For 101 years, the Cape League has been a go-to stop for the next generation of Major League Baseball players. But the league has also become one of the most prestigious summer internships for aspiring broadcasters. Like the players on the field, they are all college students who flock to the Cape each summer for unpaid roles, running media operations for 10 teams and gaining valuable experience for their dream careers in sports journalism.

Covering 44 games and the playoffs over approximately 10 weeks, the Cape League offers a challenging schedule with few days off. It’s ideal for players who are getting a feel for the tempo of professional ball. The strenuous work is also beneficial for media interns who have multiple agents covering the games, writing articles and managing broadcasts.

“Wake up, go to the field, work, make the game, go home, rinse and repeat the next morning,” said Jack Smith, a broadcaster from Chatham. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

The programming may not be as powerful as ESPN, but it’s a vital resource for players’ parents, broadcasters and die-hard fans from out of town. Cape League broadcasts are streamed live on Cape League TV, which launched this year to centralize all broadcasts. Some are still available on YouTube.

Prior to his summer in Falmouth, broadcaster MJ Newsom spent a summer working for the Coastal Plain League, covering Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. He knew he needed a summer of experience before joining the Cape League. Not everyone can get a spot on the booth — hundreds of students nationwide apply for just a few dozen positions.

“I always knew this was going to be a long shot,” Newsom said. “And so I thought, I’m just going to shoot for the stars and hope it works, and thankfully it did.”

Like many broadcasters who have secured a spot, Newsom credits a former league broadcaster who told him about the opportunity. There is a growing network of Cape broadcasting alumni who bring new talent to the league.

Although the Cape League celebrated its centennial last year, it has only featured student broadcasters since 2003. Dan D’Uva, then 18 and fresh out of high school, began covering Chatham’s games with his friend Guy Benson, now a contributing writer and political analyst for Fox News.

It was a very simple operation in the beginning, but over time the league’s broadcasting capabilities have become more sophisticated.

“If the best college baseball players in the country come to Cape Cod, the best college broadcasters in the country should come to Cape Cod,” said D’Uva, now a play-by-play commentator for the NHL’s Las Vegas Golden Knights and Chatham’s broadcast consultant. “That was our vision.”

As word spread and the network grew, so did its participants. The league produced a number of professional broadcasters, including Mike Monaco, a sports anchor for ESPN; Drew Carter, who succeeded longtime Celtics play-by-play announcer Mike Gorman at NBC Sports Boston; and Rylee Pay, an announcer for the Portland Sea Dogs.

Pay was initially only slated to be a sideline reporter, but when the opportunity to do game commentary arose during the season, he took a chance.

“It completely changed the course of my career,” Pay said. “I wouldn’t be at the Sea Dogs if it wasn’t for the Cape League.”

Pay’s experience highlights the dual purpose of the league’s media arm: It provides a service to the league’s fans while also serving as a classroom laboratory for the student interns who run it.

Caleb Jaramillo, a videographer, rotated through several of the team’s seven cameras until he found what he loved: leading the team’s replay and audio production. This became his permanent role throughout the season.

Jaramillo is also one of the media interns working a part-time job: scooping ice cream at a local shop. The internships are unpaid, leading most students to turn to more traditional Cape summer jobs.

Alexis Taylor, a communications intern for the Commodores, said she didn’t realize jobs on the Cape were filling up until months before the start of summer. She tried applying to various businesses in and around Falmouth but found they had no openings.

“I joined DoorDashing. It’s not ideal,” Taylor said. “But as long as I have gas money and food money, I don’t mind.”

Shawn McBride, the league’s director of broadcasting and communications, said he recognizes that unpaid internships can be a barrier for some students, especially those with low incomes; many young people need money from summer jobs to pay for tuition or other college expenses. McBride noted that many interns in the league find other sources of income or receive scholarships from their schools.

“It’s a reality and a challenge,” he said. “As things evolve and hopefully the league continues to grow, we may consider other types of approaches.”

Internships are still valuable to students. When a friend asked him if he should do a Cape League internship, Jaramillo was blunt.

“I told her she was going to have the best experience of her life, even if it was free,” he said.

The experience clarified Jaramillo’s career goals: He wants to be a producer or director.

To get there, he’ll first have to work on honing his craft in Falmouth and on Cape Cod, and part of that is capturing the magic of the Cape League and communicating it to audiences around the world.

It would be hard to find anyone who could convey that magic on the baseball field more passionately than Bill Snow.. In the back corner of the bleachers behind first base, the same spot he has occupied for 25 years, Snow waxed poetic about the bats his son Taylor received from former Cape League and MLB players such as Conor Gillaspie and Jacoby Ellsbury. Snow describes Guv Fuller Field as “the Field of Dreams.”

Snow attended his first game in 2000 after living in Falmouth for 12 years.

“I had tears streaming down my cheeks,” Snow said. “I said, ‘I missed 12 years of my life.'”

He hasn’t missed a home game for years.

Now people around the world can share the joy of Cape Cod baseball. While Snow will continue to participate in matches as long as possible, he also has a connection to the broadcast.

His son, Taylor, a writer for the Boston Celtics, was a cameraman for the Commodores more than a decade ago.

Aidan Ryan can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @aidanfitzryan.