Once again the TSSAA SpringFling has come and gone. This year was a great year for all of the teams who paved their way to the 2022 Championships in Murfreesboro and a chance to win it all.
I would say that all of the teams experienced a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that is harder to do than really realized, until its all over. Congrats to all those who made the trip and to the champions in each classification.
Now to my observation from a broadcasters point-of-view of the SpringFling setup for the many media groups attending. If I could give a grade it would be a “F”.
The current phase of SpringFling was moved to Murfreesboro in 2006 after a three-year stint in Memphis. TennesseeSportsNet began in 2006 and we have been covering the Championships since 2006 with TSNSports and before that for many radio stations.
In the 16 years that SpringFling has been in Murfreesboro they have had “no” improvement for the media to quickly do their reporting of teams from all across the state. The City of Murfreesboro or the TSSAA has never installed “high-speed internet” for the medias use.
I spoke to several reporters from major media groups who were having trouble getting “out” to report on games by sending info to their home offices. TSNSports had trouble broadcasting softball from StarPlex using our service, which we normally never have trouble, using it for HDTV. We were broadcasting via digital audio, which doesn’t require as much bandwidth. Last year we covered the Forrest softball team and streamed HDTV for several games (5), with “no trouble”. This year we had trouble. And our fans also had to purchase pay-per-view from the TSSAA NFHS feed that failed badly during game 1. TSNSports paid the TSSAA $250/game in 2021 which is over $1,000 for our stay at SpringFling. I’m sure they didn’t bring in more for the Forrest softball games this year.
TSNSports has covered a lot of games at a bunch of locations where we have been afforded “high-speed internet” at city parks we were at. My point is the City of Murfreesboro needs to provide “high-speed internet” at Sport Com, specifically StarPlex to accommodate all of the professionals who travel to Murfreesboro to report on their regions team(s) at SpringFling. It most definitely would make their experience more manageable.
When it comes to covering baseball and softball TSNSports has enjoyed doing them from one of the best press accommodations in middle Tennessee. Forrest High School has a beautifully designed facility that brings broadcasters “out of the sun”, which is an enemy to electronics and also protects them from the rain.
Broadcasters’ equipment can run thousands of dollars and you’ll welcome the coverage each time you have the opportunity to be inside.
During SpringFling there are lots of baseball teams scattered everywhere. Softball, of course, will be at the Sports Com. So when you talk about 4 classifications in baseball and if my math is correct, that’ll be 32 teams in D1. And at the start 8 games in each class. In making the field selections, some teams got a great field “with a press box” & some didn’t. The broadcasters covering the teams at a field with a press box where covered. In TSNSports’ luck, we were at a field with “no press box”. And we suffered the consequences. Games got rained out and 1 day we were doing a broadcast and if we won we would have to play again. That’s happened. As we ended the 1st games broadcast we looked at radar that showed a terrible looking line of storms coming toward the field. With thousands of dollars worth of equipment we had to choose. We broke-down our equipment and left. They did start the game, but it was rudely interrupted by a major storm and had to be stopped in the 4th. My point is, I saw the system coming and couldn’t stay to do the game because we were outside and not protected. Inside, we would have been there for the 4 innings played. We couldn’t RISK the loss of equipment.
So I also say to the TSSAA to select fields where broadcasters will be protected from a down-pour & the sun. Change the way a lot of broadcasters view your organization, as one who doesn’t care! And change the TSSAA’s own view, “We don’t set field sites based on which teams may or may not have a broadcast team.” I would say that probably “all” teams had someone covering at least 1 of them. Like most venues they would be protected too.