Ithaca College’s Park Productions Drone Squadron has quietly built itself into one of the more ambitious student-run broadcast operations in the region. This spring, the squad is finally getting consistent gigs while producing six rowing broadcasts — two for Ithaca College, one for the Liberty League and three contracted broadcasts for Cornell University that will air on ESPN+ and the Ivy League Network.

This is not the first time the group has done broadcasts for IC, but it was debuted with Cornell. The opportunity with the Cornell Big Red came after years of gradual buildup, starting with free IC broadcasts and growing into a paid, 20-person crew operation.

Senior Jack DeNick, the Drone Squad manager, sat down with Staff Writer Antonio Vengoechea to discuss how the squad secured this paid Cornell deal, what it takes to produce a live ESPN+ broadcast, and what the national attention means for the program’s future.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Antonio Vengoechea: Can you walk us through how the drone squad got to this point with Cornell?

Jack DeNick: My freshman year, I got my drone license and we started broadcasting [IC] for free, just because we wanted to try it out and see what we could do. Then last year in the spring, we broadcasted [IC] again — it was a paid opportunity for our pilots. Then we got in touch with the Liberty League and broadcasted the rowing Liberty League championship in Saratoga Springs. We traveled and stayed overnight with a small crew of about 12 people. Then this year, we reached out to the Cornell coaches in the fall and said, “Hey, would you guys be interested in us doing this rowing broadcast?” We’ve just been coordinating with them and their video production team, and now we’re contracted by Cornell to broadcast them on ESPN+ and the Ivy League Network.

AV: How does the relationship with Cornell work? Do you go through the Ivy League or directly through Cornell?

JD: Everything is coordinated through Cornell. Cornell Athletics is responsible for all their productions that go to ESPN+. The Ivy League Network is more of an in-house thing — it’s for international viewers who can’t tune in to ESPN+, so they simulstream both. We’ve been working with their director of video production, who’s been providing us with graphics and making sure we’re following their guidelines. There’s even a closing line we have to say and copyright disclosures we have to follow.

AV: What does it actually take to produce one of these broadcasts?

JD: There are a lot of moving parts. We run fiber to our start line cameras, our drone operators and cameras across the way at the boathouse. Cornell also has a three-wheel electric bike, so we have a camera operator riding up and down the inlet during races. I actually bought some equipment off Amazon to test putting a camera at Boatyard Grill, and then we were able to fully purchase it through the drone squad to have it for the broadcasts. It’s really just been expanding and adding more technology and resources each time.

AV: How do the drone pilots communicate with the broadcast director in real time?

JD: We just use a Discord call. … The director will call the cameras like a regular sports production — “drone, you’re live” — and the pilots check in for things like battery swaps. If there’s downtime between races, the director might ask for a drone at the start line, or the pilots will flag that a race is about to start and they need to come back.

AV: What’s the contingency plan if something goes wrong mid-broadcast?

JD: We try to remain calm, because drones are unpredictable. There’s wind drift and things that are kind of out of your control. That’s actually why we’ve been adding more cameras on land — if it’s raining, we can’t take the drones up, so we need those ground cameras to keep the broadcast going.

AV: Has the ESPN+ opportunity helped with recruiting for the drone squad?

JD: I definitely think it will help people’s interest in wanting to get their license. I need to recruit more pilots, and the test can be a little daunting — you have to do the workshop, study on your own, and then actually go take the test at the airport. But having something like this to point to makes it easier to get people fully committed to going through that process.

AV: How do you see the squad using this success going forward?

JD: I could definitely see us [pitching] to other schools and local opportunities. There’s a bunch of racing in Saratoga that always happens, and there are usually only a handful of people that can actually make a broadcast like that happen. Since we’re a student crew and we have outside funding to help support us, we’re able to make it possible in a way that a full production company couldn’t [at the same price point]. We just did softball for the first time the other weekend, but I’m looking to do more sports either for ICTV or on Bomber Sports. So we’re definitely looking at other opportunities.