Games Galore highlight MHSAA.tv

October 10, 2012

The fall season is winding down, but the opposite is true for MHSAA.tv and the School Broadcast Program, which produced 28 events last week covering a multitude of teams from all over Michigan.

See those listings below, plus links to the MHSAA Football Friday Overtime on Fox Sports Detroit and the Comcast/Xfinity game shot last week -- Grosse Pointe North vs. Grosse Pointe South -- plus a link to this week's MHSAA Perspective.

MHSAA.tv: Click on the "Schools" tab on MHSAA.tv to find these games:

  • Atlanta vs. Hillman football
  • L'Anse vs. Calumet football
  • Rudyard vs. Rogers City football
  • Sault Ste. Marie vs. Cheboygan football
  • Traverse City West vs. Petoskey football
  • AuGres vs. Mio football
  • Manton vs. Lincoln Alcona football
  • Johannesburg-Lewiston vs. Onaway football
  • Parma Western vs. Mason football
  • Lansing Sexton vs. East Lansing football
  • Flint Southwestern vs. Davison football
  • Pellston vs. Indian River Indian Lakes football
  • Montrose vs. Flint Beecher football
  • St. Johns vs. Mason swimming and diving
  • Oscoda vs. Lincoln Alcona volleyball
  • Taylor Truman vs. Trenton volleyball
  • Kalamazoo Christian vs. Galesburg-Augusta volleyball
  • Davison vs. Flint Powers Catholic volleyball
  • Montrose vs. Goodrich volleyball
  • Grand Ledge vs. East Lansing volleyball
  • Brownstown Woodhaven vs. Allen Park volleyball
  • Spring Lake vs. Ludington volleyball
  • Alanson vs. Ellsworth volleyball
  • Harbor Springs Harbor Light Christian vs. Cheboygan soccer
  • Allen Park vs. Brownstown Woodhaven soccer
  • Cheboygan vs. Roscommon soccer
  • Oscoda vs. Lincoln Alcona soccer
  • Mason vs. Jackson Lumen Christi soccer
  • Also, click under "MHSAA" and "Recent" for the 1994 Class A Boys Soccer Final between Canton and Warren DeLaSalle, won in sudden-death overtime by Canton, 1-0.

FOX: At midnight after each Friday's games, Fox Sports Detroit airs its Football Friday Overtime. Last week, the show was expanded to an hour, with highlights from 13 games.

XFINITY: Friday's 17-15 Grosse Pointe South win over Grosse Pointe North is available to subscribers On Demand on Xfinity's High School Sports site.

MHSAA Perspective: Our John Johnson gives his take not on the NFL replacement officials, but rather, on how treatment of them by players and coaches set a poor example for those at the high school level - Listen

Below: This week's School Broadcast Program highlights, drawn from the L'Anse at Calumet, Flint Southwestern at Davison and Lansing Sexton at East Lansing football games, and a volleyball match between Montrose and Goodrich.

NFHS Network Rooted in Our Back Yards

August 28, 2014

By Jack Roberts
MHSAA Executive Director

Throughout my nearly 28-year tenure with the MHSAA, I have been a consistent and outspoken critic of our national organization, the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), whenever it attempted an initiative that I saw purposed more for its own promotion than as a needed service for its member associations and their member schools.

When its strategy for service was to promote a “national presence” for the NFHS, I objected. I have never felt that national tournaments or national telecasts would be of the slightest benefit to 99 percent of the MHSAA’s member schools; and worse, I have always believed that those initiatives would tend to corrupt the one percent involved.

So it may have come as a surprise to some of my colleagues in this state and my counterparts across the country when I became an early advocate of the NFHS Network and now serve as the network’s first president.

The definitive difference between the NFHS Network and earlier talk of national tournaments and telecasts is that the network’s thrust is local, not national. In fact, it’s hyper-local.

The heart of the NFHS Network consists of the season-ending tournaments of statewide high school associations across the U.S. The NFHS Network produced Internet broadcasts of at least the culminating contests for most of the sports sponsored by most of the three dozen state associations contributing content during 2013-14, the network’s first year of operation.

While state high school associations provide an immense potential for content, there are only 51 member associations of the NFHS, in contrast to the coast-to-coast pool of nearly 20,000 member high schools these associations serve. It is this local content through the School Broadcasting Program that gives the network its legs. The aggregation of all this content is the magnet to draw media partners, sponsors and subscribers; and it is this local emphasis that attracted my support of the concept, and now my service to the network board of directors.

School sports is first, last and always about local teams. And it’s not just high-profile sports and varsity teams; it’s just as much about lower profile programs and subvarsity events.

There are more school-sponsored football games in Michigan during one week than there are NFL games across the U.S. all season long. There are more school-sponsored basketball games in Michigan during one week than there are NBA games across the U.S. all season. And we serve two dozen other sports as well.

Together, the MHSAA and the SBP can provide enough live and on-demand Internet programming to provide MHSAA.tv with authentic high school sports broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days each year. And those who subscribe to Internet broadcasts on MHSAA.tv have access to content from the local school and state association level from coast to coast and border to border.

The success of the NFHS Network will not be “made-for-TV” national-scope tournaments or matchups between teams with the most highly recruited players. Our success will come from the aggregation of thousands of typical local rivalries that are played all school year long in every nook of this state and every cranny of our nation.

At least while I’m involved, the NFHS Network will be true to the mission of school-based sports and uplift the values for which educational athletics have always stood.

For years, school sports have stood apart from non-school sports as the preferred brand of youth sports because we offered letter jackets, pep assemblies, pep bands, marching bands, cheerleaders and homecomings. Going forward, school sports will also stand apart from other youth sports because of the NFHS Network.