Championship coverage

[Dan Wishengrad]

And the feed is out again. I don't need to watch this anyways.

Fool me once, shame on you... fool me over and over and over...." Well you get the idea. I won't even try to watch the live feed any longer, it's better not to see any action than to start to enjoy the game and then get all frustrated and ticked off when the feed goes black - as it always does with these folks producing it. Maybe in future seasons the MCLA will go with a competent broadcast production company and will regain me as a viewer.

[Ravaging Beast]

Anyone notice that they have Colorado listed on the score as UCO? What are they thinking? At least use CU or Col. What is going on with these people?

[bsigmund90]

I posted this to another forum - but I think it's germane to the discussion being had at the moment regarding the streams/coverage:

Unfortunate to not see Coyne's coverage of the MCLA national tournament - he's arguably the best writer LM has on staff and would have provided great commentary regarding the tournament.

My question is - did Jac stop covering because of a decision at LacrosseMagazine? Or was it because the MCLA asked him to butt out?

I know LM restructured Jac's duties - but from this article: http://laxmagazine.com/college_men/club ... o_the_mcla - it seems to me like he was intent on covering through the end of the season.

From a tweet from Jac "My coverage is no longer wanted. RT @davediehl33 Lots of complaining about the MCLA tourney coverage and organizers. Will you be commenting?"

With the situation regarding collegelax and Sonny Peiper fresh in my mind - I unfortunately have to question who made this decision.

Also, the same week that he stopped covering - he took a few stabs at the MCLA's content and marketing direction: http://laxmagazine.com/blogs/author/coy ... _Jac_Coyne , prompting the MCLA to release another one of their - rough - marketing videos.

is there more going on here than meets the eye? or am I reading into this way too much? from tweets from others (Jordan Harris, Peter Tumbas specifically) - it seems to me like there absolutely is something to this.

Additionally, from 4onetwolax speaking with what I would assume is a West Coast MCLA head coach regarding the tournament: http://www.4onetwolax.com/mcla-coaches- ... ear-two-2/

- "The live stream is obviously a total mess, which is hard to hear, because TLN offered to come out and do the games and was denied access."

The MCLA pushes out the best live-stream lacrosse group working. It's good enough for the MLL, these guys are MCLA alum, but we don't think that this is a good idea?

Whether they like it or not - 4onetwo and LaxCountry, LaxZone, and others are media that cover this division of our sport - but, once again it doesn't surprise me of the following: "@4OneTwoLax: Hey @LaxCountry, do you remember when the @MCLA_Champs tournament director tried to kick us out of the press box last year?"

Also, can't find my source - but i also read somewhere that LAS wanted to be a bigger part of the MCLA Tournament and were denied access as well.

Two twitter accounts , both under-utilized, and the @MCLA_Champs account which has been used since day 2 of the tournament is apparently not even the offical account, just someone else tweeting: "@MCLA_Champs: Even though this is the "unofficial" MCLA twitter feed, I hope all you fans out there are enjoying the coverage" What a mess.

If the MCLA wants to keep everything in-house instead of using the best content creators currently involved in the sport (Jac Coyne/LM, LAS, TLN, 4onetwo, LaxTV, & going back a ways - collegelax) besides Inside Lacrosse (which, other than Dave Franklin, don't seem too interested in "club" ball), the product needs to be a lot better.

I just question the decision making to shut outlets out when the product being done in-house is weaker than what an outside group is willing to do. $200,000 later...

[WCLLPREZ]

From what I understand, the reason The Lacrosse Network was not considered for the web streaming is that they refused to stream the games through the MCLA.us website which the MCLA Board of Directors (EC and 10 conference directors) agreed was necessary. The MCLA.us site was not the problem in Greenville. The MCLA is still investigating where the breakdowns occurred but it appears to be due to trying to send too much content over the wireless hot spots at the same time, resulting in less than perfect quality and the games on one particular field to have all the difficulty they had.

As a Vice-President of the MCLA, I can assure you that the Executive Board will be thoroughly examining the entire Championship event, from the web casting, lack of post game interviews the first day, media exposure both social, print and web, the scoreboard issues, changing of game balls every few games, etc during our EC meeting in July and then the entire Board of Directors meeting in August. A full report will be distributed to the BOD who should then distribute downward to their member teams. In this, I will give you all my word that it will happen with the upmost urgency and scrutiny.

bsigmund90 feel free to paste this onto the forums on the LAS site, I can't seem to remember my log in information there to make it happen.

[bsigmund90]

Gary,

Thanks for your post and your explanation regarding the situation - I will certainly do so. I have to believe that the EB want the best for the league, just like anyone else involved. There's a reason that you were voted to the Executive BOD and I'm just a 22 year old ex-MCLA player musing on a forum - and it's good to know that the BOD is looking with earnest into the championship event.

I appreciate the work that you put into the MCLA - it's a pretty thankless position with a lot of outside criticism coming from several sources, including myself, who don't really know what the inner workings are or how things play out at the executive level.

[Ravaging Beast]

I have been writing Schooling Schooler with Jac for the last few years and I have never seen him so upset with the MCLA and the general situation with his changing role. My initial impression when he told me we would no longer be doing our weekly pickem was that it was a laxmag issue. They needed to add staff to continue coverage, but did not have the resources to do so. So Jac's role was restructured.

We were supposed to do a final pickem for the tournament, but I got an email telling me that it wouldn't happen for various reasons that I don't know for sure, so I should not speculate. I do know that Jac was planning on doing stories for his projected field for each division, but the committee made its decision before he could get his stories out. I'm not sure if that is what pissed Jac off. I'm sure he reads this, but I doubt he would be the kind of guy to call out the MCLA or Laxmag in a public forum.

I am just a bummed that they saved all of this money (and cost teams a lot of money in travel costs) by doing the tournament in Greenville, but the coverage was sub-par. I'm scared to see how it would have been if they hosted it in a venue that cost money.

[Jolly Roger]

These problems can be summarized in two letters

AO

[bsigmund90]

Also think it may have something to do with the VP of Marketing not even being remotely connected to the league. Everyone else has a story as to why they're affiliated with the MCLA. Dave Heisey is coaching a Central PA HS team trying to make a run at states... I think he's got other priorities at the moment, right, wrong, or indifferent.

[OAKS]

I'm on the technical side of things so I don't know all the details, but like most things these days the process to get selected to broadcast the MCLA tournament happens by submitting a proposal. I believe three, maybe four media outlets did submit bids (including LaxTV and possibly TLN as well,) but I'm not 100% sure on who was submitting proposals. We certainly hope we get the chance to broadcast the tournament sometime in the future, and it may make sense to do it in concert with TLN or other entities.

From the technical side of things, broadcasting 4 HD games at once is VERY difficult unless you have a lot of bandwidth. Even if you have different 4g cards from different vendors with different towers, you're probably going to have issues. This is one of the reasons we only broadcast 1 or 2 games at a time at past tourneys. A hard-line or staggering the games somehow is going to be needed. Maybe we move the site to a location where there is Google Fiber?

The bright side is that cell networks and software are being upgraded all the time, so we're able to produce games that look more and more like major television network games, with tons of graphics, replays, stats, etc with less and less equipment.

[BYULAX31]

I A hard-line or staggering the games somehow is going to be needed. Maybe we move the site to a location where there is Google Fiber?

Let me introduce you to Provo, Utah. Home of Google Fiber and South Field

[green tea]

These problems can be summarized in two letters

AO

Chris,

You are incorrect. AO had nothing to do with the video. I didn't even see him at the event.

GT