(ATR) The training wheels came off the Panam Sports Channel at Lima 2019.
The website, designed to build the brand of the Olympic Movement in the Americas, went live on July 2 for the torch lighting ceremony in Mexico ahead of the 18th Pan American Games in Lima that began July 26.
But Lima 2019 proved a perfect time to roll out much more content, including the daily Panam Sports Show. The feature, with reporter narration in both Spanish and English, gave viewers the highlights of the day from the Games, which concluded on August 11. In total 23 people worked on the channel during the Games, fronted by host Alexandra Horler.
From a small office at the International Broadcasting Center, a group of people worked to take the broadcast footage of the events of each day and edit them down into shorter forms. Most of the Panam Sports Show edits, for example, are about 10 to 12 minutes in length. Other options included highlights without added narration, interviews, and features on specific sports. The website is available in both Spanish and English, the two official languages of Panam Sports.
The idea for the channel, Panam Sports secretary general Ivar Sisniega toldAround the Rings in Lima, has been in the works for about a year. He says the video capacity now available will "help us have a more direct communication and to offer the possibility to show a lot of the things we do.
"We can stream a lot of our events, be they meetings, general assemblies, announcements but more importantly sports events."
Sisniega added that the channel could work together with the Panam Sports confederations to ensure that events without a broadcaster could be shown either live or in highlight form on the Panam Sports Channel. While traditional broadcasters will continue to show the Pan American Games live, Sisniega says the 2021 Junior Pan American Games could possibly be shown live on the channel.
He says the channel is not only a showcase for major events but could also to be used to help the smaller NOCs.
"We do coaching seminars and that instead of having everybody travel and spend a lot of money they could use the Panam Sports Channel to increase the level of coaches and help NOCs with these seminars. And really make them accessible to everybody.
"One of the projects we have from these games is to put together a video of the best moments for each Olympic Committee which they can use for their own purposes for marketing, for promotion of their athletes, and the other one is the best moments of the games in general. So somebody who didn’t come, or who didn’t watch, can see what these games are about and how they’re about sporting excellence but they’re also about people coming together, people celebrating."
"We want the athletes to look forward to our games and we’re sure looking to the future that’s part of what we want in bringing better athletes to the games is in addition to coming here to qualify for the Olympics they also know they are going to have a great time and they’re going to be treated well."
Sisniega tells ATR that there are no specific growth targets for the channel at this time.
"We want to see a good progression, we want to make sure all the NOCs are using it. And we want to promote through social media. We’ve really grown a lot through social media, on Instagram, on Twitter, and Facebook, so we want to make sure people know where they can go to find the right kind of information.
"Our next step," he adds, "is to organize the information so people know where to find specific information that they may be looking for."
"We’re starting out but we think it’s a really good tool with a lot of potential."
Written by Gerard Farek
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