See Finals Live on MHSAA.TV and Fox
November 19, 2013
It’s a huge streaming weekend for MHSAA tournaments, with more than 70 hours of live audio and video coverage of three sports on the MHSAA Network and FOX Sports Detroit.
The MHSAA.TV website will host live video of the Girls Volleyball Semifinals and Finals, and the Finals of the Lower Peninsula Girls Swimming & Diving Championships, on a subscription basis. A pass can be purchased for $14.95 to watch all three days of volleyball plus the swimming, or a daily pass is available at $9.95. These events will be available for free on-demand viewing beginning Nov. 27 at MHSAA.TV.
Prep Zone: It’s the last weekend of Prep Zone coverage on the FoxSportsDetroit.com website, with free live coverage of the 8-Player Football Final and four Semifinal games in the 11-Player Football Playoffs. All of these events will be archived at MHSAA.TV.
On Friday, the championship game of the 8-Player Football Playoffs between Peck and Rapid River at Legacy Field in Greenville will take place at 7 p.m., with live streaming video on FoxSportsDetroit.com, and live audio streaming on MHSAANetwork.com. Because of conflicts with collegiate and professional games, the game will be on cable on a delayed basis. It will be shown on FOX Sports Detroit at 9 a.m. Saturday and again on Nov. 26 at 8 p.m. The on-demand video archive will be available shortly after the game’s conclusion at MHSAA.TV.
Below are Saturday's 11-player Prep Zone games. Three kick off at 1 p.m. and Ithaca/Montrose begins at 2 p.m.
- Detroit Catholic Central (10-2) vs. Detroit Cass Tech (12-0) at Troy Athens High School
- Birmingham Brother Rice (12-0) vs. Detroit Martin Luther King (10-1) at Wayne State University
- Ithaca (12-0) vs. Montrose (12-0) at Midland High School
- Muskegon Catholic Central (10-2) vs. New Lothrop (12-0) at Greenville High School
Volleyball Finals: Coverage runs Thursday through Saturday, and free audio of the games is available at MHSAANetwork.com. Here’s the complete schedule with Tuesday Quarterfinal pairings shown:
Thursday – Nov. 21
Class D Semifinals
2 p.m. – Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart/Leland winner vs. Waterford Our Lady/Marine City Cardinal Mooney winner
3:45 p.m. – Brimley/Crystal Falls Forest Park winner vs. Battle Creek St. Philip/Hillsdale Academy winner
Class A Semifinals
5:30 p.m. – Northville/Traverse City West winner vs. Haslett/East Grand Rapids winner
7:15 p.m. – Temperance Bedford/Livonia Stevenson winner vs. Romeo/Bloomfield Hills Marian winner
Friday – Nov. 22
Class C Semifinals
2 p.m. – Unionville-Sebewaing/Grand Rapids Covenant Christian winner vs. Schoolcraft/Mendon winner
3:45 p.m. – Ottawa Lake Whiteford/Auburn Hills Oakland Christian winner vs. Beal City/Calumet winner
Class B Semifinals
5:30 p.m. – Berrien Springs/Grand Rapids South Christian winner vs. Saginaw Swan Valley/Cadillac winner
7:15 p.m. – Pontiac Notre Dame Prep/North Branch winner vs. Monroe St. Mary /Wayland winner
Saturday – Nov. 23
Class D Final – 10 a.m.
Class C Final – Noon
Class A Final – 2 p.m.
Class B Final – 4 p.m.
Swimming & Diving Finals: On Saturday, MHSAA.TV will be home of live streaming video of the Lower Peninsula Girls Swimming & Diving Finals beginning at Noon. The Division 1 Finals will take place at Oakland University; the Division 2 Finals are at Eastern Michigan University and the Holland Aquatics Center will be hosting the Division 3 event.
Last week's action: A number of football Regional Finals and a pair of volleyball Regional games were added oto MHSAA.TV by our partners with the School Broadcast Program:
- Montrose vs. Madison Heights Madison football
- St. Ignace vs. Beal City football
- Melvindale vs. St. Clair football
- Saginaw Swan Valley vs. Lansing Sexton football
- Battle Creek Pennfield vs. Grand Rapids South Christian football
- Comstock Park vs. Cadillac football
- Battle Creek Harper Creek vs. Plainwell volleyball
- Berrien Springs vs. Three Rivers volleyball
MHSAA Perspective: John Johnson spotlights the writings of a former coach and current athletic director who adjusted his perspective about officials by calling his own 30-second timeout - 30-Second Timeout
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.