1st round 2017 Varsity Cup
I've been my Rugby Club's Media Coordinator for over a year, and this was certainly a weekend where I earned that title. With this past weekend being the 50th Anniversary celebration of Clemson Rugby as well as the first round of the 2017 Varsity Cup, we were privileged to be able to play on Historic Riggs Field. Playing in such a big venue required a lot of extra planning. Over the past two weeks, I had been emailing back and forth with sponsors and Clemson Athletics administrators, creating graphics, coordinating our other creative efforts, and building a content wave around the match to try and maximize the crowd we would attract for the first round match against Dartmouth.
On match day, I arrived at the stadium about 2 hours before kickoff(more than an hour earlier compared to a normal match) and was constantly on the move. My pre-game tasks started with getting the scoreboard switched on and setting up the press box area for the few reporters that were coming to cover the match. After having the press box set up and the scoreboard running, I got our livestream station set up outside so when my teammates that would be commentating showed up all they had to do was hit "go live". I then talked to the teammates that had volunteered to post on our club twitter and instagram accounts to ensure they were logged in and ready to roll. After finishing these primary pre-game tasks, I was pulled all around the stadium getting gates unlocked, helping our foundation get on the campus wifi and getting reporters and external photographers set up around the pitch.
I was very happy to have teammates that were willing to help with our coverage. It was a major relief to be able to delegate our club channels as well as to have another body with a camera taking photos so I could focus more exclusively on filming.
The team had a fantastic game, I was able to get some great action footage to put together into this video, and our social media hit some major milestones. Our Facebook livestream of the match is currently our 2nd most watched live video, and could likely grow into our most watched live video as the next few months progress. Our 3 month old Instagram channel passed 500 followers and our Facebook grew to over 2.4k total likes!
Next week the boys are going to be facing Cal Rugby for their second round match. I'm very excited to be hosting such a major rugby brand and hope to be able to properly benefit off of their following to improve our digital following!
Stay tuned!