Iditarod.com Brings “The Last Great Race” To Millions With Wirecast
By Jim Bask
In 2016, Iditarod.com decided to step-up their game by adding in multiple, live streamed daily shows with race coverage and highlights. They also embarked on setting up the infrastructure to bring live coverage to all 24 remote race checkpoints where viewers could tune in to see their favorite racers on the trail.
Iditarod.com faced the new challenge of needing to produce live daily shows with multiple video inputs, as well as setting up a live streaming infrastructure in remote locations with less than ideal weather conditions. They looked to Wirecast to do everything in a compact and affordable way.
As a solution, most of the race coverage and commentary is now streamed from the studio setup that Iditarod.com built at the race’s headquarters at the Lakefront Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska. Two former mushers, Joe Runyan and Danny Seavey serve as hosts for the daily shows. The entire streaming setup has been designed to be operated by two people at most – but in reality is usually run by only a single person. Wirecast is a key factor in keeping the set-up compact enough to effectively be run by only one person.
Now over one million unique viewers are able to tune into Iditarod.com this year to cheer on their favorite mushers. With live streams of all the race checkpoints, daily shows and the help of Wirecast, viewers were able to gain a much more in-depth perspective of The Last Great Race.
