A Conversation with Chris Sabato
Episode summary
Aired Wednesday, December 10, 2025
Chris Sabato, director of athletics communications at Willamette University, joined Tony Mobley to explain how one person runs live broadcasts for a Division III school. He covered his vMix based production setup, a web replay player he built for game officials, and about 120 to 130 streams per year through Flow Sports. He also described using AI to cut game recap writing from about an hour to about ten minutes. His main advice was to be honest that good production is not easy, and to build tools that solve a real problem while knowing homemade pieces can break.
Key takeaways
- Chris built a single page HTML and JavaScript player on top of an HLS feed so game officials could step through replays one frame at a time and play back at slower speeds. He ordered a touchscreen monitor so officials could press the buttons directly.
- He builds every production on vMix because it handles switching, graphics tied to data, and instant replay in one system. With a hardware switcher he would need separate replay and graphics systems, and he works alone.
- He sends the vMix output into a second computer that only streams. If the main rig has a problem, he can patch a feed straight into the streaming computer and keep the broadcast going.
- Software switchers let you ask for more than the machine can do, so learn each computer’s limits. On older machines he sometimes could not stream, record and run replay at the same time.
- AI helped with recaps: a service called Fan Word turns an uploaded stats file into a draft story that needs some editing. That cut the job from about an hour to about ten minutes, and he used Gemini to summarize long swimming and track results.
Chapters
- 2:26 Welcome and show introductions
- 3:47 Who Chris Sabato is
- 7:31 What a game day looks like
- 9:51 Building a replay review web player
- 16:57 How many streams and sports at once
- 20:20 vMix rigs, networking and Flow Sports
- 34:54 Student help and camera choices
- 41:45 Job title and doing many roles
- 46:07 Using AI for recaps and results
- 50:32 Final message: it looks easy but isn’t
Notable quotes
“The problem with a software switcher like V-Mix and MIMO and these things is that you can ask the the switcher to do more than it is capable of doing.”
Chris Sabato, at 25:32
“When you have people that are good at something let them do that thing.”
Chris Sabato, at 30:30
“Does it need some wordsmithing? A little bit, but it’s you dump it in, generates the thing, you clean it up a little bit. And so something that would have taken me an hour now takes about 10 minutes”
Chris Sabato, at 47:39
“I made this thing look so easy and now that that piece broke like there’s nothing I can do.”
Chris Sabato, at 52:54
Questions this conversation answered
How can a small college give game officials a better instant replay review?
Chris Sabato built a simple web page that plays the live stream’s HLS feed with controls for rewinding, frame by frame stepping and slower playback speeds. He also ordered a touchscreen monitor so officials can press the buttons at the scorer’s table.
Why use vMix instead of a hardware video switcher?
Chris said vMix lets him do switching, data driven graphics and instant replay in one system. With a hardware switcher he would need separate replay and graphics systems, and he is running the broadcast alone.
How can AI help with college sports game recaps?
Chris uploads a stats file to a service called Fan Word, which writes a draft story that he then cleans up. He said a recap that took about an hour now takes about 10 minutes, and he uses Gemini to summarize long results lists for sports like swimming and track.
How do you keep a live stream running if the main vMix computer has trouble?
Chris sends the main vMix output into a second computer running another copy of vMix that only streams. If the main rig fails, he can patch a video feed directly into the streaming computer while he fixes the problem.
About the guest
Chris Sabato. Chris Sabato is director of athletics communications at Willamette University, a small private liberal arts college in Salem, Oregon that competes at the Division III level. He produces live broadcasts, graphics and social media, and writes programs to automate tasks.
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