Client Background:

Founded in 1974, Varsity is the premier competitive cheerleading league in the world. Spanning elementary-age athletes to adults, each year tens of thousands of co-ed athletes take to the stage and show excellence in a sport promoting teamwork, accountability, dedication, and raw athleticism. Varsity.tv is the home of live-broadcasts of these events.

Challenge:

Even with a strong desire of families to watch their loved ones compete, athletes to check out the competition, and former athletes to appreciate the next generation of competitors, the inherent viewership numbers of these broadcasts provide a unique challenge in creating the professional product the sport deserves while staying on budget.

Solution:

Since 2022 Lonestar Streaming has produced the majority of all Texas-based Varsity.tv broadcasts on behalf of their parent-company FloSports. Showcasing the best in world-class competitive cheerleading, we handle as many as three simultaneous streams as teams perform across multiple halls, provide end-to-end production management, direct and produce broadcasts, and manage large crews.

The largest challenge always comes down to price. Internet providers at some venues can charge more than the entire production-budget combined. We mitigate this by constantly searching for the latest in affordable live streaming and AV technology, giving us the right mix of equipment to get the job done right. 

We also have crew members wear multiple hats on set, for example associate producers also running cameras and executive producers doing archiving and graphics. Our producers work closely with venue IT providers to ensure a stable stream and they themselves have a deep knowledge of IP protocols, vMix, and SRT/RTMP streaming. This avoids the need of an engineer on-site Though we never aim to take away below-the-line positions, the fans and client deserve a creative approach to getting the most professional product possible.