MULEGEEK TECHNOLOGIESMULEGEEK TECHNOLOGIES
  • 4G
  • 5G
  • Broadcast
  • Education
  • Mobile
  • streaming
  • Software
Facebook Twitter Instagram
Facebook Twitter Instagram
MULEGEEK TECHNOLOGIESMULEGEEK TECHNOLOGIES
  • 4G

    Colorado Opens Doubleheader Weekend by Hosting Swarm Friday

    February 2, 2023

    BSNL Offers Cheapest Postpaid Plan at Rs 199: Check Benefits

    January 31, 2023

    Lamar County Sheriff Inmate Booking Report || Jan. 30, 2023

    January 30, 2023

    Cohere Technologies Receives Funding From Bell Ventures for

    January 30, 2023

    With 5.7% CAGR, Enterprise WLAN Market Size Worth USD 9.59

    January 30, 2023
  • 5G

    Sunil Mittal lauds focus on 5G tech in this year’s Budget

    February 2, 2023

    iQOO 11 5G Review: Does It End Your Quest for the Ultimate Smartphone?

    January 31, 2023

    BSNL moves into the private 5G network space – Developing Telecoms

    January 30, 2023

    Oppo Reno8 T 5G and Enco Air3 set to launch on February 3 in India

    January 30, 2023

    Mafab Communications targets infrastructure sharing to push 5G service

    January 30, 2023
  • Broadcast

    2 former Tigers players joining TV broadcast team in 2023

    February 2, 2023

    Longtime Hawaii sports broadcaster Jim Leahey dies at 80

    January 31, 2023

    BBC Arabic Radio Airs Final Broadcast After 85 Years

    January 30, 2023

    Gracey swaps W Series for SailGP broadcast role

    January 30, 2023

    Lte And 5G Broadcast Market Analysis by Growth Facts and Revenue Figures over 2023 – 2032

    January 30, 2023
  • Education

    How technology will transform global education in 2023

    January 27, 2023

    MassBay Community College Offering Free Computer & Technology Education and Training to Unemployed and Underemployed Workers

    January 27, 2023

    Need to focus on reshaping technology education, says CM Naveen Patnaik

    January 26, 2023

    Tech ed students make cornhole sets for Winter Regatta – WJFW-TV

    January 26, 2023

    Ontario updating curriculum for computer, technological education

    January 24, 2023
  • Mobile

    Nova Labs Launches New IoT Integration Arm, 1663™

    February 2, 2023

    Reforms to enable speedy 5G roll outs, help consumers, Telecom News, ET Telecom

    January 31, 2023

    NXP Semiconductor delivers mixed results as mobile and IoT chip demand falters

    January 31, 2023

    Aalto University starting a new doctoral program with Nokia

    January 30, 2023

    ROSALIND FRANKLIN UNIVERSITY ANNOUNCES $1 MILLION IN NEW FUNDING FROM NORTHSHORE UNIVERSITY HEALTH SYSTEM TO EXPAND MOBILE CLINIC COMMUNITY OUTREACH

    January 30, 2023
  • streaming

    Buy or Bootleg: Save Your Favorite Streaming Media by Any Means Necessary

    February 2, 2023

    'The Adam Project' stands out amongst streaming duds – ECM Publishers

    January 31, 2023

    ‘Kidding’ Removed From Showtime Streaming — Full List of Removed Shows

    January 31, 2023

    ‘WWE Monday Night RAW’ (1/30/23) free live stream: How to watch Season 31, Episode 5 online without cable

    January 30, 2023

    Southwest’s Loss, Comcast’s Growth, and Netflix’s Strategy

    January 30, 2023
  • Software

    Azentio Software recognized as a Notable Vendor in Leading Research Firm’s Digital Banking Engagement Platforms Report

    January 31, 2023

    Hackers Use TrickGate Software to Deploy Emotet, REvil, Other Malware

    January 30, 2023

    Updates To ezPaycheck Software Enables Trucking Companies Start Payroll, Mid-Year Easily

    January 30, 2023

    Major government tech contractors use monopolistic vendor-lock to drive revenue: study

    January 30, 2023

    Calibrite launches brand new monitor calibration software suite

    January 29, 2023
MULEGEEK TECHNOLOGIESMULEGEEK TECHNOLOGIES
Home»Broadcast»How MacsLive put Yeshiva men’s basketball on the map – The Forward
Broadcast

How MacsLive put Yeshiva men’s basketball on the map – The Forward

By mulegeek-March 30, 2022No Comments8 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

NEW YORK — After a whirlwind season that could be described as the greatest in school history, this Yeshiva University team will soon bid farewell to its do-it-all leader, a savant who took the program to new heights.

But this upstart bunch of bochurs doesn’t wear jerseys — unless you count their custom white polos — and its star senior looks more like a chess champion than a basketball whiz.

We are talking, of course, about MacsLive, the crack student broadcast crew that livestreams every Yeshiva men’s basketball game, and its indefatigable executive producer Akiva Poppers. They have flourished in lockstep with YU’s basketball team: As the Maccabees rode a 50-game winning streak to the top of Division III this season, their leading scorer Ryan Turell gracing the pages of ESPN and The New York Times, MacsLive and its team captain won national acclaim as the greatest show in Division III.





By Jackson Krule

Daniel Melool, right, developed a catchphrase calling Macs games: “There it is!”

“They brought a Division-I, almost like a professional feel to the broadcast of our games,” said Elliot Steinmetz, the Macs’ head coach, adding that it has helped him recruit. “We’re getting kids who are calling us and being like, ‘Yeah, I watched your games online because they’re so much fun to watch.”

The production quality goes beyond expensive 4K video cameras — though there are four of those — and the audience includes more than just Macs fans. The typical broadcast features not only a play-by-play announcer and a color analyst, but also slow-motion instant replays and sideline interviews, prepared segments on both teams, and even commercials for Jewish businesses. A few dozen students — videographers, writers, statisticians, runners; most but not all male — scattered across YU’s Max Stern Athletic Center produce the games; thousands of viewers regularly tune in.

In addition to hosting the broadcasts, MacsLive.com posts game previews, recaps and highlight reels. These too are created by student volunteers who, like their lodestar Poppers, are logging countless hours lishma (meaning for its own sake — or to be more specific, for free). They are meeting the insatiable demand of an Orthodox community that has become obsessed with the sport, partly due to the on-court success of the movement’s flagship university.

“Our goal is to make it such that when you watch, you say, ‘Wow, that is a great broadcast,’” Poppers, 20, said. “Because then you’ll enjoy it more.”

macslive camera by the Forward



By Jackson Krule

MacsLive has four student camera operators working each game, all connected to the control room by headset.

Behind the cameras

Seated at the bay of computer screens in a converted utility closet that is the MacsLive booth, Poppers and assistant director Aaron Traurig called directions into their headsets Monday afternoon. It was the final day of Sarachek, the annual high school basketball tournament hosted by YU and largely organized by MacsLive; on the other side of the wall, a pair of Orthodox powerhouses, Valley Torah and DRS, were duking it out for the championship.

At the end of a five-day, 29-game streaming marathon, the booth looked, sounded and smelled every bit like the inside of a real broadcast truck, littered with picked-at comfort food, water bottles and rolls of electrical tape.

As a crowd of 1,200, maybe more, shook the gym into a froth, Poppers toggled from shot to shot over the headset — “Ready two, take two; ready one, take one” — as Traurig worked the control panel. When he needed a replay from camera three, in the court’s far corner: “Three, did you get that?” If camera three had indeed caught it, Poppers and Traurig cued up the replay, which — after the MacsLive logo flashed on screen — played in slow motion for some 5,000 online viewers.

‘People who aren’t in YU who hear the name Akiva Poppers are like, it’s chashuv,’ one MacsLive commentator said. ‘It’s a big name.’

Though MacsLive started a decade ago as a passion project for sports-obsessed YU students, and became a public service to the Orthodox community as interest grew in the school team, some of its biggest fans today are people from outside the Jewish world.

After YU’s season-ending defeat to Johns Hopkins, SJ Tannenbaum, the lead sideline reporter — whose bespoke suits add an extra splash of verisimilitude to the broadcasts — was cornered by a few of the winning team’s players, he recalled later.

“It was a bunch of six-six, six-seven guys — I’m six feet. I was very intimidated,” Tannenbaum said with a smile. Their message: “‘You guys have the best broadcast in D-3.’”

No one on the MacsLive staff has academic training in broadcasting. YU doesn’t have a communications program and MacsLive doesn’t have a faculty adviser, or alumni involvement. Yet the club is a well-oiled machine. Cameramen receive detailed schedules for battery and memory card changes. There are production meetings for on-air talent. Technical hiccups pass unnoticed by most viewers.

The other big man on campus

In charge is Poppers, who said he got a total of 11 hours of sleep outside of Shabbat during the four nights of the tournament.

A soft-spoken senior double-majoring in finance and business analytics, Poppers is a lifelong college hoops junkie who started at MacsLive play-calling and writing recaps during the Sarachek tournament. He was promoted to head of content as a sophomore; his junior year he started running the show. Along the way, he mastered the technical aspects of production — and, thanks to five-figure sponsorships from alumni, parents and other fans of the program, dramatically improved the hardware. MacsLive’ full-time staff has jumped from about a dozen students to around 50 since he took the helm, with another 40 or so volunteering during Sarachek.

He’s also become a skilled prognosticator of both D3 and yeshiva league hoops, and is an official voter for Division III men’s basketball rankings.

“People who aren’t in YU who hear the name Akiva Poppers are like, it’s chashuv. It’s a big name,” said Aharon Weiden, a sophomore game announcer. “Whether he meant to or not, he’s like a Ryan Turell in a way. He’s a guy who people look at and get inspiration from.”

akiva poppers macslive by the Forward



By Jackson Krule

Akiva Poppers in his native environment, the MacsLive booth. On the other side of those windows is the YU basketball court.

Turell and Poppers, who are friends and mutual admirers, are twin case studies the YU admissions office surely likes to tout: They are Sabbath-observant Jews who have thrived in their chosen pursuits not in spite of, but because they have pursued them at an Orthodox Jewish university. Students who love basketball or sports broadcasting know they’ll never have to play games or hold a camera on the Sabbath; with the freedom and belief that they won’t be held back for that, talent and dedication can take them pretty far.

But whether YU is selling a four-year fantasy or a fast-track to the pros is another matter. A six-foot-seven forward who led the nation in scoring this year, Turell made national sports headlines earlier this month when he declared for the NBA draft, seeking to become the first Sabbath-observant player in the league’s history.

The greatest show in Division III is a student-run sports broadcast

turell huddle by the Forward



Yet the graduating Poppers is preparing for a different reality — that the professional world is unlikely to accommodate a six-day workweek like YU did — and thinks he will work in data analytics. His MacsLive crew mates mostly feel the same way.

“Live sports, for an Orthodox Jew, is not feasible,” Poppers said. “I enjoy doing it, there’s no question about that. If someone at ESPN offered me a job in sports directing or production, or anything like that, and could make it work, obviously, I’d probably take the job.”

Late in the final, a DRS guard stole the ball and raced upcourt to attempt a go-ahead layup — only to have it swatted against the backboard in stunning fashion by a Valley Torah forward. The gym erupted; in the booth, Poppers and Traurig did, too.

Only a minute earlier, with the game knotted and the clock approaching three minutes remaining, Poppers had set up all three secondary cameras to record replay. When the block happened, he shouted to each camera — they could hardly hear over the pandemonium — to see if they caught it.

Inside the gym, which was still buzzing at the next timeout, a high schooler in the third row pulled up the MacsLive stream on his phone. He knew what it would have. Everyone in the vicinity watched over his shoulder as the replay rolled.

The greatest show in Division III is a student-run sports broadcast

Gabriel Leifer by the Forward




Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
mulegeek-
  • Website

Related Posts

2 former Tigers players joining TV broadcast team in 2023

February 2, 2023

Longtime Hawaii sports broadcaster Jim Leahey dies at 80

January 31, 2023

BBC Arabic Radio Airs Final Broadcast After 85 Years

January 30, 2023

Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

Categories
  • 4G
  • 5G
  • Broadcast
  • Education
  • Mobile
  • Software
  • streaming

Subscribe to Updates

Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

Nova Labs Launches New IoT Integration Arm, 1663™

February 2, 2023

Buy or Bootleg: Save Your Favorite Streaming Media by Any Means Necessary

February 2, 2023

Colorado Opens Doubleheader Weekend by Hosting Swarm Friday

February 2, 2023

Sunil Mittal lauds focus on 5G tech in this year’s Budget

February 2, 2023
Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest
  • About Us
  • Cookies policy
  • Terms of services
  • Contact us
  • DIsclaimer
© 2023Designed by mulegeek.

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
Cookie SettingsAccept All
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT