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Prep Zone Returns for Football Playoffs

October 28, 2015

By John Johnson
MHSAA communications director

For the fifth straight season, FOX Sports Detroit will provide live streaming video coverage of four games from each of the first four rounds of the MHSAA Football Playoffs – presented by the Michigan Army National Guard – on the PrepZone on FoxSportsDetroit.com.

Pre-District games on the PrepZone this Friday (Oct. 30) are:

  • Clarkston at Romeo
  • Farmington Hills Harrison at Birmingham Groves
  • Mason at St. Johns
  • Flint Powers Catholic at Goodrich

All PrepZone games will be live at 7 p.m. Fridays the first three weekends of tournament play, and the Semifinal games Nov. 21 starting at 1 p.m. will be part of a package with MHSAA.tv where all 16 games will be live on the Internet.

Fans can watch PrepZone games on their computer or handheld devices and follow these instructions:

On Your Desktop/Laptop Computer

  • Go to FOXSportsGo.com
  • Click on the “All Chs” menu at the bottom left of the page
  • Select “FOX Sports Go Extras”

On Your Handheld Device

  • Download the free FOX Sports Go app from your store
  • Click on the “All Channels” menu at the top of the app
  • Select “FOX Sports Go Extras”

All PrepZone games will be archived on MHSAA.tv.

A number of Football Playoff games will be covered by MHSAA members participating in the School Broadcast Program this week, including three Saturday (Oct. 31) games which will be available live on a subscription basis.  SBP produced games being shown live this week at 1 p.m. Saturday are:

  • Gaylord at Mt. Pleasant
  • Crystal Falls Forest Park at Lake Linden-Hubbell

A Day Pass to watch live on MHSAA.tv is $9.95.  A Month Pass is $14.95, and would also allow access to the full schedule of MHSAA Tournaments during the month of November:

  • Nov. 4 – Selected Boys Soccer Semifinals
  • Nov. 7 – Boys Soccer Finals
  • Nov. 7 – Selected Football Playoff District Finals
  • Nov. 14 – Selected Football Playoff Regional Finals
  • Nov. 19-20 – Girls Volleyball Semifinals & Finals
  • Nov. 21 – Lower Peninsula Girls Swimming & Diving Finals
  • Nov. 21 – Football Playoff Semifinals (12 games)

Other Football Playoff games available on an On Demand basis being produced by SBP schools this week are:

In its seventh year, the School Broadcast Program gives members an opportunity to showcase excellence in their schools by creating video programming of athletic and non-athletic events, with students gaining skills in announcing, camera operation, directing/producing and graphics. 

The program also gives schools the opportunity to raise money through advertising and viewing subscriptions.  

All sporting events – Live or On-Demand - are available on a subscription basis only for their first 72 hours online. They become available for free, on-demand viewing approximately 72 hours following their completion.

Launching at Midnight every Friday throughout the season is MHSAA Football Friday Overtime on FOX Sports Detroit.  Mickey York and Rob Rubick host the weekly 30-minute highlights show.  The show will re-air most Saturday and Sunday mornings – and will be archived on the FOX Detroit Website.  This week, FFOT will re-air at 6 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Saturday; and 10 a.m. Sunday on FOX Sports Detroit. 

The following games are scheduled to be highlighted this week on Football Friday Overtime:

  • Detroit Denby at Detroit Collegiate Prep
  • Marysville at Pontiac Notre Dame Prep
  • Bay City John Glenn at Orchard Lake St. Mary's
  • Riverview at Allen Park
  • Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett at Riverview Gabriel Richard
  • PLUS – Highlights from this week’s PrepZone games.

This week's School Broadcast Program highlights (see below) include football games with Otsego at Plainwell and Hudsonville at Rockford and a volleyball match, Bay City John Glenn at Pinconning.     

Schools interested in becoming a part of the School Broadcast Program should contact John Johnson at the MHSAA Office.

MHSAA TV

MHSAA.tv Live Postseason Views Approach 1 Million for 2020-21

By Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor

July 14, 2021

Live postseason events streamed on MHSAA.tv during the 2020-21 school year were viewed nearly 1 million times, with 15 events drawing more than 10,000 live views apiece. 

The final championship weekend of the Spring – featuring Girls Soccer Finals and Baseball and Softball Semifinals & Finals, all across four divisions June 17-19 at Michigan State University – saw nearly 70,000 live views on MHSAA.tv despite record attendance of those events at Old College Field. 

The Division 2 Softball championship game – which ended with Owosso claiming its first Finals title in any sport, drew a weekend-high 5,677 live views on the network. The previous weekend, the Division 1 Girls Lacrosse Final won by Rockford on June 12 led the way with 4,284 live views.

The total number of live postseason views on MHSAA.tv for 2020-21 was 962,371. The most-viewed live tournament events were the Individual and Team Wrestling Finals, which with all rounds over all four divisions combined drew 244,044 live views. Among individual games broadcast solely by MHSAA.tv, the Division 3 Boys Basketball Semifinal matching Iron Mountain and Schoolcraft (15,393 live views) and the Division 1 Volleyball Semifinal featuring Novi and Lowell (13,484) ranked among the most watched.

MHSAA.tv is a partner of the NFHS Network. Postseason events streamed on MHSAA.tv included most sports’ Finals, and Semifinals and Quarterfinals for some – especially sports where multiple concluding rounds were hosted by the same tournament site.

MHSAA.tv also ranked second among NFHS Network contributing states with 18,973 live events (postseason and regular-season combined) streamed during the 2020-21 school year. That total of nearly 19,000 live postseason events was an increase from 7,710 events streamed live during 2019-20 and 3,900 during 2018-19, and placed Michigan behind only Illinois.

The School Broadcast Program is responsible for nearly all production of regular-season events. Having now concluded its 13th year, the SBP gives members an opportunity to showcase excellence in their schools by creating video programming of athletic and non-athletic events with students gaining skills in announcing, camera operation, directing/producing and graphics. Rockford – one of the state’s largest schools with nearly 2,500 students – broadcast 242 events, drawing an SBP-high 74,437 live views and 89,604 total with on-demand replays included. Much smaller Pewamo-Westphalia, a school of 300 students, received the second-most views of SBP members in 2020-21 with 56,009 including live and on-demand. Marquette, Lake Orion, Cedar Springs, Montrose and McBain also were among top SBP providers.

In addition to bringing local events on air nationally, the School Broadcast Program gives schools the opportunity to raise money through advertising and viewing subscriptions. NFHS Network subscriptions begin at $10.99 per month. Subscribers receive access to all live and on-demand video from across the country. School Broadcast Program participants receive a portion of every subscription sold by a school to benefit its program.

Broadcasts from the majority of Michigan schools – especially those lacking the ability to staff events for production – are streamed using a Pixellot automated camera. Michigan schools have 774 Pixellots in service, third-most in the country behind only Texas and California. Most Michigan schools have one camera at an outdoor stadium and a second at the main indoor gymnasium.

A complete list of participating schools can be found on the School Broadcast Program page of the MHSAA Website.