
Content Machines: Inside Barstool Sports' Efforts Around Super Bowl Week Live radio, digital video, ENG crews help burgeoning media giant shine on the big stage By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - 3:10 pm
Print This Story
Quality vs. quantity: it's the ultimate balancing act for content creators in the modern age. The internet is a beast that cannot be satisfied. In the case of booming digital-media company Barstool Sports, however, the question is not either or but rather why not both.
Barstool Sports set up residency at Cowboy Jacks, a bar in Downtown Minneapolis, for its coverage of Super Bowl Week.
Anyone who follows Barstool Sports knows that the company prides itself on its ability to churn out content at a furious pace, and Super Bowl Week is its grandest stage. All last week, Barstool took over the large Downtown Minneapolis bar Cowboy Jacks to serve as the nerve center for its presence around the big game, highlighted by 10 straight hours of live radio per day via its recently launched channel on SiriusXM.
It's a dramatically different approach from Barstool's effort for last year's Super Bowl, when it garnered loads of attention hosting a nightly linear television show that ran live on Comedy Central throughout Super Bowl Week. Internally, the show was very well-received and deemed a success, but Barstool Head of Media Technology and Production Pete Overmyer believes that this year's return to the company's radio and digital-video roots proved a much better utilization of resources.
I don't think we realized it at the time how much oxygen the TV show sucked out of the room and how much work and attention it took, he says. It caused us to not be able do all the videos and all the content things that we want to do in normally covering a Super Bowl. We [had] time [in Minneapolis], and we're really good at just sitting down and doing the radio. Obviously, it's a difficult technical challenge being in a very crowded bar, but it's not the level of time and commitment that the show needed. I think, in some ways, [this] is more difficult, but we're getting a lot more out of it and definitely driving back to our kind of owned and operated platform, which is huge for us.
Barstool traveled approximately 33 of its own New York-based staff - talent, producers, shooters, editors, technicians - to Minneapolis and didn't tap into the local freelance community. (Says Overmyer, We really believe that we're the only one that can make our content. ) The company did enlist Aspera's FASP software-based file-transfer technology to quickly deliver content both from Cowboy Jacks and ENG shoots around the Twin Cities to the New York offices, where more producers and editors were ready to put the finish touches on content for distribution.
On the first floor of the bar, the company erected a large lounge set, from which the 10 hours of live radio was produced. A radio activation by nature, the stage featured a three-camera shoot with Sony XDCAM PXW X70's feeding into a Newtek Tricaster Mini. The produced show was fed to many of the screens inside the bar and streamed to the NYC offices for editing. Although Barstool was unable to live-stream its radio shows because of SiriusXM's subscription model, editors in New York were able to churn out on-demand content from the shows at a rapid pace.
We look at it as promotion, says Overmyer. If you see that great 4-minute clip of an interview on social, we want you to come and listen to the channel because there is 15 more minutes of that conversation that you didn't get. We do it all day every day from New York, and that was important for us to be able to do that same thing from [Minneapolis], where we're obviously at a higher-profile event and with the guests that we have.
Besides the bar, Barstool also deployed up to seven ENG crews around Minneapolis during Super Bowl Week, capturing content at locations ranging from Radio Row at Mall of America to Super Bowl Live at Nicollet Mall. The camera operators shot content right into their cameras and returned to Cowboy Jacks to drop off cards for transfer of the files via Aspera to New York for final editing.
Barstool Sports' Pete Overmyer's advice for covering a high-profile event: Bring what you can handle, start small, and really think about what you want to do and what you need.
We can basically produce double the content for the staff that we have on the ground, says Overmyer, who was also working behind the curtain in Minneapolis with Studio Production and Digital Broadcast Technician Andrew Manley. Company CEO Erica Nardini was also visible, overseeing the organized chaos.
Although walking through Cowboy Jacks was like fighting your way through a rocking bar in a big college town on a Friday night, it was evident that the significant amount of planning that went into setting the raucous scene was thorough, especially from a technological standpoint. So, what advice would Overmyer give to other digital-media companies that might want to rethink the way they approach content and fan activation experiences at high-profile sports events?
I think it's two-fold, he explains. You've really got to know what you want to cover, what you want to do, what are those angles. We're not in Radio Row - we're not allowed - but that doesn't stop us from being able to find those stories and those interesting things. Even the less sports-focused stuff that we're doing is made more interesting just by our being here. There are interesting people and interesting stories.
On the technical side, Overmyer continues, it's all about figuring out the minimum [resources] you need to do it. If you're smaller and you can't bring a whole crew, then do w
Most recent headlines
14/03/2025
BURLINGTON, Mass. Avid has expanded its executive leadership team (ELT) with the appointment of three experienced executives: Tom Sharma as chief technology off...
14/03/2025
CUPERTINO, Calif. TVU Networks, a pioneer in live video production and a leader in cloud-based media solutions, is marking its 20th anniversary at the 2025 NAB ...
13/03/2025
(L-R) Stephanie Suganami, Tatanka Means, John Malkovich, Ayo Edebiri, and Juliette Lewis attend the premiere of Opus at Eccles Theatre in Park City. (Photo by...
13/03/2025
Spotify took center stage at the London Book Fair this week, reaffirming our commitment to the audiobook market and showcasing our impact on the publishing indu...
13/03/2025
At Spotify, we work every day to lift up new voices, giving creators the opportunity to live off their art. Through Spotify Audiobooks, our in-house publishing ...
13/03/2025
Every time airborne law enforcement (ALE) teams fly, they expect their equipment to perform. Whether airborne units are conducting support for ground teams, bor...
13/03/2025
Sunday February 9 saw the annual return of the US' biggest television event, the Super Bowl LIX. Jamie McCombs, Fox Sports Audio Consultant / Sr. Audio capt...
13/03/2025
On Sunday March 2, stars across the film industry gathered at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles for the 97th Academy Awards. Production Sound Mixer Paul Sandweis...
13/03/2025
WUPPERTAL, Germany Riedel Communications will feature its new StageLink family of smart edge devices, Smart Audio and Mixing Engine (SAME) and Virtual Smart Pan...
13/03/2025
TAG Video Systems and Harmonic Partner to Deliver Enhanced Real-Time Monitoring ...
13/03/2025
DigitalGlue Invites NAB Visitors to Experience New Features in Managed Storage P...
13/03/2025
FOR-A America Theme - Connecting the Present, Building the Future - Comes to Lif...
13/03/2025
CTIA, the wireless industry association, has named former FCC Chairman Aji Pai as its President and Chief Executive Officer, effective April 1. He replaces Mere...
13/03/2025
he National Association of Broadcasters is urging the FCC to end its investigation of that controversial CBS interview with Kamala Harris stating there is no ...
13/03/2025
MIAMI CBS News & Stations continues to expand its use of augmented and virtual reality technologies with the planned launch of an augmented reality/virtual real...
13/03/2025
Srividhya Srinivasan, co-founder and chief customer success & innovation Officer at Amagi, tells TVBEurope how staying ahead of the latest trends is essential f...
13/03/2025
WASHINGTON FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced that the agency has launched a massive, new deregulatory initiative that could potentially subject virtually all ...
13/03/2025
SUNNYVALE, Calif. SDVI has announced that it has integrated its Rally media supply chain management platform with the Spectra Vail multi-cloud data management s...
13/03/2025
ATLANTA Gray Media has announced that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted a waiver of its local ownership rules to permit Gray Media to acqu...
13/03/2025
TV Tech: What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trends at the 2025 NAB Show?...
13/03/2025
Watch Student Naomi Soleils Folk Pop Performance on The Voice The songwriting major sang Stars by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals during the blind auditions.
...
13/03/2025
Roku Debuts NWSL Zone' Within Roku Sports to Spotlight Live Games, Content Feature marks Rokus first women's league-branded zone within service By Bra...
13/03/2025
Pixels, Images, Video, AI - and Us: A Perspective on AI from NDI Inventor Andrew...
13/03/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Lighting Design Group's Steve Brill, Dennis Size ...
13/03/2025
IOC, Comcast NBCU Ink $3B Media-Rights Extension for Olympic Games Through 2036;...
13/03/2025
NCAA March Madness Live Returns with Expanded Availability of MultiView Vertical...
13/03/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Cosm's Devin Poolman on What It Takes To Deliver the Immersive...
13/03/2025
Sky Business, Sky's B2B division, providing connectivity and content to busi...
13/03/2025
Rohde & Schwarz launches R&S NRP140TWG(N) thermal power sensor: A new benchmark ...
13/03/2025
We asked the questions, analysed the answers and now we're excited to share the results of the fifth edition of the ICG Marketing Survey.
Our 2025 survey p...
13/03/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. - March 13, 2025 Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced a breakthrough in video streaming innovation with the launch of new origin capabilitie...
13/03/2025
Haivision Showcases Mission-Critical Video Solutions at SOF Week 2025
Haivision's video wall systems, ISR technology, and DoDIN APL-certified video distri...
13/03/2025
Company Leads the Way with New Software-Based Production Platform, 12G Switcher,...
13/03/2025
A new Apple Immersive concert experience, Metallica, is coming to Apple Vision Pro this Friday, March 14. Filmed in Mexico City during the sold-out second-year ...
13/03/2025
Here is your host, Patrick Kielty!
Shake your Shamrocks, Patrick Kielty will be...
13/03/2025
This St. Patrick's weekend, RT invites you to celebrate all things Irish, showcasing the very best of Irish sport, entertainment and live coverage from the...
13/03/2025
What's next in AI is at GTC 2025. Not only the technology, but the people and ideas that are pushing AI forward - creating new opportunities, novel solution...
13/03/2025
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
By combining T-Mobile's robust network, Thal...
13/03/2025
Bundle up - GeForce NOW is bringing a flurry of Blizzard titles to its ever-expanding library.
Prepare to weather epic gameplay in the cloud, tackling the genr...
13/03/2025
AI is leveling up the world's most beloved games, as the latest advancements...
13/03/2025
PC game modding is massive, with over 5 billion mods downloaded annually. Mods p...
12/03/2025
O Spotify acaba de lan ar o relat rio Loud & Clear deste ano, uma vis o transpar...
12/03/2025
Spotify acaba de presentar el informe Loud & Clear de este a o, una mirada trans...
12/03/2025
Ramadan, a period of profound spiritual significance for Muslims worldwide, is a time for fasting, prayer, reflection, and community. Enrich your experience thi...
12/03/2025
Spotify has just unveiled this year's Loud & Clear report, a transparent loo...
12/03/2025
More than 70% of FAST programming has been produced since 2010, according to new Gracenote report
NEW YORK March 12, 2025 Gracenote, the content data busin...
12/03/2025
GEONA, Nev. Independent digital and linear advertising rep firm Viamedia will adopt cloud-based ShowSeeker Pilot as its primary ad campaign and order management...
12/03/2025
BRUSSELS Mediagenix has announced that Wael Yasin has joined the company as sales director Central Europe....
12/03/2025
LONDON A new study highlights opportunities for shoppable TV and the massive impact online consumer spending is having on the economy, with Omdia predicting tha...
12/03/2025
CUPERTINO, Calif. Interra Systems has announced that Comcast Technology Solutions has integrated recent updates to BATON Version 9 into its operations....