenas often offer hard-wired internet connections, and many broadcasters have turned to Comrex BRIC-Link codecs in those cases. These workhorse codecs are designed to provide high-quality, low-latency audio and work well for a lot of applications. With a few less features than our ACCESS IP audio codec line, the BRIC-Link series delivers exceptional performance without breaking the bank.
While traditionally controlled from its web-based interface on a laptop, our latest model now shipping – BRIC-Link III – has programmable front panel buttons to allow for quick connections back to the studio.
Add Comrex to Your Team
Contact us today to see which of our IP codecs is right for you. Send an email to info@comrex.com or give us a call at 1-978-784-1776. We’re open 9AM to 5PM EST, Monday through Friday.
Located in the US and want to try out gear? Request a demo. It’s free – just pay for shipping. International customers should reach out to their local authorized Comrex dealer for a demo.