Good news for people who would rather watch a Tuesday night doubleheader than clean out the garage. We just lit up the Watch Live button across the Slate for basketball, baseball, and softball. If a school we know of is streaming a home game today, the red Watch Live pill shows up right on the game card. One click, a new tab, their channel, done.
We did not build the streams ourselves. The schools and regional broadcasters who actually point the camera at the field did that. We just collected their channel links in one place and put them where they belong: next to the game. About 80 schools and four regional broadcasters are wired in right now. Bangor, Brewer, Camden, Cape Elizabeth, Gorham, Mt. Blue, Scarborough, Thornton, Yarmouth, and a long list of others. If you see the button, you see the game.
A few honest caveats. The button only shows on game day. No point advertising a stream for a game that already happened or a game that is still three weeks away. The button also only shows when we have a channel link on file. If your school is not wired in yet, you will not see it, and that is where you come in.
If you run a streaming channel for a Maine high school, or you know the poor parent who does and would like us to stop bugging them, message us at the Press Box at https://www.analytics207.com/press-box. Send us the school name and the channel URL, YouTube, Facebook, NFHS, whatever platform they use. We will add it to the Slate and that school's home games will start showing the Watch Live pill the same day.
The goal here is simple. If a game is being broadcast, fans should be able to find it in one place, not dig through four parent booster Facebook groups and a subreddit from 2019. We are happy to be that one place. Send us a link, we will handle the rest.