Walking on DSU’s campus on Thursday, Aug. 24, you’d see the type of energy from fans that only comes with the first game of the season.
The field house’s parking lot was full of students and families tailgating, with food and drinks, yard games and large tractors, and more.
The game brought thousands of fans, given the rivalry between Dakota State and Dakota Wesleyan (S.D.).
Amid all the pregame festivities was Midco Sports Network’s newest addition to its fleet of broadcast vehicles, Lewis the van.
Lewis the van wasn’t what you might’ve seen at other sporting events. It wasn’t a large 18-wheeler, with tons of camera equipment and a full crew. That’s something Midco wanted to move away from with this most recent addition -- what they’re calling a centralized production model.
Read this blog post about the benefits of a Central Production model, explained by AVI Systems engineer Chad Thielen.
The Challenge
Midco had two fully equipped production trailers, and one is still in use. But, the challenge with these production trailers is that it’s hard to load everything up, get the trailer to its destination, unload everything, do the broadcast, and move to the next location.
Quite simply, the trailer can’t make it to all of the games that Midco wants to broadcast, which forced the company to rent out vehicles to fill the gaps — or, they missed the games entirely.
These big production trailers also demand a full crew. And with a full crew comes hotel and meal expenses, time on the road and time away from home.
The benefits of having a full crew on the road were out-weighed when it came to update the trailer.
Midco had a choice.
“It was time to either upgrade that trailer or try something new,” said Craig DeWit, production technology manager at Midco Sports Network.
They went with something new.
