On game day, Zinedine Smith, a ninth grader and creator of UPrep Sports Network, works hard on the field. But before the game, he prepares for a broadcast that will give people who want to watch UPrep’s varsity soccer games at-home access.
Smith sees it as his way of giving back to the UPrep community and has created UPSN as a way to boost school spirit.
“Seeing the games might make people want to be more involved, and it’s cool for athletes to have it, because you can go watch your games really easily. It helps me when my games are broadcast on YouTube,” Smith said.
Smith was inspired to create UPSN by watching another school’s broadcasting channel on YouTube. The school is called St. Paul’s School for Boys, and they have a YouTube channel in which they stream and commentate on all of their sports games, even down to the middle school level. Like St. Paul’s sports network, UPSN has implemented commentary into its livestreams.
“I think [the first few games] went great. I think that it’s been more than I could have expected, you know, for the first three games,” Desmond Payne-Goldman, a commentator for UPSN, said. “There’s been some technical difficulties, there’s stuff to work on, obviously, but I think that overall we’ve done a good job. [We’ve] gotten a lot of positive feedback.”
Though both Smith and Payne-Goldman feel that UPSN is off to a great start on the technical side, they feel that some issues still need to be solved.
“It’s hard work because we keep getting tech issues, and one of the big ones is that the commentators get the game on their computer about a minute and a half delayed from what they’re seeing in person, so they usually have to watch it huddled over the computer and watch it instead of being live,” Smith said.
In order to get the network up and running, Smith and Payne-Goldman used community time to test and make sure everything was working correctly. They worked with Max Weinstein, a ninth grader at UPrep, who is responsible for setting up the scoreboard while also being a consultant for them.
“I’m very proud of how it’s going so far. Zinedine has been doing a great job coordinating and managing everything,” Weinstein said. “Desmond is being a fantastic commentator, and he’s also handling all the technical aspects of the games, and he’s doing that terrifically.”
For next year, Smith looks to expand UPSN to cover as many as seven sports including girls soccer, ultimate frisbee and basketball among others. But for now, Smith and his team are really happy with where the network is right now and are excited about covering more sports in the future.
“I’m happy. Like every day, I’m thinking of new ideas, new things we could get in, and new people we could integrate. It’s going to be a challenge coming up to figure out how we’re gonna structure it,” Smith said. “Hopefully, other people want to get involved in this. That’s what we’re really betting on.”
