How To Make A Sports Highlight Video

Sports highlight reels are a great way for athletes to showcase their talents and attract the attention of team recruiters or brand sponsorship opportunities. Highlight reels are also a great way for schools and little league teams to garner public support from their community as well as generate excitement for raising funds for equipment and attire. 

Whether it’s for a scholarship or a fundraiser or just for fun, here are some tips for how to make a sports highlight video, including how to capture video at a sporting event, how to edit your video, and how Mevo Start cameras make this process easier than ever.

WHY MAKE A SPORTS HIGHLIGHT REEL?

A good sports highlight video showcases a student athlete’s talent and ability to successfully perform at a high level during games and competitions. The main reason for making a sports highlight reel is to attract the attention of college coaches and athletic program recruiters. Since it’s logistically impossible for recruiters to travel and watch all prospective candidates in-person, a well-made highlight video can get their attention and make you stick in their memory. In fact, student-athletes that include a highlight reel in their recruitment profile are much more likely to be selected over applicants without one. 

WHAT TO INCLUDE IN A HIGHLIGHT REEL

What are coaches and recruiters looking for in your highlight reel? Coaches want to see a well-rounded player with versatility, skill and a natural talent for helping their team succeed. Therefore, the best stuff to include is actual game day footage, as opposed to skill videos. Some specialized positions or sports can benefit from skill videos that showcase technical abilities, such as how far a football kicker can make field goals from, the range and speed of a baseball pitcher’s throws, or a soccer player’s impressive dribbling and shooting skills. However, most coaches are looking for footage of how an athlete performs under pressure in real-life situations. After all, what does it matter how many three-pointers you can drain in practice if you can’t make any baskets during a real game and contribute to your team’s win?  

RECORDING THE GAME DAY FOOTAGE

Now that we’ve determined that the best content is actual game footage, let’s talk about how we’re going to capture that footage. 

The best way to ensure you get the right clips is to film as often as possible. Ideally, you will have footage from every game. It’s especially important to get footage from your junior and senior years, as these seasons will be the most relevant to any potential college coaches and recruiters. We recommend that you have a system for filming every game yourself. You never can predict when you or your student-athlete will have a breakout performance, and it’d be a shame if you missed it because you didn’t film every game. 

The Mevo Start streaming camera makes it easier than ever to capture your game day footage in stunning HD quality. As opposed to traditional cameras, Mevo Start wirelessly streams footage directly to your mobile device for easy recording, storage, control and monitoring. With standard threading for camera mounts and up to 6 hours of battery life, the Mevo Start is perfect for mounting to a tripod and capturing the entire duration of any sporting event—even in tense overtime situations, you don’t have to worry about the battery dying. 

And with the Mevo Start 3-Pack, you can capture up to three camera angles at once, all with one smart device. The Mevo multi-cam app allows you to start and stop recording on any or all three cameras with a single tap on your phone. Capturing the action from multiple angles can help you create a more engaging and compelling highlight reel.

EDITING YOUR HIGHLIGHT REEL

Once you have all your footage recorded, the fun part is editing it into a single reel. There are plenty of video editing options out there, but you don’t need to use the most powerful software on the market to produce a successful highlight reel. Free options like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker have everything you need to create a sports highlight video, and also come with the additional benefit of being extremely intuitive and user-friendly.

Start with a title screen that communicates all essential information about yourself or your athlete, including name, position, school, year of graduation and all contact information. Then simply import all your highlights into the editing software and place them in the order you want. If possible, include freeze frames and spot shadows to make it easy for the coach to pay attention to the right player. 

We recommend front-loading the beginning with all the best clips. Some coaches may only watch the first 30-40 seconds if they have a lot of reels to review. Also, be sure to include a variety of skills in the video, not just your greatest strength. This will help coaches see you as a well-rounded player instead of a one-trick pony. 

Another note on time: try to keep the entire reel under four minutes total. If the coach wants to see more, they can always request more footage. Also, try to avoid the temptation of adding special effects and music to your video. The coach is looking for talent, not entertainment—the less trappings, the better.

Once you’ve edited your video, it’s time to send it off to your prospective schools and athletic programs with your recruitment profile. Follow these tips and you’re sure to attract the attention of a coach or recruiter. And don’t forget to follow up if you don’t hear back immediately. Now get out there, put the team on your back and have a good game!