Rock Athletics All-Access Channel

SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University athletic communication office unveiled a new interactive showcase Friday that will allow fans access to live video coverage of multiple Rock athletic events for free on all platforms for the upcoming 2014-15 academic year.
 
"Today is a big day for the athletic communication office at Slippery Rock and a big day for our fans," said Jon Holtz, director of athletic communication. "We're stepping our coverage up to a new level this year with the help of other departments on campus and our website provider, SIDEARM Sports. We've been able to provide some live audio coverage in the past, but this new endeavor will bring live video together with our live statistics and live social media efforts to provide an All-Access channel for live coverage of certain events."
 
The athletic communication office is funding the endeavor, which is being made possible by the cooperation of the communication department and the student-run TV station, WSRU-TV.
 
"I really need to thank Tom Flynn and the communication department and particularly senior Chris Dahlstrom for bringing a passion to this project," said Holtz. "This is something we have been looking at doing for a while and we couldn't make it happen without the help of the communication department and Chris' leadership of the students at WSRU-TV.
 
The project will officially launch this weekend with the SRU football game Saturday night at 6 p.m. and the SRU men's soccer game Sunday at 1 p.m.
 
Most of The Rock's athletic facilities will support the live video feature right away in 2014, thanks to hard-wired Internet connections. Broadcasts will be available for a significant portion of games played in Mihalik-Thompson Stadium and Morrow Field House and select games played in Jack Critchfield Park.
 
"We are working on a plan that may allow us to bring audio broadcasts to James Egli Field and the SRU Softball Complex this year, where we have previously been unable to bring any coverage other than live statistics," said Holtz.
 
Events will be streamed in HD and viewable on most Internet browsers and all mobile devices, including iPhones and iPads and mobile devices operating on the Android system.
 
"One of the most exciting features of this package is that fans are going to be able to watch live streaming video for free through their phones and other mobile devices," said Holtz. "We are very aware of the mobile trend and we want to start being able to deliver more content that is mobile friendly for our fans."
 
A complete list of events that will be live streamed will appear on the schedule of the All-Access page. Links will also be posted to the schedule pages for each sport and included in game and event previews.
 
In addition to the live video on the All-Access page, the live statistics feed and live Twitter feed will also be accessible on the same page, eliminating the need to have three browser windows open.
 
After live events are streamed, they will be moved to the On Demand section of the All-Access page, where fans will have free access to go back and view games and other video features that have already finished.
 
"We know the live streaming is going to make a lot of our fans happy, but we also know that there are times when people can't be following along live," said Holtz. "The On Demand channel will allow us to share complete games with those individuals and will allow our student-athletes that are playing in those games the opportunity to go back and watch the game."
 
The first video stream of the year is scheduled to go live at 5:30 p.m. Saturday evening, approximately 30 minutes before The Rock football team kicks off the season against Kutztown.
 
To check out the new All-Access page, visit www.RockAthletics.com/watch/