Game Coverage

The A10 is a very diverse conference in many ways, including the location, size, and resources of its member schools. Nowhere is this more evident than in the coverage of softball. This became especially evident this past weekend when Fordham and La Salle visited St. Louis. There was absolutely no coverage of the game, which for a Division 1 sport is frankly unacceptable. I am sympathetic to the fact that Gametracker was not working, but I am not sympathetic to the fact that no alternative was used. St. Louis could have used a liveblog like the one that has been used here or Twitter. St. Louis is geographically removed from all of the other schools in the A10, which makes it imperative that they have solid game coverage. It just isn't always feasible for parents to travel to the games when they are that far away. A simple tweet every couple innings or so would have worked well because everyone was completely in the dark. A10 softball is pretty darn good and it deserves to be treated as such.

The gold standard for softball coverage in the A10 is UMass. The Minutewomen travel with an SID who does audio for every road game, Gametracker, and Twitter. The Minutewomen do have the largest budget in the A10, but as you can tell they make sure their fans are never in the dark. For home games, UMass provides live video coverage with multiple camera angles, in addition to Gametracker and Twitter. My hope is that someday all A10 schools can cover softball like UMass.

After UMass, Fordham is another that covers games very well, however the school doesn't get all the credit on this one. Fordham does provide video and audio for most of its home games along with Gametracker, which is what we like to see. Charlotte and Temple also provide those services. But what separates Fordham from the rest of the A10 is the hard work and ingenuity of a parent known on Twitter as PaulTracker.  Much like Gametracker, PaulTracker provides play-by-play coverage for anyone interested in Fordham softball and he and his 'doppelgangers' have it down to a science. In addition, the coverage has been elevated to a whole other level with the use of Justin.tv to provide streaming video and/or audio on occasion. The Rams are very lucky to have such a dedicated parent. I really hope that he serves as the inspiration for some other parents to provide coverage.

Temple is the only team other than UMass and Fordham that attempts to do LiveStats on the road. That shows you that 8 of the 11 A10 schools can be very hard to follow. Now for home games, every A10 school tries to provide some sort of Gametracker or Gametracker-like program. Now the lone exception to this in St. Joseph's, but since they do not have their own field they get a pass on this one. Even though they have some significant structural limitations, someone with St. Joe's will update the athletic department's Twitter page after about every inning or so. I think it is reasonable to expect every A10 program to do this especially when Gametracker doesn't seem to be working.

Here at the A10 Softball Blog, we do our best to cover the games and when possible liveblogs like the ones today and on Sunday will exist. It is hard to track multiple games at the same time, but we are doing the best job we can to track every game. The liveblog should be back again this weekend

Sorry if this post seemed like a rant, but this is Division 1 softball in the A10 and it deserves to be covered. If anyone wishes to help cover games feel free to shoot me an email (email address is located on the side)

So to those schools hosting games this weekend, don't leave us in the dark. I don't want to make this post again

Some suggestions, assuming a computer is present:
http://www.ustream.tv/

http://www.justin.tv/

And our favorite
http://www.coveritlive.com/

And anyone with a phone can use this one...
http://twitter.com/