It’s 11:15 A.M. at Esbjornson stadium in Glassboro, New Jersey. Rowan University’s men’s and women’s basketball teams will be participating in a doubleheader versus Rutgers-Newark later in the day. Tip-off for the first game is set for 2:00 P.M. and yet, a small crew of Rowan students have already started setting up their gear.
When it comes to producing live events, most large-scale organizations have their own production van, with Fox Sports describing their own van as such: “And there are so many dials and switches that it reminds someone of what the inside of a spaceship might look like.”
Rowan, despite being a larger university, does not have the funding necessary to support that business venture. Thus, there is no production van, the Rowan students are the closest thing to a production van the university has.
All of these students are also interns for the university’s Athletic Communications Department. They work for Will Voight, who is the Athletic Communications Multimedia Specialist for Rowan while also being a former Prof himself.
Under Voight’s guidance, the students are tasked with creating the “production van” necessary for livestreaming the upcoming games. They set up broadcast cameras, an audio mixer and headsets for production staff and fellow student commentators. The mixer and headsets ensure that these games will have live commentary over the footage. This is just another way the university provides students a chance to get involved with sports/live event production.
Next, the students and Voight set up what is known as the tricaster/switcher as well as the monitor for the switcher. The switcher is the most important piece of equipment, as all broadcast cameras send their footage to this switcher, which is then controlled by the technical director that controls which camera’s footage is being shown to the viewers at any given moment. For this game, and every other athletic event for the University, the technical director is going to be a student.
Through the internship offered by the Athletic Communications Department, students are able to get plenty of experience in the world of game presentation and live event production as a whole. This experience is imperative to students looking to get a leg-up on their competition in a very saturated work field.
Alexander Visalli, 20, a junior sports communication and media (CAM) major who is an intern under Voight, is excited by the opportunities presented to him through the program: “This internship is going to offer me a lot of versatility within the field [of sports production],” Visalli said. “I get to be a camera operator for games, and, behind the scenes during office hours, I get to do editing which is what I’m really looking forward to.”
The sports CAM program strongly emphasizes the importance of students getting as much hands-on experience as possible before entering the workforce. With this internship opportunity offered in-house to students, the University demonstrates their commitment to this idea.
Voight loves to describe the Athletic Communications Department as a stepping-stone for Rowan students: “I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had interns [with no experience] here… they come work for me for a semester, then they go out and get either a better internship, a part-time job, or even a full-time job,” Voight remarked. “That to me is really the most rewarding part about my job.”
Rowan University is nationally ranked as one of the premier programs for sports communication and media. With dedicated employees like Voight across all of their departments, it is no wonder how it earned this reputation.
Whether it is on the court or behind the camera, Rowan University is working hard to ensure that Sports CAM students have the resources they need to succeed and flourish into well-rounded job candidates in the sports media industry.
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