Staff photo / Neel Madhavan. YSU’s state-of-the-art control room sits inside the Don Constantini Multimedia Center in Stambaugh Stadium. From here, YSU broadcasts its sporting events on ESPN+.

YOUNGSTOWN — The logistics of sports broadcasting nowadays are everchanging.

Youngstown State has produced and broadcasted most, if not all, of its sporting events online since the early 2010s, and video production specialist Kevin Davis has been there since the very beginning.

When it first started, Davis said YSU was just using eight-foot folding tables and connecting cameras to a computer, while he used his laptop to edit and create graphics.

“We just had a couple other students running cameras, and we just went with it,” said Davis, who was also just a student himself at the time.

YSU has come a long way since then. Now, Davis works with a crew of 10 to broadcast Penguins men’s and women’s basketball games on ESPN+.

There are four people inside the state-of-the-art video control room inside the Don Constantini Multimedia Center in Stambaugh Stadium, which includes himself, as the director of the broadcast, a replay operator, a producer and a graphics operator. Then there’s six others that are onsite in the Beeghly Center — two aerial sideline camera operators, two under-the-basket baseline camera operators and the two announcers calling the game.

“This is very much an ideal setup,” Davis said. “We’ve worked quite a few years to build it up to this. … As the years (went) on, (athletic director) Ron Strollo has given me a budget every year just so we can always keep our equipment new, up-to-date and working well.”

But on Friday night, YSU had the chance to be televised on national television on ESPN2.

Tupelo Honey, a television production company based out of Indianapolis, was contracted and hired by ESPN to produce and broadcast the Penguins’ Horizon League showdown with Wright State.

According to Tupelo Honey senior producer Kyle Binder, his company conducted what’s called a REMI broadcast on Friday, which is essentially a remote broadcast — something that’s become much more common in today’s sports broadcast world.

“ESPN started doing REMI broadcasts before COVID, then COVID just expedited people going that route and the technology was there, so it just expedited the process,” Binder said. “Us and companies like us have also transitioned to a majority of our broadcasts being REMI as well out of our studios. We pretty much do all of our basketball out of our studios. We do some football and other events, as well. But basketball is probably 90-95% REMI for us now.”

Basically, for Tupelo Honey’s REMI broadcasts, the crew members that would normally be inside the production truck — the producer, director, technical director, audio director, replay operator and graphics producer — are instead set up inside the company’s studio in Indianapolis.

Meanwhile, the camera operators, the tech manager, the utility people and the on-air talent were on site at the Beeghly Center remoting the game video and audio feeds through the arena’s internet network back to Binder’s team’s studio in Indianapolis, where it is then transmitted to ESPN to be broadcast over the airwaves.

“There’s a requirement of a certain level of bandwidth that’s needed,” Binder said. “That’s something that (ESPN) has to set out there to make sure you have a consistent standard for most broadcasts, unless there’s some sort of giant network issue where the camera feeds go down. A fan at home wouldn’t be able to tell if a production was REMI or not REMI — the video quality is that good.”

A typical broadcast workday for Binder and his crew can routinely last as much as 8-12 hours long.

On Friday, the Tupelo Honey mobile unit broadcast truck pulled up to the Beeghly Center at 11 a.m. for the 9 p.m. tip and got powered up. Then, the on-site crew call was at 3 p.m., where they create a plan with the tech manager where cameras will be set up, where the announcer table is and then they start pulling and running cables from the cameras and audio feeds to the production truck.

In Indianapolis, the production crew had a call time for an hour later at 4 p.m.

“That’s when we all come into the studio and basically start preparing for the show,” Binder said. “The technical director and director will basically put all the video elements into the system that they need to have, then the graphics operator will build out graphics and make sure we’re good in that department. Then the replay folks will make sure they’ve got different elements loaded in and work on cutting up highlights to potentially use for the game.”

At 5:30 p.m., the crew then conducted what’s called a tech fax, which is a test of the cameras and comms units to make sure video and audio feeds are all being received. At 6 p.m., the director coordinates with the camera operators to make sure they’re all aware of their assignments.

Following an hour-long meal break, the crew completed a check with ESPN at about 7:30 p.m. to make sure the video and audio (were) properly synced and that the feeds were coming in accordingly.

“The announcers will usually get there two hours out, then we’ll basically go over different video and graphics with them, so we have a general game plan about what we’re going to do and how we’re going to open,” Binder said. “Then we’ll rehearse the open a couple times, generally about a half hour out from the show. Then we go on air at about 9 o’clock and we’ll do our live open, tip off and the rest is history.”

It’s a long day for all parties involved, but even after the game is over, there’s still plenty of work to do. Once the crew sends a playlist of game highlights over to ESPN, their responsibilities for ESPN are over for the night.

As soon as they toss their broadcast over to the next game or show, the crew on site will start breaking the cameras down and running cables back to the truck.

“Then they pack up the truck,” Binder said. “And the truck will hit the road and head off to the next event.”

And like Binder said, the rest is history.

nmadhavan@tribtoday.com