B1G requirement of building an on-campus production studio

[MDUte]

I wonder if this is why Utah recently announced we are building an on-campus production studio…getting ahead on things that are known requirements?

“…the school’s move to the Big Ten requires the construction of an on-campus production studio, which will come at a total cost of about $24 million: $18 million for construction and $6 million for equipment.” https://t.co/voMqaI10g2

— John Canzano (@johncanzanobft) June 8, 2024

[UteThunder]

I remember hearing someone in the last year claim Utah admin has been made aware by the B1G of what they would need to do to receive a B1G invite in the next round of expansion, and Utah admin is actively working on those items. This would seem to be in line with that claim.

[AZUTE]

I remember back in the day when Utah had a tv studio. I think it was channel 7 in slc. I remember as a kid watching the coaches show on it.

[Brettski]

Yeah, I remember watching replays of old games or highlights on KUED 7

[Charlie Foxtrot]

There is still a studio in the Eccles Broadcast Center, however it is mainly used by KUED, KUEN, and PBS. These entities are university adjacent and likely staffed by (some) University of Utah employees. Obviously it’s on the campus, but I would bet the B1G requirement would be for a separate studio space that is used specifically for university related sports and allows for B1G specific announcers and personalities to have working space.

Most production is done offsite at a central location these days, but the studio needs to at least have enough local people/equipment to make sure that the video and sound is working and being captured properly before it is streamed back to the production location.

[MDUte]

Interesting. So does this mean the cost is much lower for Utah to build a production studio since the U already has this older space? Maybe all that is required is renovating vs building new??

[Charlie Foxtrot]

Good question? The only reason I know anything about this is that I work for UETN (Utah Education and Telehealth Network) and our office space is in the same building (Eccles Broadcast Center) and UETN is the internet service provider for all of the public education (K-12, Higher Ed, Libraries, Charter Schools, and the State Division of Technology Services). I’m a network engineer and we have helped KUED/PBS with their network connectivity back to their central production location in the mid-west somewhere.

We also facilitated the PAC-12 Network’s fiber connectivity both on to and out of the campus back to the studios in San Francisco. The University of Utah campus has plenty of fiber and network capabilities and the public ISP for the state sits right on their front porch, so that part is taken care of. The studio at the Eccles Broadcast Center is probably just fine, however the building houses UETN, KUED, KUEN, KUER, as well as some other university related groups. My guess is they would probably look for additional studio space somewhere else on campus, but that is total speculation on my part.

[MDUte]

Very cool, thanks for sharing! So would your group get involved with implementing a dedicated WiFi network at RES? I’m surprised this still hasn’t happened yet.

[UteManX]

A proper WiFi network will be available this season, for all fans. And it is little known but a small studio space is underground just north of the huntsman center. We also helped finalize one in the football center a few years back and there are plans for one, with some in place essentially under rice Eccles. There has been a lot of focus on a tv studio in rice Eccles for athletics but also now that a lot more events are being done at RES.

[MDUte]

Wow, UteManX flies in with a body slam from the top rope!! Please tell more!

What have you heard about the stadium Wifi system? Why has it taken so long? Is there going to be a stadium app for things like ordering concessions to go along with the new WiFi system? Any word on NEZ video board(s)? TIA!

[AlohaUte]

The U was also one of the OG’s of the internet, being among the 4 universities that has the first network connection.

[Charlie Foxtrot]

(Response to MDUTE about RES Wifi – somehow I screwed up the reply to his question)

Nope, as the ISP we stop at the campus doorstep. So we have a backbone network and the University connects to us in 3 separate locations for redundancy purposes. For Higher Ed we are pretty hands off on their internal campus networks (or satellite sites), in the K-12 world we are more involved as we actually connect the individual schools back to aggregation locations and then we connect those aggregation spots to our backbone.

The separation between us (ISP and our various education customers) is not totally cut and dry as education technology in Utah is pretty collaborative and we try and leverage tax payer funding for the biggest bang for the buck. On the State and Higher Ed side of things we really only provide ISP related services, which is really only access to the internet at large or perhaps connections between main campus and satellite locations.

[MDUte]

All good Charlie, thanks so much!

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