Friday Night Lights, Camera, Action!

Friday nights, when the lights shine on high school football across the country, are getting much brighter these days. From new videoboards to broadcast-quality production platforms and solutions, you could mistakenly think you are at a college football game when you walk into some of these stadiums.

High school athletic departments are investing heavily in the future of sports, but they aren't simply spending money on shiny new toys. These investments are increasing community engagement via sponsorships and providing real-world lessons to aspiring high school production teams.

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Per the most recent 2024-25 NFHS High School Athletics Participation Survey, high school sports are very much alive and well, which means focusing on the production and game-day experiences has become a necessity. As always, football rules the day, with more than 1 million participants. Outdoor track and field tops the list for girls' programs, with more than 500,000 participants nationwide. However, basketball remains king of the court, with more than 18,000 schools offering both boys’ and girls' programs, the most of any sport.

According to Jeff Morgan, sales director sports indoor at Watchfire, football stadiums continue to represent a major part of installations because of the large crowds, strong community visibility, and substantial sponsorship potential. However, Watchfire is seeing growing interest in gymnasiums, baseball and softball facilities, and broader multi-venue packages as well.

"Increasingly, schools are looking beyond a single scoreboard purchase and developing a phased plan across multiple venues," Morgan explained. "That allows them to create a more consistent experience, offer broader sponsorship packages, simplify training and maintenance, and extend student production programs across several sports."

High schools typically don't have monster budgets like Division I colleges, so where does the money come from for a major technological overhaul? "At the high school level, the goal is not to replicate a Division I stadium, but to choose a scoring and entertainment system that fits the school’s needs," Morgan said. "That may include improving the fan experience, expanding student learning opportunities, generating revenue, and building school pride."

Tom Coughlin, Daktronics sales manager, agreed. "When it comes to budgets, our role is to help schools get the most out of their investments, including the greatest positive impact on their students, fans, and community," he said. "That's where Daktronics Sports Marketing [DSM] comes in. Rather than asking schools to choose between what they need versus what they want, we help them develop a plan that aligns with their goals, budgets, and long-term revenue opportunities."

A videoboard is more than a game-day experience, Coughlin added. It's a platform for community engagement, student involvement, and local business partnerships all working together to maximize the value of their investment.

Telling Student Stories

Lampasas Independent School District (ISD) in Lampasas, TX, was looking to replace a nearly 20-year-old scoreboard. The district selected a Watchfire system that balanced affordability, functionality, and community value, Morgan said. Watchfire helped to install a package that included a 10x24-foot 16mm videoboard paired with a 4x24-foot scoreboard and 6x4-foot snap clock.

That community value immediately paid off. During the first two years after installation, Morgan explained, Lampasas ISD generated more than $50,000 in advertising revenue through partnerships with local businesses, revenue that supports athletics and other school programs while offsetting the equipment cost. Plus, the technology—which has been used during junior high, JV and varsity games, as well as graduations, community events, and special recognitions—is bettering the student production team.

Students in the career and technical education class manage the videoboard content, gaining hands-on experience in video production, marketing, and digital content management. “The biggest benefit is highlighting the kids,” said Dr. Chane Rascoe, superintendent of Lampasas ISD. “They appreciate being recognized, and it builds pride and confidence.”

Plum Senior High School near Pittsburgh went all-in with Daktronics in August 2025. As Coughlin explained, with support from former NFLer and current ESPN personality Pat McAfee and his We’re All Mustangs Here Foundation, the school added a new 12x25-foot, 10mm display at its football stadium as well as a new 11x20-foot, 5.9mm display in its gymnasium. They also received a fixed-digit scoreboard at each venue, digital content for the displays, a Daktronics FrameWrx subscription for creating additional content, and DakClassroom curriculum that provides teachers with resources for student instruction in operating the displays for live events.

Again, this is much more than a shiny new scoreboard. Fans attending events now get all the game-day information audiences would expect from professional-level events, from live videos to instant replays, graphics and animations, statistics, and even sponsorship messages.

"More importantly, it's helping the school tell the stories of its students and programs in an enticing, engaging way. It's showcasing students and their accomplishments and increasing crowd involvement and enhancing school spirit," Coughlin added. "What made this project unique wasn't just the technology. It was the opportunity to create a student-led production program. From creating graphics and operating equipment to gaining real-world experience that can lead to future educational and career opportunities, we were able to show how the project could positively impact students, the school, and the community long after installation was complete."

Both Daktronics and Watchfire agree that high school sport venues have become an increasingly important part of their business. While Daktronics has been selling video displays to high schools for more than two decades, Coughlin has seen an uptick in magnitude the past five years or so.

"As schools invest more in athletic facilities, fan engagement, and student-led media programs, the videoboard market continues to grow," Morgan said. "But Watchfire’s focus goes beyond the growth of youth sports. The products we develop and the people we add reflect our broader commitment to helping local institutions strengthen and connect their communities."

Ready for a Close-Up

High school sports production goes well beyond the in-stadium experience. While cameras at the football field were once used by coaches for scouting and game calling, they are now used for live streaming. And high schools have been shifting toward higher-end production tools in recent years.

"We're seeing schools adopt a mix of Sony solutions, including system cameras for field sports, PTZ cameras for gymnasium and court sports, and Sony's professional imaging cameras for sideline coverage, coaching analysis, and feature content," said Linda Croson, national account manager, Sony Electronics.

Claudia Barbiero, director of global marketing, PTZOptics, concurred, noting that the shift has accelerated over the past few years as IP connectivity and software-based production have made professional tools easier for schools to operate. The technology may be sophisticated behind the scenes, she said, but it is now accessible enough for student teams to use successfully. "High schools are taking learnings from college sports programs that are really stepping up their innovation with PTZ cameras," Barbiero said.

She pointed to Salesianum School in Wilmington, DE, which created a student-run production system with six PTZOptics cameras positioned around its football field. Students use vMix to stream games, NewBlueFX Captivate for instant replay, and a PTZOptics SuperJoy to control all six cameras while monitoring the available angles. Barbiero noted that the school also designed the system to scale beyond football, with plans to extend coverage to baseball, soccer, and swimming.

The goal is to provide repeatable, user-friendly workflows that can support ambitious production values while remaining manageable for a student crew. "The priority should be a reliable core system that is simple to operate and can grow over time," Barbiero added. "Schools can begin by covering one sport, use centralized control to reduce the number of operators required, and then extend the same workflow to other venues or teams."

As with videoboards and displays, cameras are an added cost to tight high school budgets. Croson said the conversation starts with understanding the type of production, level of creative control wanted/needed, and budget. However, Ken Kobayashi, business manager, remote cameras, Sony Electronics, added that many of Sony’s cameras incorporate intelligent features such as AI assist, which simplify productions and streamline content creation for operators and volunteers at various skill levels.

For Sony, Croson is seeing a mixed approach ranging from mirrorless Alpha cameras to PTZ, handheld, cinema, and even studio cameras. "There’s a role and place for the many options in our lineup depending on the school’s needs, crews, environment, budget, fixed positions, and/or remote operations component," she said.

Beyond cameras, Sony's ecosystem includes audio integration, display solutions, remote production, replay, and IP workflows that grow with a school's needs. "From a basic PTZ-based livestream to a full multi-camera sports broadcast, schools can expand their production capabilities over time without changing platforms," Croson said. "In doing so, they're not just enhancing the fan experience, they're building a pipeline of future broadcasters by giving students hands-on experience with the same technologies and workflows used in collegiate and professional sports and broadcast production."

"Sony has great wireless solutions for capturing gameplay," Kobayashi added, "including a 5G data transmitter, PDT-FP1, which utilizes 5G or LTE networks from mobile carriers to enable low-latency live video transmission directly from the stadium to the broadcast booth or a remote studio without long cables."

One feature that hasn't popped up too much is the role of AI in high school sports productions. While PTZOptics already has robust AI features helping its cameras in manufacturing and healthcare, how long will it take before AI can help evolve lower budget productions while increasing the quality of coverage?

"We expect AI developed for professional sports to become accessible to lower-budget productions relatively quickly. Visual Reasoning is the ability for a camera-connected system to look at an image in real time, understand it, and allow teams to engage with it in natural language," Barbiero explained. "These types of workflows turn cameras into intelligent teammates, opening up a range of new possibilities that help small crews deliver bigger productions."

Budget-Conscious Coverage

With high school athletics budgets not as grandiose as colleges and pros, it can be a challenge to bring high-end production and streaming coverage to campus. Magewell has several solutions that are user friendly and don't break the bank.

Director One, for example, combines multi-input switching, graphics, streaming, recording, and monitoring in one compact device, enabling users to produce live events and remote feeds. Cody Eastes of Eastes Media has used Director One to produce both home and away games for Pratt High School in Kansas. He said solutions like this make local high school sports easier than ever to produce.

“As a one-man setup, the Magewell Director One has allowed me to produce a full multi-cam livestream from the press boxes or even in the stands," he explained. "The versatility of being able to use both hardwired HDMI or wireless NDI makes the Magewell Director One a robust, yet easy-to-use solution for all of my livestreaming needs.”

At InfoComm 2026, Magewell upped its game, introducing Director Plus, which provides multiple key components of a production control room into a single, affordable, compact device. Schools don’t need a separate switcher, graphics system, telestrator, instant replay system, or even a streaming encoder—it's all integrated into Director Plus. The built-in touchscreen interface is very intuitive, and the system also supports additional control options.

Amy Zhou, director of sales, Magewell, said the ease of use makes it ideal for student production crews, as they can get up and running very quickly with virtually no learning curve. "Director Plus makes high-end production features such as instant replay and Madden-style telestration easy and affordable, even for schools with limited budgets, allowing schools to create engaging experiences that rival television broadcasts while providing fans with in-depth game insights," she said. "Production assistants can also be roaming the stands while using their phone cameras as sources to Director Plus, letting them easily make the crowd part of the experience themselves."

In an era where the age of content creators is seemingly becoming younger, providing these technologies to future Pro AV enthusiasts at the high school level is more important than ever. "The trend or shift over the last five to seven years is the realization by schools that this is technology that is needed for facilities and students to experience growth," Coughlin noted. "It's not a wish list or luxury item, but rather a standard piece for facilities."