The NCAA has announced a brand new live streaming initiative alongside NCAA Digital, making upcoming 2024 fall championship games free to watch on a national scale. The NCAA will be working in cooperation with ESPN+, TNT, Hudl and more, making over 200 games free to watch on a national scale.
The initiative will stream 25 games for field hockey, 65 for Men’s and Women’s Soccer respectively, and 56 for Women’s Volleyball. The matches streamed include everything from the first round/regionals of championship play, all the way up to the championship games themselves.
This step will majorly increase the accessibility for Division III athletics and widen the stage on which athletes will be performing, according to Andrea Hoover, executive director of Athletics at VWU. “Division III is working to become more visible and more of a valued product,” Hoover said.
A new level of engagement in DIII sports will mean the influx of new viewers, greater recognition and a change in the viewer demographic of the sport, but it will also aid in returning the community back to DIII athletics. “COVID put a big wrench in people going out to sports,” Tyler Costello, director of Athletic Communications at VWU, said. “Bring the community back, back home.”
The live streaming initiative was made possible by the DIII membership who have been pushing for, “prioritized branding and marketing,” of the athletics under their jurisdiction, Louise McCleary, vice president of Division III, said. By televising DIII athletics on a widely accessible and premiere national scale, the NCAA is showing great initiative in supporting athletics within the division by making its events more viewable than ever. Along with accessibility, the entertainment factor of DIII championship matches will increase as “broadcasters will also play a role and might help move the needle from that perspective,” Costello said.
The support shown by the NCAA is expressed further in the aid they have given to host sites, as they have put, “$2,000 into the budget for live streaming capabilities,” Hoover said. This recognition and assistance in funding host sites holds great importance as it could foreshadow that the money being made through the new initiative will bring more money into DIII as a whole. This is especially significant for venues like VWU which may be embursed for organizing and entertaining championship matches, which they do on a yearly basis across all sports. “Athletics are a money game too. For me personally, I would love to see it make the experience better for everyone,” Costello said.
This great potential and opportunity for exposure also extends to the competing athletes as well. The national presence of DIII sports has never been profound, as the viewership demographic usually consists of those directly connected to the university or sport they associate with. However, with the new national presentation of DIII athletics, the steady increase of domestic branding concerning systems such as NIL, and others, could see a rather large increase compared to previous years, although it will probably never reach the level of DI endorsements, according to Costello.
The initiative, although only confirmed for the upcoming fall championships, will most likely be continued into the winter and spring seasons as well as for years to come. This show of continued support for DIII athletics is a great sign for the division as a whole, as national recognition will lead to more opportunities for universities and athletes, as well as a funding increase which will serve as the backbone of the Division III association.
All of these games can be found and viewed for free through the NCAA Championship Pass, app on Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Roku and Android TV devices as well as ncaa.com/champs-pass.
By: Matthew Smith
mjsmith3@vwu.edu
