It’s tournament time! Midco Sports team prepares to broadcast basketball’s best

This paid event listing is sponsored by Midco.

There’s nothing like championship basketball season, and in the Sioux Falls area, it couldn’t get any better for ways to watch.

Midco Sports has become a powerhouse broadcasting team, bringing you outstanding college basketball coverage – especially when it’s all on the line for a trip to the NCAA men’s and women’s national basketball tournament.

This year, Midco Sports will be broadcasting the quarterfinals, semifinals and championships of both the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference men’s and women’s tournaments, all from the Sanford Pentagon. Coverage includes 14 games starting Saturday, March 2, and ending Tuesday, March 5.

The next week, it’s on to The Summit League Tournament, where Midco Sports will broadcast a total of 12 games from the Denny Sanford Premier Center, beginning with two first-round games March 8, all quarterfinals March 9-10 and the men’s semifinals March 11.

The veteran on-air team of David Brown and Jay Elsen, plus sideline reporters, producers, directors and production assistants have worked continually this season to produce interesting storylines, graphics and video elements that set their broadcast work apart.

Jay Elsen

“This period from late February through March is our busiest time of the year, bar none. As a network, we’ve covered both the NSIC Basketball Tournament and Summit League Tournament for more than a decade each. And they’re always back-to-back!” Brown said.

“So you mentally prepare yourself each year for how much time and energy will go into everything. We will probably be working most days, including weekends, from now until mid-March, depending on if one of our contracted schools – South Dakota State University, University of South Dakota, University of North Dakota – makes the NCAA Tournament or not. But it takes a team effort.”

We caught up with Brown in between games for a behind-the-scenes look at what fans can expect.

David Brown

What do you like about your job? What’s kept you there?

It’s just a fun atmosphere, plain and simple! You get to work with people who have a similar drive and passion that you have, and, let’s be honest, we’re in the “toy department” by getting to be around sports all the time. The opportunity to get to know coaches, players and administrators from different institutions is incredibly rewarding, and being able to tell their stories through either a game broadcast or a feature piece on “Midco Sports Magazine” is something I don’t take for granted.

What stands out for you about broadcasting these tournaments? What keeps it energizing year after year?

We’ve always referred to this period (late February through March) as our “Big Game” period. We broadcast hundreds of events every year, but nothing compares to the excitement of tournament season. All the teams you’ve gotten to know over the course of the season converge to Sioux Falls. You see people you haven’t seen in a while, both work and professional colleagues and friends. You get a chance to really immerse yourself in the whole experience, and we also know we’ll have eyeballs on us! That’s exciting as both a personal broadcaster and as a network, knowing that we’ll get fan bases from across our regional footprint and beyond tuning in to see if their teams can reach the NCAA basketball tournament.

Tell us a bit about the team behind you guys. What additional broadcasting and behind-the-scenes talent does it take to bring this to viewers?

It truly does take a team effort. Even for regular season games, there’s collaboration beforehand on so many things, like the big storylines, graphic ideas, video elements, injuries to spotlight, unique behind-the-scenes anecdotes on players and coaches. Similar to the teams we cover, we need to have a game plan going into each broadcast with our producers, directors, technical directors, graphics people, replay operators, engineers and social media team.

When it’s just one or two broadcasts a week, there’s a bit more time to get everything together. Between the NSIC Tournament (14 games) and Summit League Tournament (12 games), we’re going to have 26 different broadcasts to prepare for in about a two-week span! That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re “condensing” anything but that everyone will need to focus even more on making sure every broadcast is as crisp and concise as possible.

How unique do you think it is to offer this level of coverage for local college basketball?

It’s incredibly unique. We take a tremendous amount of pride as a network on being that conduit to fans. Even though we have contracts to broadcast a majority of the SDSU, UND and USD basketball games, tournament time gives us an opportunity to showcase everyone in the NSIC and Summit League.

When I broadcast a game, I always want to make sure I’m giving every team the attention it deserves. For example, let’s say there’s a game between South Dakota State and Oral Roberts University. We cover SDSU regularly, but ORU not as much, simply because of their location. Going into that game, I want to be as well-versed on ORU as possible because the fans that tune in are mostly going to be die-hards. They know their team back and forth, and I want to sound intelligent and knowledgeable about ORU because the fans deserve that.

The NSIC might be new to some fans who only dial in at tournament time. What can they expect this year?

On the women’s side, Minnesota State University, Mankato is a team that can contend for a national championship. They play a unique and aggressive style of basketball, and they force more turnovers than anyone in Division II: 28 per game! They also happen to have the best offense in the NSIC, so they’re incredibly fun to watch. The biggest competition for MSU will include a couple of teams nearby: Northern State University in Aberdeen and Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, Minnesota.

On the men’s side, there’s incredible depth and a lot of really good teams. As of late February, four NSIC teams are in the Division II top 25 nationally: MSU Mankato, MSU Moorhead, University of Minnesota Duluth and Minot State University. If those four reach the semifinals, it will be incredibly competitive and entertaining! And beyond that, there’s still a lot of really strong teams locally that can make a run, including Augustana University, University of Sioux Falls and SMSU.

What are your thoughts as professional sports reporters about the competitiveness of The Summit League this year? Any expectations as far as what you’ll be watching or anticipating with this year’s tournament?

The men’s side of The Summit League Tournament will be the most competitive and open it’s been since the tournament arrived in Sioux Falls in 2009. Each and every team, seeds one through nine, has a legitimate chance to win the entire thing and make the NCAA Tournament! That’s incredibly exciting for us as broadcasters and for Midco Sports as a network because we’ve never had this kind of parity before!

On the women’s side, SDSU continues to set the standard for excellence in the conference, especially this season. SDSU has dealt with four season-ending injuries, and they’re still incredibly competitive and thriving.

They are unquestionably the favorite right now, but the biggest question will be if they can sustain their level of play at the tournament with a shorter rotation. NDSU and ORU are probably the biggest threats to SDSU’s chances to win the tournament again, but plenty of women’s teams have the capability to make a run.

We just appreciate the opportunity to broadcast these tournaments every year! It’s a privilege we don’t take lightly, and we’re as excited this season as we’ve ever been. We thank all the participating schools who work with us to provide information about their teams. We thank our co-workers and freelancers who collaborate with us to put out the best broadcasts possible. And, of course, we thank the loyal fans and viewers who tune in year after year! Midco Sports is your tournament headquarters for 2024, and we can’t wait to get things started!

How to watch

Of course, you can always find Midco Sports through your MidcoTV package. Stream live on the MidcoTV app, or record and watch when it’s convenient for you. Click here to learn about making the switch in time for this peak sports season.

Don’t have MidcoTV services? Stream Midco Sports tournament coverage – without a MidcoTV subscription – with the Midco Sports Plus app! For a small monthly or annual fee, you get access to live coverage of 500-plus sporting events, expert analysis, highlights, interviews and more.  Click here to learn more.