But a move to professional coverage of school sports meant the Fullers were able to watch her compete live on their phones. They also used the live stream to watch her compete at the state cross-country and swimming championships earlier this year.
Darren Lang,head of sports strategy and planning co-ordinator at the Department of Education,at the state athletics championships.Wolter Peeters
“We’ve watched her from the train,and we’ve watched her in the working shed out on the farm;you can do it anywhere,” Hillary Fuller said.
“If we were much closer,we probably would make the effort and go and watch it[in person],but seven hours is a long trip down.”
The NSW Department of Education dabbled in live-streaming in 2019 and again in 2021 – in between long stretches when events were cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year,for the first time,the department set aside a substantial budget to professionally cover a schedule of sporting events,including its primary and secondary state athletics,swimming and cross-country championships and some team sports.
Darren Lang,the department’s sports strategy and planning co-ordinator,said live-streaming helped close the “tyranny of distance” for regional families and schools and was also being used by professional scouts for sports such as soccer.
“They still[attend in person] but it means if they’ve highlighted a talent or a particular performance,they can go back to colleagues and discuss it and pull the clips up to go back through it,” Lang said. “That’s a real bonus.”
Just like at a professional sporting event,there are multiple cameras on the field and a control room with commentators.
The control room at the state athletics carnival for NSW government secondary schools at the Sydney Olympic Park athletics centre.Wolter Peeters
Lang said most days at the major events achieved 400-500 individual logins,while the biggest event so far was 900 individual logins at the swimming championships earlier this year. Post-event viewing had reached 22,000 for one of the cross-country streams and 16,000 for swimming.
“We know the logins represent groups of people – families sitting there watching together,and classrooms full of kids,” Lang said.
Jo Cafe,principal of Raglan Public School near Bathurst,said teachers at her school had screened the live stream of the swimming championships in the classrooms earlier this year.
This let the students cheer on their classmates who were competing at the event,and they also tuned in to watch their former school captain,who has younger siblings at the school,in his high school swimming race.
“The kids love it,they get really excited,” Cafe said.
Lang said the department had permission to film most students. When this consent was not given,the competitors were not identified by name and the camera person would pan away,while shooting the race itself from a wide angle.
The events are live-streamed on YouTube and accessible to the general public.
The initiative is part of a growing trend to professionally stream grassroots and school sports.
The Athletic Association of the Great Public Schools of NSW,a grouping of mostly private schools,live-streams some events through Cluch TV,according to its website.
The Independent Sporting Association,a different grouping of private schools,does not live-stream the events it hosts directly,which includes finals of sporting matches and carnivals,butThe Sun-Heraldis aware that some participating schools live-stream individual matches,especially for rugby.
In June News Corp launched a service to stream a range of children’s and school sporting events.
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