Stars’ games to be streamed
With no fans being allowed to attend basketball games due to the coronavirus pandemic, South Arkansas Community College went to a place that has become common for sporting events to be broadcast.
All of the Stars' home games will be streamed at live for free via its YouTube channel.
“We had been kicking around the idea of streaming last year,” said Heath Waldrop, the director of marketing and public relations at SouthArk.
“At this point, we're a new program, so we really need to have that revenue and crowd support and building a fanbase.
“We felt like we really needed to have people there, so we felt like live streaming would cut into that some, but we're trying to make the best out of the situation and be as accommodating as we can because obviously there's a lot of families that support these players who won't be able to be there in person, so we wanted to give them an opportunity to be able to see the games.”
Waldrop said some of the Stars' opponents will also be streaming games,
so there is the chance fans will be able to watch all of the games this season.
“Some of the schools that we will be traveling to will have live streaming, so there's a possibility to catch all of the Stars games throughout the season from wherever you are on the Internet,” Waldrop said.
For Stars coach Nate Davis, live streaming has become invaluable in evaluating prospects to recruit.
“I've been to a few games locally this year, but the biggest thing for coaches is the capability of live stream,” Davis said. “It's been so nice for me to be able to go home, but still be able to recruit and not have to get out and go across the state. The majority of these high schools are doing really well with that live stream capability. It gives kids exposure. It's a lot more accessible given the state of things.”
As far as the future is concerned, Waldrop said the school will wait and see how things go this year before deciding on if they want to continue with the service.
“We have our own student population and we had a lot of community support last year, and we didn't want to disenfranchise those people who were already in the fold, so we wanted to give them an opportunity,” Waldrop said. “Going forward, we will reevaluate how we want to continue or if we want to continue.”