How Samford brings high-profile campus livestreams to its own website
Samford’s media team uses Castr to manage public event streams and give families, alumni, students, and guests a consistent place to watch on the university’s website.
The moments that define campus life reach far beyond the venue
Samford University is a private university in Birmingham, Alabama, serving students, families, alumni, faculty, and the wider campus community.
Livestreaming gives people who cannot attend in person a way to share in commencements, Hanging of the Green and Lighting of the Way, Step Sing, student performances, and other public programs.
These broadcasts carry the identity of the institution. For Samford, the experience needed to feel like a natural part of its official website, not a detour to an unrelated platform.
Live campus events leave little room for disruption
A commencement or campus tradition happens at a fixed time. Families and alumni may join from different regions, devices, and network conditions, often arriving together as the event begins.
Samford’s media team needed a repeatable way to prepare those broadcasts, support concentrated audience demand, and keep the viewer inside a destination clearly connected to the university.
When a commencement begins, there’s no rescheduling and no second take. Viewers expect the stream to work the moment it starts.
The priorities
- A repeatable setup for major campus events
- Playback across devices and connection conditions
- Delivery capacity for concentrated event audiences
- An embedded experience on Samford’s public website
- A workflow the campus media team could manage centrally
Samford wanted the livestream to feel like part of the institution
Sending viewers to a third-party destination would separate an important university moment from the digital experience around it. Samford needed both the operational tools to manage live events and a player that could fit naturally into its own website.
Castr brought those requirements together. The media team could manage delivery centrally while Samford retained the context, familiarity, and continuity of the audience experience.
Campus livestreams, delivered on Samford’s own website
Samford University selected Castr in 2024 to support its public campus livestreams from production through playback.
The media team can manage each stream centrally and place the Castr player directly on Samford’s public livestream page. Viewers find the event within the same university website they already recognize.
The viewing experience stays on the university’s own website, while Castr handles the live video delivery behind the scenes.
Centralized stream management
US-based ingest
Adaptive playback
Embedded viewing on Samford.edu
Capacity for concentrated demand
Support for public university events
Giving the media team a familiar starting point
Samford’s events vary in format, audience, and significance, but the media team should not have to reinvent the delivery process for each one.
Castr gives the team a consistent way to manage streams across the calendar. Operators can begin from a familiar setup and keep their attention on the live production itself.
Keeping each broadcast unmistakably Samford
Instead of directing viewers to a separate platform, Samford embeds the Castr player on its public livestream page. Families, students, alumni, and guests can find the broadcast within the university’s own website experience.
That approach gives every public event:
- A consistent place to watch
- The context of Samford’s official website
- A viewing experience managed by the university
For an institution, that continuity matters. The livestream feels connected both to the event and to the university presenting it.
Preparing for the moment the audience arrives
Major university events can draw more viewers than routine programming, with many people joining close to the scheduled start.
Castr’s delivery capacity supports that concentrated demand, while adaptive playback responds to each viewer’s connection conditions. The media team can use the same operating approach for everyday programs and larger public events.
A consistent home for public campus broadcasts
With centralized stream management and an embedded player, Samford can use one repeatable approach across public events while keeping the audience on its own website.
Give remote audiences a familiar place to watch
Manage different campus events from one environment
Adapt playback across devices and connection conditions
Support routine programs and higher-demand occasions
Keep the university’s identity around the broadcast
Castr now serves as part of Samford’s campus video infrastructure, helping the university make important events accessible to audiences beyond campus.
Keeping the campus community connected
Samford can continue to use the same foundation for ceremonies, traditions, performances, and other public programs while preserving a familiar destination for viewers.
For institutional media teams, its story shows that live delivery is not only a production decision. It is part of how the organization includes remote audiences in important moments.
Give every important institutional event a familiar home
Tell us about your event calendar, production tools, website, audience patterns, and support needs. We’ll help you create a repeatable experience for your media team and your viewers.
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