Baylor University

College Sports Production Facility Upgrades are User Friendly for Students & Exciting for Fans

The Ferrell Center, home to Baylor University’s basketball and volleyball programs for more than 20 years, was slated for major sports production facility upgrades in 2014. The improvements would give the Bears an arena comparable to others in the Big 12 Conference. The Center’s video production facilities were included in the upgrade.

Diversified was already working on the University’s McLane Stadium HD-upgrade project, so it was a natural fit to utilize design elements that were common to both facilities. Diversified was able to properly size the new production center and provide room for expansion in the future.[1]

Once space was acquired, there was a tight deadline to get the project done; preferably before the start of the volleyball season but definitely in time for the start of basketball (carried on CBS Sports).

Also, as with the stadium project, Baylor’s sports productions are entirely run by students, working to gain experience or to earn class credits. Students using production systems needed to get up and running quickly without much training. The University also desired to get the room as close to the layout of the new McLane Stadium production center as the budget would allow.

Using the same project team from Diversified, and essentially the same design approach, the project was completed on time for the basketball season.

The Ferrell Center Control Room layout mimics that of the new McLane Stadium Room.

• Since this was essentially a duplicate of the stadium build, the school decided to reuse a Ross video production switcher and one of the Abekas replay systems they already had to remain cost-effective and to make it easier and quicker for students to operate.
• As with the stadium project, the core routing and terminal equipment solution came from
• Sony cameras and Chyron character generation were also used, not only to mirror the stadium build but to allow Baylor to be graphics-compatible with the OB vans brought in by ESPN, FOX, and CBS.

Diversified helped Baylor University make the best use of a new space to produce and broadcast in HD, with plenty of room to integrate new technology in the future.

[1] By providing a dedicated open rack system that is fully cooled and separate from the operators.