If you’ve watched Nebraska volleyball this season, chances are you’ve seen Raffi Viton’s work.
The senior emerging media arts major spends match days behind the camera, searching for the moments, emotions and energy that make Husker volleyball more than a game. As a creative media intern for Husker Athletics and a video content creator for Husker volleyball, Viton’s job is to turn that experience into something fans can feel — whether they’re sitting courtside or watching from miles away.
“Working for a team like this feels like such a huge responsibility,” he said. “We have the best program in the country and the best fans in the country, so, in my eyes, they deserve the best content in the country. It’s tough, but I’m trying to live up to the standard they set.”
Match after match, Viton scours John Cook Arena to find the angles, moments and emotions that best capture what it’s like to watch the Huskers compete. That work becomes the videos and highlight reels that grace Husker fans’ feeds daily, keeping the community energized and enthusiastic throughout the season.
“We always try to make our content as cinematic and immersive as possible, and capturing the fans is such a huge part of that,” Viton said. “There are certain games where the atmosphere is just so electric that filming the fans becomes almost as important as capturing the players.”
Viton developed his passion for creating sports content while filming and editing videos for his high school sports teams in the suburbs of Chicago. It reached a whole new level, though, when he came to Nebraska to intern for Husker Athletics as a first-year student.
Viton’s second game on the job was the 2023 Volleyball Day in Nebraska, when he quickly realized this wasn’t your typical program.
“I just had no idea what it was like,” he said. “Like, I knew the team was big, but selling out the football stadium was crazy — the scale of everything just blew me away. That set the tone for the culture pretty quickly for me.”
Three years later, through both his internship and his coursework at the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts, Viton has steadily honed his craft and become a key player in telling the story of Husker volleyball for the dedicated fans.
“Being able to make people feel like they’re involved, even if they aren’t there, is so important to me because a lot of people aren’t able to go to the games," Vinton said. "I want to be able to tell the story of what’s happening on every level for the fans because they truly care so much.”
Part of Viton’s evolution as a storyteller came earlier this year when he pitched a new idea for the pre-match video. His supervisors let him run with the concept, resulting in the hype video fans are seeing before each game this season.
“It’s been so wild to see our work up there on the Jumbotron," he said. "Just a few years ago I was making things in high school that absolutely no one watched, and today my videos are getting played in places I’d never dreamed of.”
Even though that might seem like a perfect way for the senior to cap his career, Viton still plans to work every bit as hard during his final season with the team as he has in the past.
“I’ve barely had two hours of waking consciousness without editing a volleyball video, and I’m not planning to stop now. I want to get everything I can out of this experience,” Viton said.
