Thanks for looking into joining the JumboCast team!
The areas in which we need help are outlined below. In general, the more multi-faceted you're willing to be, the more valuable you will be to JumboCast in its early days. But any amount of help — given in any area, in any regular amount of time — would be just great.
[Important note: you do NOT need to be a Tufts undergraduate to be a member of JumboCast. We would prefer that you had some connection to Tufts — specifically, alumni/ae are very welcome — but all you really need is an interest in Tufts sports, some free time, and a high level of dependability to consider joining JumboCast.]
Broadcasters
Obviously, in order for JumboCast to cover games and matches from across the Tufts sports spectrum, to conduct interviews, to host talk shows, and for all the other programming we want to eventually provide, we need men and women behind the microphones (and, eventually, in front of the cameras). You don't need to have done it before — the staff of JumboCast has about 30 years of combined broadcasting experience, and we'd love to work with you while you get the hang of it.
If calling a game sounds like the most fun job ever, well, in some ways, it is. But there are two
major caveats:
- Part of the real value — to the Tufts community, at least — of broadcasting Tufts sports is the ability to cover away games, games that all but the zaniest of die-hard fans generally can't/won't attend. Not to be too obvious about it, but at least in the NESCAC, these away games are a ways away. One of the expectations we will have of people interested in broadcasting games for JumboCast is the ability to get to some of these away games. This may mean owning a car. This may mean cajoling a friend who owns a car. This may mean occasionally travelling with a team, on a bus or a van. Whatever the case, away games are a time-consuming commitment, but we want to make it clear that they are part of the package.
- To reiterate the point made at the very top of the page, flexibility is key. If you're a huge fan of one sport, and all you want to broadcast is that one sport, we still want you, but understand that you may not be as valuable to JumboCast as someone who's willing to do a number of sports, especially if your one sport is a popular one.
Not everybody wants to be, or is comfortable being in front of the mic. If you fall into that category, there are still plenty of ways for you to help JumboCast:
Streaming media experts
We need people — with experience or simply with interest — to master the intricacies of our current and future streaming media platforms. Currently, we are using Information Technology Services' infrastructure that uses RealNetworks' RealServer to serve content. From the broadcast sites, we use Real's Helix Producer Pro to encode our live broadcasts, and send them to the RealServer over the Tufts' intranet (for home games), or over the internet (sometimes via a dial-up connection!). Eventually, we will need to step up to video encoding. Sound interesting? Then come help us!
Audio and video engineers
Our audio setup at each game is somewhat complicated, maybe a little
Rube Goldbergian. Parts of the setup are borrowed, and some are old and prone to behaving badly. In a perfect world, JumboCast would have a cadre of folks who would be responsible for this equipment; to care for it, to possibly go to the game sites and set it up, to figure out how to make the webcasts sound better, and to help evaluate, select and implement new equipment.
In addition, when we do start to migrate towards video, we'll need people who know what they're doing in that milieu, too.
Web designers and graphic artists
The first version of the JumboCast web site was done fairly quickly, and although it is serviceable, and in some ways even kinda nice, and the person who did it is fairly proud of it and you'd be wise not to insult it :-), even he admits that there is room for improvement. We have more features that we'd like to add, and we need more graphic elements (at the very least, we need some more sports graphics than our one helmet!). Can you help us?
If one — or (you get the idea by now) more! — of these areas appeal to you, send us an email at
info@jumbocast.net. Thanks!
How do I get my t-shirt?
Just answer the following three questions about the 'Welcome to Tufts
sports'
video correctly, and we'll give you a JumboCast t-shirt! Thanks!
