Dunstable Town football club is using JVC’s GY-HM200ESB camera with built-in graphics to live stream its matches, offering the club an alternative income stream. The club has had a hard time of late; the 2012-13 season saw them join the ranks of ‘invincibles’ – one of only three clubs in the English Football league to go unbeaten for an entire season – but the financial pressures of the Southern Premier League took their toll. With the departure of both the chairman and the manager at the end of the 2016-17 season, fans needed to step in to keep the club alive.
With little investment, plus a squad now playing for love, not money, the club needed a way of securing alternative income streams. Interim chairman, Alex Alexandrou, looked to fellow club Barton Rovers for inspiration, since the club was using a JVC camera with built-in web streaming and graphics to live stream its matches. Alexandrou realised this would be a great chance to increase the profile of Dunstable Town and help to attract sponsors, as well as provide advertising revenue via the live stream. So Dunstable FC invested in a JVC GY-HM200ESB camera – an innovative, affordable live streaming camera, featuring overlaid sports scores and broadcast information.
"Like many clubs, we film games for analysis, but often the quality isn’t very good,” Alexandrou explains. “The first time we saw the GY-HM200ESB from JVC, we were amazed by the quality; once we’d seen the graphics overlay, we were sold. It is very easy to use and allows us to stream professional-looking video with the score shown in the corner, just as you’d see on TV.”
JVC sales manager, Paddy Taylor, has been recently working with a number of sports clubs. “Most people are scared to try something different but it’s so simple with this camera,” he comments. “You load the graphics template before the match, connect using wireless, Ethernet or cellular, and start streaming. Changing the score or displaying a graphic as an advert during a break in play or at half time is all controlled from a web browser, so you can use a computer, tablet or mobile phone. We knew clubs at this level wanted to record matches for analysis but the GY-HM200ESB camera also delivers a new stream of income.” Clubs have been really innovative choosing to stream aways games back to the bar at a time when it would normally be closed and also streaming 2nd team and development team matches.
"The live stream has been a real hit with sponsors and fans alike and has helped us to increase the profile of the club within the local community, as well as providing a service to supporters who can’t make a game. And although the camera lets you stream to Facebook or YouTube from the camera, we now have a dedicated page on JVC VIDEOCLOUD, that we can share as a link or embed on our website. We look forward to using the new GY-HM250ESB model next year to stream our games too!” - Alexandrou adds.
