Paulding, OH: MY 102.7, Paulding County’s own radio station is excited to announce their new endeavor in the Paulding County sports arena with the premier of MySports.live. This new production allows anyone and everyone to enjoy high school sports from the comfort of their home, for free. MySports.live is currently broadcasting all three of the county high school varsity boys and girls home basketball games. Games can be watched in real time or at a later date at www.mysports.live.
From day one of the creation of MY102.7 radio, the community wanted more content featuring high school student athletes. Roughly a year ago the station started their weekly Saturday morning radio program MySports, hosted by seasoned on air talent Dean Jackson. That program interviews coaches, students and folks who have moved on but have local ties. With the success of that program Joe Barker, and Terry Carwile, owners and creators of MY102.7 felt confident that live coverage of games would be well received . Terry, My102.7’s engineer suggested a shift towards a video platform to better showcase the kids and create a broadcast that might capture more of the experience. Thus the creation of an entirely new company, MySports.live.
The broadcast not only showcases the kids on the court or ball field but cheerleaders and band members as well. With COVID-19 the amount of fans in the stands are significantly restricted and there became a great need to also stream other game time activities like Parents Night and Homecoming events for family who couldn’t attend.
“Prior to COVID-19 the goal was to only feature a “game of the week”, but when COVID-19 hit and fans were limited, we didn’t feel right only choosing one school in the county we would highlight each week,” says Joe Barker. “So we committed to live stream every home boys’ and girls’ varsity basketball game in the county, all 76 of them, plus tournaments held in the county.”
The decision to cover all 76 home games pushed Barker and Carwile to triple the equipment needed, and hire 13 part time employees to run the production; including professional audio and video as well as play by play and color commentary talent.
“We have been blessed to assemble a group of broadcast talent who collectively have over 12,000 games of experience in high school, college and professional sports,” says Terry Carwile.
The software used to create the inclusive experience of each game is very versatile and can run the entire production. It gives MySports.Live the ability to provide custom graphic overlays that can integrate with systems like the scoreboard at each school. It also has the ability to provide instant replay and real time updates through social media. The software also allows the technical director to play advertisers 30 second TV commercials during breaks in the action such as timeouts. Within the week they will have a smart TV app for Roku, Amazon Firestick and Apple TV.
MySports.live couldn’t have been created without the support of the community, local business, and The Paulding County Area Foundation.
“All county school administrations have gone out of their way to give us access to their facilities for testing and equipment installation,” says Carwile. “ I’d especially like to thank the athletic directors Drew Altimus, Jim Linder, and Tyler Arend for their flexibility in providing us with gym access for testing and setup. I would also like to thank Harold Gottke, Ashton Duer and Justin Yant. The schools in Paulding county are very fortunate to have these knowledgeable gentleman heading up their individual IT departments.
“Our community’s business leaders have stepped up and sponsored these games,” says Barker. “We did not want a Pay Per View format that may places have established. Without their financial support this project could not have happened, and we thank them for allowing us to provide this service for the people of Paulding County.”
All games can be found at www.mysports.live for live streaming or viewing from the archive.
