Texas Athletics holds ribbon-cutting ceremony for new production center
AUSTIN, Texas — The University of Texas Athletics held a ribbon-cutting ceremony, Tuesday, marking the official opening of its new broadcast and videoboard production center. Texas Studios Powered by Dell Technologies is a state-of-the-art facility located inside of Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.
The project features four new production control rooms (PCRs), a central server room, camera shading workspace, three audio control rooms, engineering operations center, kitchenette, and a studio multipurpose space. The scope of the project also included upgrades to an existing PCR in Moody Center.
“I am so excited about this new venture,” said Chris Del Conte, UT Vice President and Lois and Richard Folger Athletics Director. “Many people say that athletics is the front porch of a university. This project allows for a porch with big beautiful windows for Longhorns fans anywhere in the world to be able to look in and see the hard work of our student-athletes, coaches and staff.”
With the transition into the Southeastern Conference, Texas Studios staff, along with students from Moody College of Communication’s Bevo Video Productions (BVP) and local freelancers, will be responsible for producing live games on SEC Network and ESPN’s family of linear and digital networks. The Texas Studios staff will also execute the in-venue videoboard productions alongside BVP students at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, Gregory Gym, Mike A. Myers Track and Soccer Stadium, Moody Center, UFCU Disch-Falk Field and McCombs Field.
“The partnership between Texas Athletics and Moody College’s Bevo Video Productions is a fantastic opportunity for all UT students interested in sports production and broadcasting to learn and practice real-world skills,” Moody College Dean Rachel Mersey said. “Texas Studios takes this experience to the next level, in the incredible environment of SEC sports, making UT a national leader in this space for our students.”
The Texas Athletics and Moody College of Communication partnership allows students to get hands on experience in sports production and broadcasting. Texas Studios Powered by Dell Technologies will also be used as a teaching lab for courses in Moody College, which are part of a new initiative to form a sports broadcasting minor.
The facility is truly “Powered by Dell Technologies” with servers that process all in-game statistics, production multiview monitors and a number of other pieces of equipment in the control rooms and central server room. Additionally, each workstation features Dell monitors. Texas Football fans have enjoyed the Dell Stat Stack inside of DKR-TMS for the last X years and this season, it will have a new look as “Game Insights Powered by Dell Technologies,” with real-time advanced storytelling and statistics.
In addition to the production of live sports from the four control rooms, the multipurpose studio space in the facility allows for the in-house creation of content such as coaches shows, podcasts and recruiting photo and video shoots. This content will be available on the new LHN (Longhorn Network) streaming service, which launched on July 1. Following ESPN’s Longhorn Network’s 13 year run covering Texas Athletics, the transition into the SEC allowed for Texas to create its own unique on-demand video platform. The LHN app is free and available on web, mobile and Smart TVs.
