How to Live Stream Basketball Games From Your Gym Written By: Principal Andy Jordan, Ed.S.

With COVID 19 restrictions schools are preparing to not allow fans and parents into their gyms for basketball and volleyball games this winter. Currently, the Illinois Department of Public Health has put a restriction of 50 people per space in Illinois Schools.

Being able to stream ballgames live is a must for school districts. Here is an easy free solution to be able to do this quickly and professionally for schools.
Meet with your technology director and see if you have security cameras setup in the gym. If you do you might have to reposition one of them so it is at half court getting the basketball court in focus. Depending on the camera already in the gym you might have to switch to a wide angle camera which will allow you to record the length of the gym. You don’t want a person holding a camera having to zoom in/out and going back and forth during the game that would be a disaster and low quality.

Your next step would be downloading the free OBS Studio software onto a computer that is at least operating on an i7 processer. Make sure that you have a plugged in internet source and that you are not connected to the wireless internet. When you are streaming you want to make sure that you are plugged in to ensure there is no lag or disruption in your internet access. If you are able to, Principal Andy Jordan recommends having a 2nd camera that is focused just on the scoreboard. The OBS Studio software will allow you to pull in both camera’s off of their IP address and you can overlay the scoreboard camera on top of the feed which will allow you to watch the game and see the scoreboard at the same time.

Setup a personal YouTube account to stream your games from. If you use a school account you will run into issues if you are at a lower level and are broadcasting children over a school account. Make sure to make your YouTube channel look like your school channel and easy to find. You should do a test run before an actual game, but you should be able to stream the video from your OBS Studio software directly to your YouTube channel. Just an FYI in order to do a live YouTube stream you must verify your channel which takes up to 24 hours.
If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me on twitter @principa_andy or by email at principalandyjordan@gmail.com