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INDIANAPOLIS – The Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) announced today its GLVC Sports Network Extra Credit program will stream Sunday’s GLVC Men’s and Women’s Soccer Championship Tournament finals entirely in Spanish. GLVCSN’s primary coverage will be provided in English while a second broadcast will offer the same feed in Spanish.
Sunday’s stream will be the first-ever GLVCSN production produced in a foreign language, as well as the first occurrence for the GLVC’s strategic streaming partner, BlueFrame Technology. The event is also believed to be the first of its kind in NCAA Division II streaming.
The women’s tournament final will commence at 12 p.m. ET, followed by the men’s title match at 3 p.m. ET from the Woehrle Athletic Complex in Jeffersonville, Indiana. Both championship matches will be offered free to a global audience across all GLVCSN platforms, including GLVCSN.com, the GLVCSN iOS/Android mobile apps, and the GLVCSN OTT channels on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV and Android TV.
University of Southern Indiana senior Betzaira Suarez Ramos, who has participated in the GLVCSN Extra Credit initiative at the past three GLVC Basketball Championship Tournaments, will oversee the Spanish production. The Shelbyville, Indiana native will graduate in December with a double major in radio/television and Spanish studies with the hopes of continuing in television production. During her time on campus, she has served as a production assistant for Evansville’s local television station, 44NEWS, and assisted USI Athletics with its GLVCSN productions.
Joining Suarez Ramos on the call will be Bellarmine University senior Mariana Flores Gutierrez. The Saltillo, Mexico native and soccer follower recently closed out her career as a member of the Knights’ field hockey team and is pursuing her degree in exercise science.
“We are looking forward to taking this new path in NCAA Division II streaming and once again embracing our mission to promote both athletics and academics through GLVCSN,” said GLVC Commissioner Jim Naumovich. “This platform has also allowed the Conference to showcase our commitment to our core values, specifically diversity and inclusion, so it’s fitting that we have an aspiring television professional and Spanish major, as well as an international student-athlete, using their talents to offer our little part of ‘The World’s Game’ to a global audience.”
Across the GLVC, 16 men’s and women’s soccer programs boast more than 50 student-athletes on their rosters from nine Spanish-speaking countries, including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Spain and Venezuela, as well Brazil, Portugal and the United States where Spanish is a secondary language.
Since GLVCSN became NCAA Division II’s first conference-wide streaming network when it launched in 2014, the league’s member institutions and Conference office have combined to stream nearly 8,000 events with more than 1.87 million views and nearly 1 million hours watched by fans across the world.
In addition to regular-season and league championship events, the Conference office has also utilize GLVCSN to stream select programming from its annual administrative meetings, primarily specific to student health, wellness, security and inclusion.
This past September, GLVCSN streamed the inaugural GLVC Game Environment and Security Summit. Last season, the league's
Someone to Listen mental health awareness campaign earned second place out of 21 finalists for the NCAA DII Award of Excellence. It was later recognized as one of the outstanding programs funded by the NCAA DII Conference Grant Program – an honor also bestowed upon the league for its first installment of its
GLVC is Me campaign following the 2015-16 season. As part of the league’s annual fall meeting in September 2016, GLVCSN streamed a “Discussion on Diversity and Inclusion,” which focused on diversity’s impact on hiring and recruiting, racial and disability discrimination, and life as a transgender student-athlete.
Through its Extra Credit initiative, now in its sixth season, GLVCSN serves as a learning laboratory for students at member institutions, with a number of opportunities available in broadcasting, production, digital and social media. The GLVCSN Student Ambassador Program, which began in 2016, uses GLVCSN as a resource to provide students learning opportunities and on-the-job experience on all 16 campuses and at GLVC Championship events. Outside of broadcasting and production, students are afforded the opportunity to assist the GLVC in promoting GLVCSN on campus through brand awareness, recruitment, marketing, social media/communications, and assessment. For more information, log on to
GLVCSN.com/ExtraCredit.