Dylon Harrison

Staff Writer

In society, sports and alcohol tend to go hand-in-hand. Sports bars across the world serve as much beer as their patrons could want while streaming games from virtually every sport, but until recently, ISU games have not been available in local Pocatello bars.

With the help of the Communication, Media, and Persuasion department (CMP), ISU games are now streaming via Pluto TV, at a handful of local restaurants and sports bars, including The Sand Trap, Goodies, The Press Box, Sandbaggers, and Mama Inez.

“There’s really no point to broadcast if no one is watching it,” said ISU graduate, Levi Gribas. “We just feel like this is our year. We feel as though we have a strong broadcast that we can give them.”

With in-person attendance, and views from streamers, including these businesses, ISU’s football game against Idaho was seen by over 150,000 people.

The school provided these bars and restaurants with either a Roku or Fire TV Stick. These devices have free access to Pluto TV, making it possible for games to be streamed in the businesses without them having to invest.

Each business was also given a game day schedule, to make sure they knew when games are available for streaming.

This allows the businesses to draw in crowds wanting to watch ISU games without any additional cost to themselves, while also making the games more accessible to ISU sports fans. The goal is to open up more viewership for ISU athletics.

Installing these devices was a way to help the businesses draw crowds of ISU fans, while also helping the view of the school among the community expand.

“The goal behind this is community,” Gribas said. “We want this to be a community thing, and if we have the support of the local sports bars, we can build on that.”

The funding for this project has come from the CMP department and the College of Arts & Letters.

“The CMP department and the College of Arts & Letters have been a huge support,” Gribas said. “Jim DiSanza, who’s in charge of all this, he’s constantly getting feedback from us on what we need to make it a professional college sports broadcast.”

The process of getting the devices in the businesses took about two weeks. The first week was spent convincing the businesses to accept the devices and the next week was spent putting them in.

“A lot of these sports bars don’t have access to Pluto TV,” Gribas said. “At first, they were hesitant to us coming in and installing things, but as soon as they heard Pluto TV was free, they were like, ‘heck yeah.’”

In the past, many of these bars have had customers asking to watch ISU games.

John Young, a member of the CMP department’s faculty, has been working on putting this project together for the last four years.

“You don’t want something that’s not quality,” Gribas said. “If you’re not proud of it you’re not going to want to show it. We’re really proud of where this program has come.”

Introducing a way to stream ISU sports at local bars and restaurants is expected to help build the program. With the growing success and viewership of the school’s athletics, Gribas said that they felt now was the best time to make this move.

Eventually, the project hopes to expand to local branches of national chains.

“We wanted to hit local first,” Gribas said. “The next move, in the next few months would be to go talk to an Applebee’s or a Buffalo Wild Wings.”