COLUMN
NEWELL’S NOTES
ROB
NEWELL
E
12
We are LIVE ...
Now that live coverage is an integral part of both the
ver since I covered my first tournament for the FLW
Bassmaster Elites Series and the FLW Tour, I can honestly say
website in 2003, I’ve dreamed of the day we could
it’s everything I thought it would be.
watch professional bass fishing tournaments live on
It’s good.
the internet.
Really good.
Back then we covered the tournament from the bank;
Maybe too good.
with pen, paper and a point-and-click digital camera.
Now that live coverage is for real, I’ve become acutely
“Coverage” consisted of two paragraphs about the leader
aware of the tradeoffs. The fact is, the live lens is changing
with a photo of his fish.
the tournament game.
Then FLW made it possible f or reporters to go out on the
Gone are the days when pros could blast off and run 40
water, shoot photos and send “updates” through Twitter, but
miles to the back end of a remote creek, pull out a secret lure
it was still like using two cups and a string for coverage.
From there it became possible to send video
snippets of tournament action back to shore to
see some of the action from the water live – well,
OK, sort of live.
For a while FLW experimented with different
live stream technologies with point-of-view (POV)
cams that required anglers to be casting under-
neath a cellular antenna to keep a constant
stream.
Then GoPros hit the fishing scene to record up-
close fish catches from a pro’s boat. Pretty nice …
if you like fish catches and not much else.
All of these advancements constituted progress
toward the ultimate goal: truly live video coverage.
That finally happened for FLW back in February,
when it launched its new FLW Live broadcast at The author appeared as a guest host on FLW Live with Travis Moran during the Beaver
Lake Tour event.
Tour stop No. 2 at Lake Travis.
FLWFISHING.COM I juLy 2017