For the past several years, Southern California’s own, David Blackburn has been working behind the scenes at the ISC World Tournament, to bring the games right to our doorstep, wherever in the world that may be. David heads up the Streaming Audio (and perhaps soon, video), delivering live men’s fastpitch/fastball via live stream on the internet.

The pilot program for the ISC World Tournament was tested in the summer of 2001 Best of the West Tournament in Palmdale California, and then put into place for the first time at the 2001 ISC World Tournament, allowing those who could not make the trip to the World Tournment to follow all the action. I had the privilege of sitting in on some of those “beta test” broadcasts from Palmdale, and seeing David’s work on the program first hand.

The growth and popularity of the live audio broadcast program has been remarkable, with audiences now numbering over 10,000 listeners for the World Tournament each year. Post-game interviews broadcast after the games have introduced us to countless players and rising stars of the game, bringing us an up-close look at the tournament, and giving us that “almost-sitting-in-the-ballpark” feel.

Now in its fourth year, the David’s ISC crew, headed up by play by play announcer Ron Chambers and color man Ferdi Nielsen has been broadcasting games all week, including each and every game in the “Sweet Sixteen” playoff round. (In fact, I am listening to the 10am Saturday game between Calgary and Circle Tap as I type this story) David is on the air at times, but always “on” behind the scenes, tending to the production, arranging for sponsors to finance the program and all of the little details in between.

The ISC World broadcasts have become such a fixture at the tournament that it’s hard to remember the day when we didn’t have them. This year in Fargo, North Dakota, the ISC audio broadcast program was expanded to add 18 games from the intermediate level tournament, the ISC-II headed up by new ISC-II commissioner Blair Setford (which I was fortunate to be a part of).

Today (Saturday August 21, 2004) marks another step towards eventual live video broadcasts of the ISC World Tournament, as David coordinates a cable television broadcast of the championship game from Fargo, broadcast to homes in North Dakota and parts of Canada, and testing of streaming broadcast technology for use in future tournaments.

For all of the fastpitch/fastball fans around the world, we say “thanks” for your efforts Dave, exposing the great sport of men’s fastpitch to thousands more and giving the loyal fans our requisite dose live……

Below are the details for the TV broadcast (in case your local pub has satellite capability). Click the title of this story above to visit the “Sportjuice.com” page, which contains “click to listen links” for today’s final games, including the championship game on at 6:30 p.m. central time.

They are doing some testing of streaming video, so you may also want to click the video link on that page to see what they are up to. At last check, I was hearing that they had not yet
resolved some technical issues to do the video stream, but you never know.

Where David Blackburn and streaming media are involved, the future is just a day away.

Men’s Fastball Fans:

If you would like to watch the 2004 ISC World Tournament on live satellite Television at your local Sports Bar, here is what you need to do…

Tell the bartender, or the person who controls the satellite dish that you want to watch

IA – 6 / K 11
Specifics:
Satellite name is IA-6 [Intelsat Americas 6] *This is the
satellite formerly named Telstar 6*
· This is a KU Analog satellite
· Transponder 11

This is the information that Sports Bars will need to show patrons the championship game for free.

On Saturday night August 21, at 6:30 PM Central Standard Time, The ISC
World Championship game will be also broadcast live on ABC Television in North and South
Dakota, and to over one million homes in Manitoba Canada, on Cable TV.

For the first time in the ISC’s 4 year history of streaming fastball games, we will also be experimentingwith streaming video of the Championship via Sportsjuice.com.
More details on that, as plans are finalized. We still have some final technical details to sort out.

Stay tuned, and enjoy all of this ISC Men’s fastball action.

Dave Blackburn
ISC Commissioner
Streaming and Broadcasting
310-266-7803
mailto:daveb@virtvent.com

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 21st, 2004 at 5:47 pm and is filed under Broadcasts, ISC, Tournaments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.