YouCastr is a new way to experience sports. We enable anyone to broadcast live audio commentary, which creates more entertaining, interactive, and personal sports experiences for listeners than traditional broadcasting.

YouCastr streams can be used to replace existing commentary or experienced as stand-alone broadcasts.

Probably not. YouCastr uses the Flash Player for both broadcasting and listening to audio streams. It's highly likely that you already have Flash installed, but if not, you can get it here, from Adobe.

Have you always wanted to be a sports broadcaster but ended up in some other job? Is your goal to be a broadcaster someday? Or do you just love to talk about sports?

As a YouCastr broadcaster you can create an on-air personality and develop a loyal listening audience. Whether you are a beginner, an amateur looking to improve your skills, an experienced broadcaster, or just an individual with a desire to be a star; YouCastr makes it easy for you to get started. It is as simple as getting the right equipment, signing-up to broadcast a YouCastr event, getting yourself prepared, and broadcasting live during the event.

Existing mainstream broadcasters have to appeal to the largest possible audience. By doing so, they are too basic for advanced listeners, too advanced for first-timers, too politically correct, lack intimite knowledge of each team, and are unbiased.

YouCastr empowers you to choose your ideal broadcaster. Just find the event you want to listen to and browse its broadcasters by their team bias, rating, experience, style, number of fans, language, nationality, and gender.

No. The site is open for anyone to browse around and listen to and view content. Users will only have to register if they want to broadcast, write, post pictures, or use live interactive components like chatting and polling.

To enable listeners to find you, it is important to set-up your broadcaster profile. YouCastr has identified a series of characteristics to help listeners choose broadcasters. The characteristics are: To set-up your profile, click the gray edit button at the top left of the page.

Points are accumulated as you broadcast. The more broadcasts and the more listeners you have, the more experience points you will get. You will also accumulate points for writing articles.

The leaderboard is the place where the top broadcasters and shows are displayed. The broadcasters with the most points, highest ratings, and shows with the most listens appear here.

By signing up for events in advance and scheduling your episodes, you get the most exposure to potential listeners. The more you broadcast, the more experience, ratings and fans you will accumulate. You will be much more likely to show up in one of our top casters sections and will sort to the top of broadcaster lists.

The easiest way to gain exposure is to have your friends join the site and listen to you. This group of close friends will help your audience achieve critical mass. In order for your friends to rate you and interact live with you, they must sign up for the site.

Tags help your content to show up in the right places on the site. We use all of the content we can to do this automatically (using names, descriptions, etc.), but tagging something appropriately ensures that we will do it properly. To be absolutely sure your content goes where you want it, add the names of the sports, leagues, teams, and/or schools that you are covering as tags.

Tags are also searchable, so if you want your content to show up when users search for a specific term or name, add it as a tag.

Listeners are able to give feedback to broadcasters in a number of categories while they listen. There are three spectrums of feedback, designed to describe a broadcaster's style. The spectrums are: Family Friendly vs Explicit, Beginner Friendly vs Advanced / Insightful, and Color/Funny vs. Play-by-Play.

Trophies serve as a visual indicator of broadcaster experience and success. Broadcasters receive recognition for every broadcast they complete in a given event.

YouCastr hands out special trophies to the highest rated broadcasters each week for every sport. We also give a trophy for the most listened-to show of the week and for other specific broadcasting accomplishments.

See a complete listing of the YouCastr Trophies.

YouCastr does not broadcast direct game sounds. You can either mute the announcer on TV, or turn the volume low to keep some of the key game sounds. For the best listening experience, if you have surround sound, most broadcasts have the broadcasters on the center channel only, so simply unplug the front-center speaker and, voilà!, no broadcaster sounds will come through your TV.

YouCastr is a sports network. While we certainly don't discourage working different genres or broadcasting styles into your sports content, if your broadcasts have absolutely nothing to do with sports, we might have to take the content down. One thing we must police is music-only streaming. If you are a pure music station and using our site to stream, expect to hear from us.

While it is possible to use the built-in microphone in your computer, we suggest a small investment in a dedicated USB microphone or headset to ensure a quality experience for your listeners. We recommend the following microphones and headsets. For more information on equipment, please see the equipment page.

Professional

Semi-Pro

Amateur

Check out our simple steps on our How to Broadcast guide.

Check out our simple steps on our How to Create a Show guide.

Broadcast Content

Game Preparation

Practice

While on the air

It is possible for multiple broadcasters to do their cast together at the same location on the same microphone or on multiple standard microphones with a USB Mixer Initially, we do not yet have the technology to enable two people in different locations to broadcast together simultaneously, but we are working on it.

On the broadcasting page, you will see a level meter. If your level is routinely at the top or bottom of the range, adjust the mic input volume on your computer. It is best to test the level before going live. Make sure even when you exclaim something in a louder voice that you do not reach the top limit.

YouCastr will let you know when you are and are not live on the air. Just look at the status section of your broadcasting page.

When you are live, anyone who comes to the homepage will see you. This is another way to check to see if you are live--open another browser window and go to the homepage.

First, ensure your mic is working properly and its output is within the optimal range. Next, check your internet connection. If the problem persists, let your listeners know you're experiencing a technical difficulty on your profile Board and shoot us an email broadcasterhelp@youcastr.com

Signing up for events in advance lets YouCastr site visitors know that you will be on the air and that you have prepared to do so. Signing up early lets the highest number of prospective listeners look at your profile and decide whether or not they want to listen to you. YouCastr also gives you extra experience points if you pre-register for events, provided you broadcast them.

It can be difficult to broadcast and interact with listeners via chat simultaneously. Because of this, YouCastr recommends that you limit your live interactions to times during events to when play is slow or stopped (such as ad breaks, timeouts, or low-points in the action) or to natural lulls in the broadcast. You will get a feel as you broadcast for how much time and attention to devote to chat. The best thing is to have someone else taking care of chat for you.

YouCastr gives you the ability to moderate the chat when you broadcast. Just click on a user in the audience to bring up their mini-profile and issue them a warning (yellow card) or ban them (red card). You can also delete individual chats if there is a specific line you wish to remove. Please use this power wisely.

YouCastr is working on the functionality for real-time call-ins. Until we're done with the feature, users have had success using Skype. You will need a way to mix the audio into the same feed that you are using for your microphone. The best way to do this is to use a mixer that takes your mic as one input and the headphone output from your computer as the other. The mixed signal can be sent to the line-in of your computer and you can choose that input in our flash broadcaster. See the equipment page for how to hook up a mixer.

If you don't have a mixer, you can play the audio from your computer loud enough that your mic picks it up. This isn't ideal, but it will work in a pinch.

YouCastr is working on the functionality for audio injection into broadcasts. Until we're done with the feature, you will need a way to mix the audio into the same feed that you are using for your microphone. The best way to do this is to use a mixer that takes your mic as one input and the headphone output from your computer as the other. The mixed signal can be sent to the line-in of your computer and you can choose that input in our flash broadcaster. See the equipment page for how to hook up a mixer.

If you don't have a mixer, you can play the audio from your computer loud enough that your mic picks it up. It won't sound great, but it will work.

Go to Apple's Submit a Podcast page. Allow iTunes to launch. You will be prompted for your Podcast Feed URL. This is the link found on your show page with the podcast icon and black text podcast link. Grab the URL from this link by right clicking on it and choosing properties, then copying the Address. You must sign into iTunes to publish your podcast--provide your login information when prompted. You will be then be able to review your Podcast and add a category (probably 'Sports and Recreation') and subcategory. Click submit and you're done.

If you have additional questions, please send an email to help@youcastr.com and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.