Robcasting at Seven

 

Jake Zimmer, me, Dan Gardella, 2017 (Shawn Sailer photo)

The idea of creating my own internet channel for game broadcasts actually goes back to the early 00s. 

WGCH was, at one time, a very busy place with an active sports department. I was proud to head that group up and we could send broadcast teams to different places.

Sean Kilkelly and John Spang could go call hockey while Mark Smallwood and I would call basketball. There was always a live body in the studio and, if needed, an extra person could be at the game site to help engineer and report.

Eventually, it all whittled down. Or, more to the point, it all went all, except for football and the occasional other game.

It's depressing to think about but it also inspired me to push for something online.

Eventually, that led to Hersam Acorn Radio/HAN Radio/HAN Network. While there are tails both good and bad of those days, I remain incredibly proud of the concept.

In the midst of that, a term of born.

Robcasting.

And I never forgot it.

So, after I left HAN, I started an audio channel for another media entity. I figured out pretty quickly that it wasn't going to last long, unless...

Seven years ago today, while broadcasting a Babe Ruth tournament at Trumbull, we used the term "Robcasting" in passing. Moments later, AJ Szymanowski sent me a mockup of a logo.

It didn't get tweaked much beyond that mockup and the channel was officially born.

AJ was part of the team at the beginning, with Jake Zimmer, Dan Gardella, and Shawn Sailer. Of course, Chris Erway and Chris Kaelin also bought in, as did myriad others who understood the assignment.

From day one, as much as I'd like to make money, it was meant to broadcast games and have fun.

We used to joke about the channel "making broadcasting fun again" but that leaned too heavily towards a particular political slogan so we quickly shelved it.

But, basically, anything that I've broadcast since July 2017 has made its way over to Robcasting. In some cases, the channel has been the exclusive home, such as for the Babe Ruth and Cal Ripken tournaments, along with Little League Baseball, Fairfield Prep basketball, Boomslang basketball, Norwalk's holiday basketball tournament, and even a season of Greenwich football.

Beyond that, Robcasting has been the simulcast/backup home for a lot of other programs and games. A season of Hudson Valley Renegades baseball ran there so we had the audio for editing purposes. All of the Brunswick and other LocalLive games also called Robcasting their backup home.

Greenwich football has continued to run on the channel, regardless of being on WGCH. So has the GYFL and honestly more games than I can remember.

But there have also been episodes of "Doubleheader," "The Clubhouse," "Meet the Beatles," and other shows. All got the Robcasting treatment.

Quite an archive has been amassed in the seven years.

My 1000th game broadcast aired on what became Robcasting.
L-R: Shawn Sailer, AJ Szymamowski, me, Sean, Jake Zimmer
at Cardinal after the Red/White scrimmage, 2017

Now, for clarity, I am not the channel and the channel is not me. I don't refer to myself as "Robcasting." In truth, I still sort of cringe every time I say the name. But literally, everyone I talk to loves the name, so what do I know?

I also don't say that Robcasting has existed for my nearly 34 years in broadcasting, though I suppose I could. Yet I never would.

It has been one of my truest labors of love, where it wasn't always about the money. I'm a terrible salesman, for one thing, because I always want a game to get covered. Too many times have I heard a game will receive no broadcast and I'll offer to throw it on the channel.

The game matters. The players, coaches, and support all matter. And I love to cover them. I was speaking again today about how the broadcast booth -- in whatever form -- remains my sanctuary. I know something is really wrong when I'm thinking about it during a game.

But it's also been a team effort, with too many names to mention. At one time or another, the names above volunteered their time to get on the air and have fun.

I'll always wish it could make more money and I'll always wish we had a firm home base but, for now, that's just not how it goes.

Yet every one of those names -- Jake, Shawn, Dan, AJ, ErJuan, Kato, plus Harold, Mick, Sean Adams (of course), Susan, Paul Silverfarb, and more -- helped build this thing. Plus Bob Small and WGCH have been enormously supportive as well, with equipment and internet access. It doesn't happen without all of them and I'm grateful that WGCH understood that I could use Robcasting as an extension of them. We could also use Robcasting, based on the Mixlr app, if WGCH.com went down.

It takes a lot of people to make all of this happen and I'm glad it did. Honestly, I can't keep track of all of the broadcasts that have aired on Robcasting but I'm glad we still have it.

I won't lie. There are times I think about shutting it down due to costs and see if we can find a lower-cost (as in free) option but we're still motoring along.

As I wrote today, we haven't even touched our full potential yet. In a perfect world, the channel would be on 24 hours a day, running repeats when we don't have live programming, or picking up other programming to help fill the hours.

You know. Sort of like a real radio station.

For now, we're on as needed and/or wanted.

We'll be back in action tomorrow at 4 p.m. for "Doubleheader" and I'm still hopeful for a few baseball games later in the week but nothing is official yet.

And with all of this said, I can't thank you all enough. It's a nice little engine that could that has been heard all over the world and it's very gratifying.

Thank you and we'll be live again soon.

As always, check your local listings.