This Thursday Herts Baseball Club will break yet another barrier. They will make British baseball history as the first baseball organisation in the UK to unveil its own TV channel. The Herts Baseball Channel will be launched at 8pm on Thursday, 23 September, with live coverage of the 2010 Hunlock Series Draft.
Exactly two years ago the club made history as the first British baseball club to broadcast live radio with coverage of the 2008 Hunlock Series Draft and this year the club has gone a step further.
Club President, Aspi Dimitrov, said: ‘Having the capability to broadcast our own TV channel 24 hours a day opens up endless opportunities for us to promote our club and continue our growth. We now have the ability to televise live or on-demand talk shows, fan phone-ins, player interviews, game highlights, pre-game build up and post-game analysis, and this will have a very positive effect on all Herts Baseball operations.’ He added: ‘We can even stream live games from our own ballpark and this can be done by adopting the same methods used by ESPN and FOX when they show live MLB games. For example, we can televise a Herts Falcons game live with 10 or more different cameras located in different parts of the ballpark and the various video feeds can be mixed to deliver coverage of the highest quality. CBS, Fox News and C-SPAN are just some of the organisations which are utilising the technology provided by LiveStream, so we are very grateful to the people at LiveStream who a few hours ago confirmed that they have agreed to provide Herts the capability to stream to 100,000+ concurrent viewers 24-hours-a-day with HD quality (subject to source footage being in HD).’
THE FIRST LIVE PROGRAMME
Herts Baseball Club have indicated that it will take several months for the channel to get up to speed and to start to utilise the full range of LiveStream features, but this week’s live coverage of the 2010 Hunlock Series Draft is the best possible way to launch it.
The Hunlock Series is now in its fifth year and is arguably the most eagerly awaited event on the Herts Baseball calendar. It is the only time of the year when all of the adult players from Herts Baseball Club’s major and minor league teams come to play together at the same venue. Over the years the event has provided so much drama and excitement and the unveiling of the Herts Baseball Channel will enhance the Hunlock Series even more. During the Live Draft the club will announce the 2010 Hunlock Series Managers and then the wheeling and dealing will begin with each manager aiming to gain an edge over their opponents even before a pitch has been thrown.
TUNE IN FOR THE DRAFT
The Herts Baseball Channel can be viewed by going to www.livestream.com/hertsbaseball Live coverage will begin at 8pm on Thursday, 23 September 2010. It is expected to end at around 11pm. For those who cannot watch the programme live, they can tune in 24 hours later (8pm on Friday) when it will be shown again in full.
VIEWER INTERACTION
Viewers will be able to communicate with each other in the ChatZone which is located on the right side of the TV screen. They can do this using the LiveStream ChatTool or via their Facebook or Twitter accounts. Viewers can post their questions to the managers and other studio guests in the ChatZone and some of these questions will be put to them.