SoCon Digital Network thoughts

McLeansvilleAppFan · Unread post by **McLeansvilleAppFan** » Wed Nov 19, 2014 9:06 pm

We had what will now be the rare situation of having both basketball teams playing the same night with both away games at SoCon schools. I know a few were tuned in to one or both games.

The SoCon took all the exit fees and entrance fees and built the SoCon Digital Network. I am rather impressed to be honest. Video quality was good. Audio and video was synced. But wait there is more.

They have PIP so I put the men's game at Furman in the upper corner and focused on the much better play of the women on the larger full screen. In fact, like ESPN3 it is possible to stream 4 games at one time if one desires.

I have watched a few minutes of a few SoCon football games this year (it is free, which is also nice) but had not noticed these other features.

Good use of money for the conference I think and something they should be able to work with for 5-6 years I would think at least and maybe longer.

And they stream a lot of events from all the schools.

AppinVA · Unread post by **AppinVA** » Wed Nov 19, 2014 9:09 pm

Glad they used that money wisely.

McLeansvilleAppFan · Unread post by **McLeansvilleAppFan** » Wed Nov 19, 2014 9:19 pm

AppinVA wrote:Glad they used that money wisely.

There is something to be said about having all the schools in the conference on the same streaming platform. Even if they started charging money for this and let each school set a price but kept this platform one could still share video feeds.

The SB has about 1/2 the schools on NeuLion and about 1/2 on Sidearm and I was thinking some were even on Presto. Unless a conference does what the SoCon did then every school will do what works for themselves and that is fine, but it would be nice to at least share the NeuLion streams with each other and that seems to not be happening which is a shame. Each school would have a better selling point in my view. Yes, I am a little jealous of what the SoCon has done, though I don't care to be in the SoCon just to have this digital network. I am not that jealous. I do wish the SB had this for any games that did not warrant ESPN3 or any of the ESPN networks, and especially the Olympic sports that will never get ESPN coverage. The SB did stream the men's soccer tourney so they do some of this.

AppinVA · Unread post by **AppinVA** » Wed Nov 19, 2014 9:27 pm

McLeansvilleAppFan wrote:
AppinVA wrote:Glad they used that money wisely.
There is something to be said about having all the schools in the conference on the same streaming platform. Even if they started charging money for this and let each school set a price but kept this platform one could still share video feeds.

The SB has about 1/2 the schools on NeuLion and about 1/2 on Sidearm and I was thinking some were even on Presto. Unless a conference does what the SoCon did then every school will do what works for themselves and that is fine, but it would be nice to at least share the NeuLion streams with each other and that seems to not be happening which is a shame. Each school would have a better selling point in my view. Yes, I am a little jealous of what the SoCon has done, though I don't care to be in the SoCon just to have this digital network. I am not that jealous. I do wish the SB had this for any games that did not warrant ESPN3 or any of the ESPN networks, and especially the Olympic sports that will never get ESPN coverage. The SB did stream the men's soccer tourney so they do some of this.

The Big South did something similar a few years back, and I was quite impressed. I think a few sponsors knocked out what the individual schools would've made off of subscriber fees, thus making everything free.