MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Not too long ago, seeing the highlights of your favorite WVU sports teams required staying up past 11 p.m. to catch the local newscast. 

And fans located outside of the West Virginia market were simply out of luck.

Now, you can get select highlights in real-time right on your social media feeds, or, better yet, watch entire games on your computer, tablet, cell phone and now, Roku and Apple TV devices.

Anywhere you can get internet access, you can get the West Virginia Mountaineers.

That's more than 120 live events and hundreds of on-demand videos, press conferences, interviews and features - all for free - available for easy access. 

For instance, the stream of tonight's Mountaineer baseball game against Texas at Monongalia County Ballpark will look no different than a typical HD-quality network TV broadcast, with multiple cameras, graphics and instant replays. That is what you will be watching.

A team made up mostly of West Virginia University journalism students will produce the telecast, which will be synced with the local IMG Mountaineer Sports Network radio broadcast. The athletic department's video production unit of Scott Bartlett, Chris Ostien, Greg Shock and Sean Merinar will supervise the entire production.

Live events such as football and men's basketball games airing on ESPN, FOX, other national networks, or on WVU's regional broadcast partner AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh, are not included in the streaming package made available through this service.

"Our video production unit has been producing high-quality streams for several years on WVUsports.com, so we are excited to be able to enhance our coverage of live WVU sporting events through the addition of Roku and Apple TV," Matt Wells, senior associate athletic director for external affairs, said. "In addition to making it easier for fans to follow the Mountaineers, these new offerings will continue to provide important and additional exposure for our teams whose games aren't broadcast on regional or national TV."  

"We're happy to be able to continue to add more ways for our fans to follow the Mountaineers," Nathaniel Zinn, assistant athletic director for marketing, noted. "Adding an official West Virginia Athletics channel to Roku and Apple TV will be a tremendous asset in exposing our live streams to a much wider audience." 

Grant Dovey, West Virginia's digital media manager, indicated West Virginia University is among the first Power 5 schools to have its own Roku and Apple TV channels because of its membership in the Big 12 Conference. Unlike the SEC, Big Ten, Pac 12 and now the ACC, Big 12 schools have retained their tier-three broadcasting rights, which enables them to create their own streaming channels.

A simple search of "West Virginia University" on Roku or Apple TV is all you have to do to download the West Virginia University player right to your television set.

"When we discovered the possibility of creating a stand-alone Roku and Apple TV app, we began working on that immediately," Dovey said. "Apple is much stricter than Roku as far as getting it offered on their application, so it took us a little longer to get that approved."

Dovey mentioned that fans of schools without their own school-specific Roku and Apple TV apps have much more navigating to do in order to find what they want to watch.

"Our downloads have been strong - much more than I thought," Dovey added. "It looks like our fans are taking notice."

Roku touts itself as the company that pioneered streaming for television, and it now comes pre-installed on all Insignia Smart TVs sold through Best Buy. Last month, Roku announced that it is planning to launch its own channel on select Samsung Smart TVs later this summer as well.

You can also buy an external Roku device and plug it right into your TV through the HDMI port, which is how Apple TV works. Apple TV is not really a television but rather a palm-sized device that plugs into your TV.

West Virginia has been video streaming live soccer, women's basketball, wrestling, gymnastics and baseball home events for a number of years on desktop and laptop computers. In the past, fans wanting to watch those events on their TVs were required to make special hookups.

Then, a couple of years ago Google Chromecast was introduced, which allowed fans the ability to sync the video stream playing on their computer with their TV.

Today, Roku and Apple TV have made the process much more convenient. All you need is a good internet connection.

The same goes for mobile devices. 

Last fall, live streaming video was introduced for the first time on West Virginia's popular mobile app WVU GameDay, available for download through iTunes and Google Play. To watch a live event on your phone, all you have to do is open your GameDay app and click the button at the top to launch the streaming player.

"Integration with live video was a big thing for us," Dovey admitted. "We've always had live audio on our apps, but live video was something new and with our free streaming model, that was very important to us."

This was made possible through West Virginia's recent partnerships with SideArm Sports and IMG, which means there are now four convenient ways to watch live West Virginia University streaming events for free - your computer, tablet, phone and smart television.

Indeed, it's never been easier to follow the Mountaineers.