Sam Houston secures CUSA tournament berth with consecutive sweeps of Jacksonville State
By Cheval John | Vallano Media
This article was created with the assistance of artificial intelligence.
The final version was reviewed, edited and fact-checked by the author
Graphics created with AI-assisted design tools.
Visual concepts, editorial direction, composition, and final creative decisions were developed by Vallano Media.
Sam Houston began the volleyball season picked to finish last in Conference USA.
On Saturday, the Bearkats secured a place in the conference tournament, with their goal of a top-three finish still within reach.
The Bearkats completed consecutive home sweeps of Jacksonville State at Johnson Coliseum, winning Friday’s match 25–17, 25–16, 25–23 before taking Saturday’s match 25–23, 25–12, 25–16.
Saturday’s victory improved Sam Houston to 16–9 overall and 7–5 in conference play.
The ESPN+ broadcast reported that the Bearkats had clinched their tournament berth, with New Mexico State’s victory over Delaware also contributing to qualification.
The weekend also brought a milestone for the program.
Friday’s victory marked the first time Sam Houston had reached 15 wins since finishing 18–10 in 2021, and its first 15-win season since joining CUSA in 2023.
Coach Brenda Gray made clear that the Bearkats’ ambitions extend beyond qualifying.
“Our goal is to get to the tournament, but our goal this year is to be top three,” Gray said in her ESPN+ postmatch interview Saturday.
Sam Houston, Middle Tennessee and Liberty each stood at 7–5 in conference play after Saturday’s matches.
The Bearkats travel to Middle Tennessee on November 5–6, giving them an opportunity to gain ground against a team sharing their conference record.
Serving and shared production
Sam Houston’s two victories came with contributions throughout the lineup.
No Bearkat reached double figures in kills in either match, but the team produced 33 kills Friday and 34 Saturday.
Chloe Monson led Sam Houston with nine kills in each match and added 10 digs Saturday.
Bella Wood contributed five kills in both victories while collecting seven service aces across the series.
The Bearkats finished with 18 aces over the two matches, compared with Jacksonville State’s eight.
Brenlin Garlitz supplied 16 assists and four aces Friday.
Lauren Pyle added nine assists, while libero Shaelin White led the defense with 11 digs.
On Saturday, Garlitz and Pyle recorded 12 and 11 assists, respectively, and White finished with a team-high 14 digs.
Chelsea Butler contributed four kills on a .500 hitting percentage and five blocks.
Annika Brooks added five block assists.
Monson said having teammates contribute eased the pressure to carry the offense herself.
“It definitely takes the pressure off me trying to have a perfect game every single time,” she said in her ESPN+ interview.
Gray also praised the execution from the service line.
“I think our serving was on point today, wherever I was asking them to go, they were delivering the ball,” she said.
Jacksonville State tests Friday’s finish
Sam Houston won Friday’s opening two sets by eight and nine points, respectively.
The third required the Bearkats to respond to a closer finish and a late reversal.
A successful Jacksonville State challenge changed an apparent 22–19 Sam Houston lead to 21–20.
Monson and Wood answered with kills to extend the advantage.
The Gamecocks stayed within reach, however, saving two match points before Butler delivered the deciding kill for a 25–23 finish.
A final challenge did not change the outcome.
Sam Houston finished the match hitting .238, compared with Jacksonville State’s .140.
In her postmatch interview with Sam Houston SportsTalk, Gray emphasized keeping the team’s attention on its own play and approaching the remaining schedule one match at a time.
With conference positioning still unsettled, the Bearkats returned Saturday needing another victory.
An opening-set escape
Saturday’s first set became the pivotal stretch of the second match.
Sam Houston started with five consecutive points and later led 17–9.
The Bearkats still held a six-point advantage at 22–16 before Jacksonville State scored seven straight points to move ahead 23–22.
Sam Houston answered by winning the final three rallies.
Monson’s kill, assisted by Wood, tied the score.
A bad set by Jacksonville State’s Delaney Moon put the Bearkats ahead, and a Claire Evans attack error completed the 25–23 win.
The Bearkats took the set despite recording eight attack errors against 10 kills, finishing with a .051 hitting percentage.
Their offense became considerably more efficient in the second set.
Jacksonville State scored the opening two points, but Sam Houston responded with a seven-point run.
The Bearkats produced 14 kills against two errors, hitting .444 in a 25–12 victory while holding the Gamecocks to five kills.
In her postmatch interview, Gray discussed communication and adjustments during the opening set, along with serving targets intended to disrupt Jacksonville State’s offense.
Monson also pointed to passing and blocking discipline as areas of emphasis.
Five straight points seal the sweep
Jacksonville State opened the third set with a 5–1 lead, but Sam Houston recovered to move ahead 15–9.
The Gamecocks later narrowed an 18–12 deficit to 18–15.
Kills by Monson and Wood restored a five-point advantage before Jacksonville State scored again to make it 20–16.
Sam Houston then won the final five points.
Rachelle Reed began the closing run with a kill assisted by White.
Faith Roulston followed with a kill from Pyle, and Butler added another.
Attack errors by Evans and D’Yanna Spicer supplied the final two points.
Audrey Terry served the last four rallies as the Bearkats completed the 25–16 finish.
Sam Houston hit .241 for the match and held Jacksonville State to .032.
Both teams finished with nine team blocks.
Evans led the Gamecocks with 12 kills Saturday, while Azavia Thomas added seven.
Jacksonville State finished the series 3–21 overall and 0–12 in conference play.
A higher finish remains within reach
The preseason coaches poll placed Sam Houston 10th with 17 points.
Middle Tennessee was tied for eighth with 18.
Both have moved beyond those predictions and enter their upcoming series with seven conference wins.
For Sam Houston, the trip to Murfreesboro offers a direct test against another team pursuing position near the top of the standings.
“We got to be better today than we were yesterday. And I thought we were,” Gray said after Saturday’s victory.
The Bearkats have secured their tournament place.
With Middle Tennessee next and WKU following at home, their remaining matches will determine how close they come to the top-three finish Gray set as a goal.
How AI Actually Assisted the Reporting Process: Where the Tool Helped—and Where It Stopped
By Cheval John | Vallano Media
This article was created with the assistance of artificial intelligence.
The final version was reviewed, edited and fact-checked by the author
Graphics created with AI-assisted design tools.
Visual concepts, editorial direction, composition, and final creative decisions were developed by Vallano Media.
By the time Vallano Media reached this stage of the FIFA project, two things had already been established.
The research foundation had to come first.
And AI-generated conclusions had to be verified before they could influence published work.
That raised the next question: What was artificial intelligence actually useful for?
Not in theory.
Not as a list of generic AI capabilities.
But inside a real reporting process.
For Vallano Media, the answer was not one task.
AI played several different roles depending on what the reporting needed at that moment.
Sometimes it helped organize information.
Sometimes it helped compare sources.
Sometimes it helped surface questions.
Sometimes it helped structure a draft.
And sometimes its most useful contribution was showing where the reporting was still weak.
The important point was that AI did not replace the process.
It moved through the process.
AI Helped Organize a Large Amount of Information
One of the clearest advantages of AI was organization.
A complicated reporting project can generate a large amount of material quickly:
– official statements
– news reports
– timelines
– quotes
– notes
– questions
– competing claims
– background research
– potential angles
Without a system, that material can become difficult to manage.
AI helped turn that information into a more usable structure.
It could group related material.
It could separate recurring themes.
It could compare what different sources were saying about the same event.
It could help identify which questions had already been answered and which ones remained open.
That did not make the research automatically correct.
But it made the research easier to work with.
There is an important distinction there.
AI was not replacing the act of reporting.
It was reducing some of the friction involved in managing what the reporting had already produced.
AI Helped Compare Sources More Quickly
The FIFA story involved multiple organizations, different perspectives and reporting published at different stages of the story.
That made comparison important.
AI could help place different accounts next to one another and ask: Where do these sources agree?
Where do they differ?
Is one source adding new information?
Are two reports describing the same event differently?
Does an official statement conflict with independent reporting?
This kind of comparison can take time when done manually across multiple documents.
AI could accelerate the initial comparison.
But the output still had to be checked.
If AI said two sources contradicted one another, Vallano Media still had to determine whether the contradiction actually existed.
Sometimes the difference was meaningful.
Sometimes the sources were describing different time periods.
Sometimes they were answering different questions.
AI could surface the comparison.
The journalist still had to interpret it.
AI Helped Surface Questions
One of the most useful roles AI played was not answering questions.
It was generating better ones.
A journalist can become deeply familiar with a story.
That familiarity is useful.
It can also create blind spots.
Once a working theory begins to form, it becomes easier to focus on evidence that supports it and overlook questions that challenge it.
AI could be used to interrupt that pattern.
Instead of asking: What does this mean?
the system could be asked: What am I missing?
What would a skeptical reader ask?
Which part of this argument is weakest?
What questions have not been answered yet?
What evidence would contradict this conclusion?
Those prompts often produced more useful results than asking AI to simply summarize the story.
The value was not that the system always found the correct question.
The value was that it could widen the field of inquiry.
In that role, AI became a tool for generating additional lines of inquiry.
AI Helped Organize Working Timelines
Chronology mattered throughout the FIFA reporting project.
Events occurred at different times.
Statements were issued in response to earlier developments.
Independent reporting added information later.
The timing itself sometimes changed how a development should be interpreted.
AI was useful for organizing that sequence into a working timeline.
It could take dates, statements and reported developments and arrange them in a way that made the chronology easier to examine.
That made it easier to see whether two events were actually connected or merely close together.
It also helped identify gaps.
If a timeline jumped from one important development to another without showing what happened in between, that gap could become a new reporting question.
Again, AI did not determine what the timeline meant.
It helped make the chronology visible.
The interpretation still required evidence and editorial judgment.
AI Helped Test an Emerging Argument
As the reporting developed, certain interpretations naturally became stronger than others.
That is where another AI role became valuable.
The system could be asked to challenge the emerging argument.
For example: What assumptions does this conclusion depend on?
What evidence weakens it?
Is there another explanation that fits the same facts?
Where am I overstating causation?
Which claims would require stronger sourcing before publication?
This became part of Vallano Media’s editorial red-team process.
The goal was not to get AI to approve the argument.
The goal was to make the argument survive criticism.
That distinction matters.
If AI is used only to strengthen the direction a journalist has already chosen, the tool can reinforce confirmation bias.
If it is also used to challenge that direction, it becomes more useful.
The best AI response was not always the one that helped finish the article.
Sometimes it was the one that forced the article back into research.
AI Helped Build the Structure Before the Draft
Once the reporting was sufficiently developed, AI also became useful for organization at the writing stage.
Long-form reporting can contain several valid points but still lack a clear structure.
AI could help group those points into sections.
It could suggest an order.
It could identify repetition.
It could show where one section depended on information that had not yet been introduced.
That was especially useful for the FIFA series because the reporting had accumulated across multiple sources and stages.
A strong outline helped prevent the draft from becoming a collection of facts without a clear narrative.
But the outline was still treated as a proposal.
The journalist could accept it.
Change it.
Reorder it.
Discard parts of it.
Or reject it entirely.
AI helped create options.
Editorial judgment decided which structure worked.
AI Assisted With Drafting
AI also assisted with portions of the drafting process.
That is an area where transparency matters.
Vallano Media disclosed AI assistance because the technology was used as part of the writing workflow.
But AI-assisted drafting did not mean an article was generated once and published.
The drafting stage was iterative.
AI could help turn an outline into prose.
It could suggest transitions.
It could help condense repetitive passages.
It could offer alternative wording.
It could help clarify a complicated explanation.
But every useful draft still had to pass through editorial review.
The important question was never: Did AI write this sentence?
The more important questions were: Is the sentence accurate?
Is it properly supported?
Does it reflect what the evidence actually shows?
Does it sound like Vallano Media?
Would we publish it if AI had not been involved?
If the answer to those questions was no, the sentence did not survive.
AI Helped With Revision
Revision became another useful application.
Once a draft existed, AI could help identify:
– repetition
– unclear transitions
– weak section order
– unsupported claims
– missing context
– overly strong language
– areas where the article became too abstract
– sections that needed more evidence
This did not mean every suggestion was accepted.
Some AI edits made the writing cleaner.
Others removed useful nuance.
Some made sentences shorter but less accurate.
Some improved flow while weakening attribution.
That meant revision required the same skepticism as research.
A cleaner sentence is not automatically a better sentence.
Sometimes the complexity is necessary because the evidence is complex.
Video Courtesy of The Poytner Institute YouTube Channel
AI Helped Identify What Needed Fact-Checking
AI could assist the fact-checking process by identifying claims that deserved closer review.
It could flag dates.
It could surface statements that looked too strong.
It could compare a draft against source material provided to it.
It could ask where support appeared to be missing.
Those functions were useful.
But they did not replace independent verification.
A system cannot become its own final authority simply because it reviewed the text it helped create.
The actual verification still required returning to the underlying evidence.
That meant checking:
– names
– dates
– chronology
– quotations
– attribution
– causal language
– descriptions of what organizations said
– distinctions between fact and analysis
AI could help identify where to look.
The evidence still had to settle the question.
AI Helped With More Than Writing
One of the broader lessons from the project was that AI’s usefulness extended beyond the article itself.
It could assist with:
– headline options
– SEO framing
– metadata
– social-media copy
– visual concepts
– graphic direction
– summaries
– repurposing
– publication checklists
That mattered because publishing is more than writing.
A digital article needs presentation.
It needs distribution.
It needs a headline that accurately reflects the story.
It needs visual material.
It may need social promotion.
It may later become part of a larger project, as the FIFA reporting eventually did with this white paper.
AI could support those downstream tasks too.
But the same principle applied.
The tool could generate options.
Vallano Media still made the decision.
The Role Changed Depending on the Task
One reason it is misleading to describe AI simply as a “writer” is that its role was constantly changing.
At different moments, AI functioned more like:
– a research organizer
– a comparison tool
– a brainstorming partner
– a timeline assistant
– a skeptical reviewer
– an outline assistant
– a drafting tool
– a copy editor
– a publication assistant
No single label captures the whole process.
That matters because discussions about AI and journalism often become too narrow.
If the only question is whether AI can write an article, the conversation misses many of the places where the technology may actually be more useful.
Writing was only one part of the workflow.
In some cases, it was not even the most important one.
Where AI’s Role Stopped
For all of those uses, there were clear limits.
AI did not conduct original reporting or create firsthand evidence.
AI did not decide whether a source was trustworthy enough to publish.
AI did not determine whether an allegation had been sufficiently confirmed.
AI did not decide whether causal language was justified.
AI did not determine whether the story was fair.
AI did not decide whether another round of reporting was necessary.
AI did not make the final publication decision.
Those responsibilities stayed with the journalist and publisher.
That is the line that mattered most.
AI could participate in almost every stage. But participation was not authority.
The Professional Still Had to Know What Good Work Looked Like
The usefulness of AI depended heavily on the ability to evaluate it.
A journalist has to recognize weak sourcing.
A journalist has to notice when a timeline does not make sense.
A journalist has to distinguish fact from allegation.
A journalist has to understand attribution.
A journalist has to recognize when a sentence is stronger than the evidence.
Without those skills, AI can make poor work look polished.
With those skills, AI can help make good work more efficient.
That difference is fundamental.
AI does not remove the need for expertise.
It makes expertise more important because someone still has to judge the output.
The Goal Was Better Work, Not Maximum Automation
The FIFA project also reinforced another lesson.
The goal was never to automate as much journalism as possible.
That would have been the wrong measurement.
The better question was: Where does AI improve the work without weakening the standards?
If it saves time organizing research, use it.
If it helps surface a contradiction, investigate it.
If it improves an outline, consider the structure.
If it exposes a weakness, go back to reporting.
If it produces a cleaner sentence that remains accurate, use the sentence.
If it introduces uncertainty, discard it.
The workflow was not built around maximizing AI use. It was built around maximizing usefulness.
That is a very different objective.
What Comes Next
By this point in the process, AI had assisted with research organization, comparison, questioning, analysis, outlining, drafting and revision.
But none of that answered the most important editorial question: Who makes the final call?
That responsibility never moved.
Next week, chapter 5 will examine why human judgment still determines what ultimately gets published.
Graphics created with AI-assisted design tools.
Visual concepts, editorial direction, composition, and final creative decisions were developed by Vallano Media.
Sam Houston Swept at Liberty, but Record-Setting Saturday Battle Reveals Bearkats’ Resilience
By Cheval John | Vallano Media
This article was created with the assistance of artificial intelligence.
The final version was reviewed, edited and fact-checked by the author
Graphics created with AI-assisted design tools.
Visual concepts, editorial direction, composition, and final creative decisions were developed by Vallano Media.
Sam Houston’s volleyball team endured a difficult weekend against Liberty, suffering consecutive Conference USA defeats.
But Saturday’s four-set battle offered a different picture of the Bearkats than Friday’s straight-set loss.
Liberty swept Sam Houston 25–18, 28–26, 25–21 on Friday before holding off a determined comeback Saturday, 25–16, 27–25, 31–33, 26–24, at Liberty Arena in Lynchburg, Virginia.
The results dropped Sam Houston to 14–9 overall and 5–5 in Conference USA play.
Liberty improved to 14–8 and 6–4 in the conference.
Although the Flames completed the weekend sweep, Saturday’s contest featured 42 ties, 16 lead changes and a remarkable 33–31 third set that became the longest in Liberty Arena history, according to Liberty Athletics.
The two matches exposed both sides of Sam Houston’s season: difficulty protecting substantial leads and the determination to remain competitive when facing elimination.
Friday: A Seven-Point Lead Disappears
Friday’s straight-set loss was particularly frustrating because Sam Houston had an opportunity to change the direction of the match.
After dropping the opening set 25–18, the Bearkats established a 20–13 advantage in the second set.
Liberty responded with a sustained rally to erase the deficit.
Sam Houston still had opportunities to close out the set, holding set points at 24–23 and 25–24, but the Flames fought off both chances and eventually prevailed 28–26.
From its 20–13 advantage, Sam Houston was outscored 15–6.
Instead of entering the intermission tied at one set apiece, the Bearkats faced a two-set deficit.
Liberty completed the sweep with a 25–21 third-set victory.
The statistical difference was substantial.
Liberty hit .327 for the match compared with Sam Houston’s .115.
The Bearkats committed 24 attacking errors while recording 38 kills.
Chloe Monson, one of Sam Houston’s offensive contributors throughout the season, experienced a particularly difficult afternoon.
She finished with five kills and nine attacking errors on 29 attempts for a negative .138 hitting percentage.
Bella Wood led Sam Houston with 10 kills, followed by Chelsea Butler with eight and Annika Brooks with six.
Friday’s defeat illustrated how quickly an advantage can disappear when a team struggles to finish a set.
Saturday: Another Lead Lost, but a Different Response
The following afternoon initially appeared to be heading toward another straight-set defeat.
Liberty claimed the first set 25–16, with Sam Houston hitting just .054.
In the second set, the Bearkats again established a six-point advantage, leading 15–9.
But Liberty rallied.
Sam Houston eventually reached set point at 25–24 before the Flames scored three consecutive points to win 27–25.
For the second consecutive day, the Bearkats had surrendered a significant second-set advantage.
Trailing two sets to none, Sam Houston faced another opportunity to respond—or allow the match to end quickly.
This time, the Bearkats refused to go away.
A Historic Third Set
The third set developed into the defining stretch of the weekend.
Sam Houston built an early 15–9 lead, but Liberty recovered and eventually moved ahead 23–21.
During the broadcast, commentators expressed concern about Monson’s offensive struggles and questioned whether Sam Houston should continue directing attacks her way.
What followed demonstrated how quickly an individual performance can change during a tightly contested set.
Monson delivered five crucial kills after Liberty’s 23–21 advantage as the Bearkats battled through an extended series of set points.
Liberty repeatedly answered, and the Flames held two match points during the set.
Sam Houston survived both.
With the score tied at 31–31, Monson delivered another kill to give the Bearkats a 32–31 advantage.
Rachelle Reed followed with the set-winning kill, securing a 33–31 victory and forcing a fourth set.
According to Liberty Athletics, the 64-point set was the longest played in Liberty Arena history.
The performance also marked a significant response from Monson following Friday’s difficult outing.
She finished Saturday with a team-high 14 kills and 12 digs.
The Bearkats had not won the match, but they had extended it with one of the most competitive sets in the arena’s history.
A Fourth Set That Could Have Gone Either Way
The intensity continued into the fourth set.
Early in the frame, with Sam Houston leading 5–3, the Liberty broadcast described nervous energy inside the arena.
The commentators later observed that if Sam Houston forced a fifth set, the deciding frame could belong to either team.
That possibility remained realistic as the Bearkats continued challenging the Flames.
Liberty led 16–13 before Sam Houston scored four consecutive points to move ahead 17–16.
The Bearkats appeared to extend their lead to 18–16 when a Liberty attack was initially ruled out of bounds.
However, Liberty challenged the ruling, arguing that the ball had touched a Sam Houston player before going out.
Although the broadcast commentators considered the replay evidence inconclusive, officials overturned the original decision and awarded the point to Liberty, tying the set at 17–17.
The reversal represented a significant two-point swing in a closely contested set.
Nevertheless, Sam Houston continued competing.
The Bearkats repeatedly answered Liberty’s attacks, tying the score at 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23.
When Jenna Otts delivered a kill to give Liberty a 24–23 advantage and match point, Sam Houston responded with a block involving Chelsea Butler and Faith Roulston to tie the score at 24–24.
The Flames finally secured the victory on consecutive kills from Addison Hart and Paige Overcash.
Liberty won the fourth set 26–24, ending a match that had become considerably more difficult than its two-set lead initially suggested.
Liberty’s Offensive Production Makes the Difference
Liberty’s victory was supported by strong performances from Otts and Overcash, who recorded 19 kills apiece.
Overcash hit .378, added 11 digs, five blocks and three service aces, and delivered the match-winning kill.
Otts hit .362.
The Flames finished with 64 kills compared with Sam Houston’s 62, but Liberty maintained advantages in several other statistical categories.
Liberty hit .284 compared with the Bearkats’.202, recorded 10 service aces to Sam Houston’s four, and finished with 12 blocks compared with eight for the visitors.
Sam Houston held a 73–72 advantage in digs.
Alongside Monson’s 14 kills, Wood and Kameron Rector contributed 13 each.
Butler added 12 kills and four blocks.
Shaelin White led all players with 26 digs, while Brenlin Garlitz recorded 28 assists and Lauren Pyle added 18.
The Bearkats produced more offense Saturday than they had Friday, improving from 38 kills to 62 and raising their hitting percentage from .115 to .202.
Yet Liberty’s greater efficiency and advantage at the service line helped the Flames complete the weekend sweep.
Six Matches Remain
The losses leave Sam Houston at .500 in Conference USA play with six regular-season matches remaining.
Liberty, meanwhile, moved to 6–4 in league competition and extended its all-time series advantage over Sam Houston to 6–0.
It remains too early to determine how the conference tournament race will unfold.
For the Bearkats, the immediate concern is translating Saturday’s competitive response into more consistent execution.
The weekend exposed recurring difficulties protecting leads.
Sam Houston surrendered a 20–13 advantage Friday and a 15–9 lead Saturday, both in the second set.
But Saturday also showed that the Bearkats could recover from adversity rather than allow earlier setbacks to determine the remainder of a match.
The 33–31 third set and the continued resistance following the fourth-set challenge provided evidence of a team still willing to compete.
Liberty earned its two victories, but Sam Houston made the Flames work considerably harder for the second.
With six matches remaining before the postseason, the question is whether the Bearkats can sustain that level of play long enough to turn competitive performances into victories.
From Hobby to Headline: How Niche Live Streamers Helped Redefine Live Media
By Cheval John | Vallano Media
This article was created with the assistance of artificial intelligence.
The final version was reviewed, edited and fact-checked by the author
Graphics created with AI-assisted design tools.
Visual concepts, editorial direction, composition, and final creative decisions were developed by Vallano Media.
For generations, major television networks controlled much of the live media experience.
They decided which events received coverage, when programs aired, and how audiences consumed them.
But outside traditional broadcasting, another media ecosystem was developing.
Gamers streamed from their bedrooms.
Independent producers experimented with live video.
Schools and local sports organizations discovered new ways to reach audiences that television rarely served.
These broadcasters often lacked expensive equipment, major sponsorships, and established distribution networks.
What they possessed was a direct relationship with viewers who cared about their content.
Their experiments helped demonstrate an important change in audience behavior: people were willing to watch specialized programming online, participate in live conversations, and follow events that traditional television considered too small to broadcast.
Major media organizations did not simply copy these creators.
Their investments in streaming also reflected improvements in technology, changing economics, and growing demand for digital access.
Nevertheless, niche creators and smaller broadcasters helped reveal something increasingly valuable: an audience did not need to be enormous to deserve attention.
The Streaming Revolution Began With Experimentation
One of the early pioneers of online live broadcasting was Justin.tv, which launched in 2007.
Initially built around broadcasting co-founder Justin Kan’s daily life, the platform eventually opened to other users, allowing people to stream their own activities online.
Gaming emerged as an especially popular category.
In June 2011, Twitch launched as a dedicated platform for gaming livestreams, building upon Justin.tv’s earlier experiments.
Its growth provided measurable evidence that interactive live video could attract substantial audiences.
According to Twitch’s March 2013 announcement, more than 600,000 unique broadcasters attracted over 28 million unique viewers during February 2013.
The company also reported that those viewers watched an average of more than 90 minutes of video per day.
These were company-reported figures, but they illustrated the scale that an emerging live-streaming community had achieved.
The significance extended beyond gaming.
Twitch demonstrated that audiences were interested in content built around participation.
Viewers could communicate with streamers, react to events, and interact with other members of the community while broadcasts unfolded.
Unlike conventional television, the relationship was not exclusively one-directional.
The audience became part of the experience.
How Niche Creators Tested New Media Ideas
Independent creators possessed an advantage that larger media organizations sometimes struggled to replicate: flexibility.
A creator could experiment with a different broadcast format, introduce a live discussion, or change programming based on audience feedback without navigating a large corporate structure.
That flexibility encouraged experimentation with live conversations, extended broadcasts, community participation, and behind-the-scenes programming.
Not every experiment succeeded.
Nor did every creator build a sustainable business.
But collectively, these activities helped demonstrate that specialized interests could support meaningful online communities.
A gaming enthusiast might spend hours watching someone else play.
A hobbyist could follow a live demonstration.
A viewer interested in a particular subject could interact directly with a knowledgeable creator.
These audiences were not necessarily looking for programming designed to attract millions of people.
They wanted content relevant to their interests.
For media companies, that distinction would become increasingly important.
However, niche creators were only one part of streaming’s development.
Faster broadband connections, smartphones, connected televisions, improved video delivery systems, and changing consumer expectations also contributed to its expansion.
The growth of live streaming was therefore not a simple story of independent creators forcing television networks to change.
It was a broader transformation in which smaller broadcasters helped demonstrate new possibilities while technology and economics made those possibilities increasingly practical.
Local Sports Streaming Revealed an Overlooked Opportunity
While gaming helped popularize interactive livestreaming, local sports broadcasting revealed another opportunity.
For decades, many sporting events attracted passionate supporters without receiving consistent television coverage.
High school football games, volleyball matches, youth tournaments, and smaller college competitions often had audiences interested in watching but limited opportunities for traditional distribution.
Streaming offered another option.
Schools and independent producers could reach families, alumni, and supporters beyond their immediate communities.
One of the clearest examples was the NFHS Network.
Launched in 2013, the network developed a national platform for live and on-demand coverage of high school sports and other school activities.
According to a September 2019 report from the National Federation of State High School Associations, nearly 230,000 events had been broadcast through the network since its launch.
The report also documented more than 100,000 events during the preceding year, including approximately 20,000 nontraditional activities such as graduations, concerts, and theatrical performances.
Those figures demonstrated that digital broadcasting could extend well beyond the sporting events most likely to attract conventional television coverage.
The network also created educational opportunities.
Through its School Broadcast Program, students participated as commentators, camera operators, and producers under the guidance of school advisers.
The significance was not simply that more games became available.
Streaming expanded the definition of which events could receive coverage and who could participate in producing it.
A parent traveling for work could follow a child’s game.
An alumnus living hundreds of miles away could reconnect with a former school.
A student interested in journalism could gain practical broadcasting experience.
These were valuable outcomes even when individual events attracted relatively small audiences.
The business lesson was becoming clearer: a specialized audience could be worth serving without the reach of a national television broadcast.
That did not guarantee profitability.
Production expenses, distribution costs, subscriptions, sponsorships, and audience retention still mattered.
But streaming created opportunities that traditional broadcasting economics had often limited.
Video Courtesy of Max Preps YouTube Channel
Smaller College Conferences Demonstrated the Value of Digital Distribution
College athletics provided another example of how specialized audiences could benefit from expanded digital coverage.
Before ESPN+ launched, universities and conferences were already distributing events through their own websites, conference networks, and existing streaming partnerships.
The Ivy League was among them.
In October 2017, the conference announced that its Ivy League Network would carry more than 200 men’s and women’s basketball games during the 2017–18 season.
The broader platform offered more than 1,100 live events annually across multiple sports.
The conference also maintained a relationship with ESPN3, which carried selected Ivy League productions.
This history matters because it demonstrates that smaller college conferences were not simply waiting for major broadcasters to invent digital distribution.
They were already using it.
In April 2018, ESPN and the Ivy League announced a 10-year media rights agreement that would place more than 1,100 conference events annually across ESPN platforms, with most available through ESPN+.
The agreement covered football, basketball, and numerous additional sports while preserving selected events for traditional television.
The Ivy League’s official announcement described the arrangement as a way to expand exposure and improve access for fans.
Rather than creating an entirely new audience from nothing, ESPN was incorporating an existing digital sports offering into a larger distribution system.
The distinction is important.
The Ivy League example does not prove that independent streamers directly influenced ESPN’s decisions.
It demonstrates how digital distribution developed among specialized sports audiences before becoming part of a larger media company’s subscription strategy.
When Major Media Recognized the Value of Underserved Fans
When ESPN+ launched on April 12, 2018, it represented an important expansion of ESPN’s direct-to-consumer business.
It was not ESPN’s first experience with streaming.
The company had already offered digital sports coverage through services including ESPN3 and authenticated viewing platforms.
ESPN+ nevertheless created a new subscription offering that combined live sports, original programming, and on-demand content.
What makes its launch especially relevant is how ESPN executives described the intended audience.
In an interview published by ESPN on launch day, Burke Magnus, then ESPN’s executive vice president of programming, identified two particularly important groups.
One consisted of fans interested in niche sports that had received limited exposure.
The other consisted of supporters who struggled to access coverage of specific teams, including college alumni interested in following their former schools.
That explanation provides direct evidence of how a major broadcaster viewed the commercial opportunity.
ESPN recognized that passionate sports audiences existed beyond the programming typically featured on its primary television networks.
Its strategy was not necessarily the result of watching independent creators succeed.
Instead, ESPN’s own explanation showed that the company understood a principle smaller digital broadcasters had also demonstrated: specialized audiences wanted reliable access to content they cared about.
For sports media, this represented a significant opportunity.
A volleyball match, college baseball game, or international sporting event might not justify a national television window.
But digital distribution could make such coverage more practical within a larger programming portfolio.
Streaming Was More Than a Response to Creators
It would be misleading to suggest that niche live streamers alone drove the expansion of digital media.
Major broadcasters had their own reasons to invest.
Broadband availability improved.
Smartphones and connected televisions created additional viewing options.
Streaming technology became more capable.
Media companies pursued subscription revenue, advertising opportunities, and control over their digital distribution.
Sports rights agreements also played a major role.
Traditional broadcasters needed to adapt to an environment in which audiences increasingly expected programming across multiple devices.
These changes developed alongside the growth of independent streaming communities.
The relationship was therefore more complicated than smaller creators inventing an idea and larger organizations copying it.
Niche broadcasters helped demonstrate audience demand, while major companies developed strategies shaped by technology, commercial opportunities, existing media rights, and competitive pressures.
Both developments contributed to a changing media environment.
The broader result was an expansion of what audiences could watch and how organizations could reach them.
Key Moments in Live Streaming’s Evolution
Year
Development
2007
Justin.tv launches, helping pioneer accessible online live broadcasting
2011
Twitch launches as a gaming-focused livestreaming platform
2013
Twitch reports more than 28 million unique viewers in February; NFHS Network launches
2017
Ivy League Network offers more than 1,100 live events annually
2018
ESPN+ launches and announces major college sports distribution agreements
2020s
Live streaming remains an important distribution channel across sports, entertainment, news, and creator media
The Business Lesson: Pay Attention to the Audiences Others Overlook
The development of live streaming offers a lesson that extends beyond media.
Businesses sometimes focus so heavily on large markets that they overlook smaller communities with specific needs.
Independent creators and local broadcasters frequently operate in those overlooked spaces.
They may lack the resources of established companies, but they can experiment, learn from their audiences, and develop products around interests that larger organizations have not prioritized.
The growth of Twitch demonstrated the potential of interactive communities.
The NFHS Network showed how digital distribution could expand access to local events.
The Ivy League’s digital coverage illustrated how smaller sports properties could reach supporters beyond their geographic markets.
And ESPN’s own explanation of its 2018 streaming strategy confirmed that underserved sports fans represented an audience worth pursuing.
These examples do not establish that every major broadcaster followed the same path or that niche creators were solely responsible for streaming’s growth.
They establish something more useful: audience demand can become visible in places that traditional media has overlooked.
For entrepreneurs and media organizations, the lesson is to recognize those signals before dismissing them.
A small audience does not automatically mean a small opportunity.
Sometimes it means an opportunity that has not yet been fully understood.
The next important change in media may emerge from a major broadcaster, a technology company, or an independent creator experimenting with an unfamiliar format.
And sometimes, it begins with someone pressing “Go Live.”
Graphics created with AI-assisted design tools.
Visual concepts, editorial direction, composition, and final creative decisions were developed by Vallano Media.
Sources and further reading:
Amazon Web Services — How Twitch Built Its Global Live Streaming Network
Twitch — Record-Breaking Growth, March 2013
NFHS — NFHS Network Begins Seventh Year of Covering High School Events
Ivy League — Basketball Television and Streaming Coverage, October 2017
Ivy League — Long-Term ESPN Agreement, April 2018
ESPN Press Room — ESPN+ Launch Interview, April 2018
How Midco Sports Helped South Dakota’s Hail Mary Reach a National Audience
By Cheval John | Vallano Media
This article was created with the assistance of artificial intelligence.
The final version was reviewed, edited and fact-checked by the author
Graphics created with AI-assisted design tools.
Visual concepts, editorial direction, composition, and final creative decisions were developed by Vallano Media.
With one second remaining on November 13, 2021, South Dakota quarterback Carson Camp didn’t have many options.
The Coyotes trailed rival South Dakota State 20-17 inside the DakotaDome in Vermillion.
One play remained.
South Dakota had the ball at its own 43-yard line.
Camp escaped pressure and launched the football toward the end zone.
The ball came down into a crowd of players.
South Dakota State defenders got their hands on it, but instead of falling to the turf, the football stayed alive.
Jeremiah Webb caught it.
Touchdown.
South Dakota won 23-20.
It was a 57-yard touchdown on the final play of the game.
It was Webb’s first collegiate touchdown.
And it came against a South Dakota State team ranked No. 7 in one FCS poll and No. 4 in another.
It eventually became Sports Illustrated’s Play of the Year.
But there is another part of the story worth examining.
Someone had to be there to produce the game.
Someone had to have the cameras positioned, the announcers in place and the infrastructure operating when an otherwise ordinary November afternoon suddenly produced one of the biggest highlights in college football.
That was Midco Sports.
And that makes South Dakota’s Hail Mary more than a great sports story.
Video Courtesy of PSC Highlights YouTube Channel
It is also a business lesson about the value of regional sports media.
The Cameras Were Already Rolling
Midco wasn’t dispatched to Vermillion because anyone expected history.
It was already there.
South Dakota’s game information for that afternoon listed Midco Sports as the television broadcaster, with Jay Elsen on play-by-play, Andre Fields as analyst and Elaina Lanson reporting.
The game was also available online through ESPN+ and Midco Sports Plus.
That distinction matters.
National sports media naturally focuses much of its attention and resources on events expected to attract the largest audiences.
Regional networks operate under a different model.
Their value comes partly from consistently covering the schools, teams and communities inside their footprint.
Most of those broadcasts will never produce a Sports Illustrated Play of the Year.
They aren’t supposed to.
The value is in being there every week.
Because occasionally the routine game you committed to producing becomes anything but routine.
South Dakota’s victory over South Dakota State was one of those days.
The athletes created the moment.
The coaches put them in position to create it.
But the existence of an established broadcast operation meant that people outside the DakotaDome could see what happened almost immediately.
The play didn’t have to wait for a national television network to discover South Dakota football.
The production was already happening.
The Infrastructure Predated the Moment
The media story surrounding the Hail Mary actually stretches back years.
In March 2016, the University of South Dakota, Coyote Sports Properties and Midco Sports Network announced a $3.05 million partnership.
The agreement included broadcast cabling throughout the DakotaDome and USD’s new basketball and volleyball arena, television service throughout the facilities and a mobile video production cart capable of streaming events such as soccer and track and field.
Midco also received broadcast rights to Coyote athletic events as part of the agreement.
And perhaps most importantly for understanding the relationship, Midco had already been producing South Dakota athletic events and football and basketball coaches’ shows since 2012.
The 2016 agreement extended that relationship for another decade.
So when Camp threw that football in November 2021, South Dakota wasn’t suddenly trying to figure out how to televise a viral moment.
The media infrastructure that helped carry the moment beyond Vermillion had been developing for years.
That’s an important distinction for businesses.
Infrastructure is often easiest to appreciate after something extraordinary happens.
But you have to build it before you know what that extraordinary moment will be.
South Dakota and Midco could not have known in 2016 that five years later a quarterback would throw a football 57 yards with one second remaining, that the ball would be tipped and that a receiver would somehow catch it for a rivalry-winning touchdown.
They didn’t need to know.
The investment was in creating the capacity to cover South Dakota athletics consistently.
The Hail Mary demonstrated what that capacity could make possible.
Midco Didn’t Need to Become ESPN
There is another layer to the story that makes the Midco model particularly interesting.
Midco didn’t need to become ESPN.
It needed to be really good at being Midco.
Regional production and national distribution do not have to compete with each other.
They can complement each other.
By 2018, South Dakota was already explaining publicly how that system worked.
The university announced that Midco Sports Network would televise several Coyote football games and that those Midco-produced broadcasts would be relayed online to ESPN.
That schedule included games simultaneously available on Midco and ESPN+.
Three years later, the same basic distribution model surrounded the South Dakota-South Dakota State game.
Midco produced the television broadcast.
Viewers could also watch through ESPN+.
That creates a media chain that would have been much more difficult for a regional program to build in an earlier era.
A company with deep regional knowledge can handle production.
A national streaming service can expand distribution.
Social platforms and national sports outlets can amplify an extraordinary moment afterward.
The regional company doesn’t disappear from the equation.
In many ways, it becomes more important because somebody still has to originate the production.
This is one of the overlooked effects of streaming on college sports.
Distribution can become national without production becoming national.
The people producing a South Dakota football game don’t necessarily have to work in New York, Los Angeles or even for ESPN.
They can remain close to the teams and communities they cover while their work travels much farther.
Then the Play Traveled
Once Webb came down with the football, the moment quickly became much larger than a South Dakota rivalry game.
South Dakota had beaten South Dakota State 23-20.
The highlight traveled through national sports media.
And within weeks, the play found itself competing against moments involving some of the most recognizable athletes and programs in sports.
Sports Illustrated’s 2021 Smooth Play of the Year nominees included Jordan Spieth’s remarkable shot at the Ryder Cup, Jalen Suggs’ Final Four buzzer-beater for Gonzaga against UCLA, Jamil Roberts’ overtime goal that gave Marshall its first men’s soccer national championship and South Dakota’s Hail Mary.
Think about that group.
PGA golf.
The NCAA Final Four.
A national championship.
And an FCS rivalry game from Vermillion, South Dakota.
South Dakota won.
On December 7, Camp and Webb attended the Sports Illustrated Awards in Hollywood, Florida, and accepted the Smooth Play of the Year award on behalf of the program.
Shaquille O’Neal presented the award.
Midco did not make the catch.
Midco did not decide the award.
And it would be a mistake to claim that the regional network caused South Dakota to win it.
But Midco helped provide something essential to everything that followed: visibility.
The moment was professionally captured and distributed because the production infrastructure already existed.
That is the business lesson.
Regional Sports Media Has a Different Job
It is easy to judge regional sports networks against the scale of ESPN, Fox, CBS or NBC.
That may be the wrong comparison.
Midco describes its sports operation as dating to 2007 and says it has put thousands of games on its television channels and streaming service while working with schools and conferences throughout its region.
Its competitive advantage isn’t necessarily that it can outspend a national network.
It is proximity.
It can build relationships with universities that national television companies cannot cover with the same frequency.
It can televise games that aren’t candidates for a major national broadcast.
It can develop announcers who understand those programs and their rivalries.
And when something remarkable happens, that regional production can suddenly become nationally valuable content.
The South Dakota Hail Mary offers an almost perfect example of the process:
local event → regional production → national streaming distribution → national sports-media amplification.
Most games will never travel through that entire chain.
That’s fine.
Businesses sometimes make the mistake of evaluating infrastructure entirely by what it produces on an average day.
But infrastructure also creates options.
It determines what an organization is capable of doing when the unusual happens.
Build Before the Moment Arrives
There is a broader lesson here beyond sports television.
Businesses often want to invest after success becomes obvious.
Build the audience after something goes viral.
Improve production after demand appears.
Develop distribution after people start asking for the product.
But sometimes the businesses positioned to benefit from an unexpected opportunity are the ones that quietly built the infrastructure beforehand.
Midco had been working with South Dakota athletics for years before November 13, 2021.
The cameras were already there.
The announcers were already there.
The production system was already there.
The distribution relationship was already there.
Then Carson Camp escaped the rush and threw the football.
Jeremiah Webb caught it.
South Dakota won.
The play traveled far beyond the DakotaDome and eventually stood alongside moments from the Ryder Cup, Final Four and a national championship before being named Sports Illustrated’s Play of the Year.
None of that means Midco created the moment.
It means Midco was prepared to capture it.
And that may be the most important lesson of all.
You cannot manufacture a moment like South Dakota’s Hail Mary.
But you can build the infrastructure that makes sure people far beyond the stadium can see it when it happens.
Graphics created with AI-assisted design tools.
Visual concepts, editorial direction, composition, and final creative decisions were developed by Vallano Media.
Share this: