The Virginia Tech Board of Visitors "voted to allocate $10 million for an ACC Network Studio. That television studio will be located on the south side of Lane Stadium under the stands and would feature control rooms, a studio and office space. It is scheduled to be completed in the spring of 2019, in time for the network's launch later next year."
http://www.roanoke.com/news/education/higher_education/virginia_tech/vir...
This seems to be higher than was anticipated, which was somewhere between $5-$7 mil. Questions surround funding source as well as value of the studio over the next decade or two. It'll be interesting to see how this develops from here...
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Probably our connections with the mob /s. OR the secret Hokie Illuminati Alumnus Association that I have absolutely zero knowledge of.
If we only had a way to fund scholarships that would free up other funds to pay for stuff like that. I just can't think of any place we Hokie fans could join.
"OR the secret Hokie Illuminati Alumnus Association that I have absolutely zero knowledge of."
You are hereby banned from the Hokie Illuminati Alumnus Association.
And, coincidentally, you are now henceforth banned from the Hokie Illuminati Alumnus Association.
As are you.
You all keep forgetting the [Private] tag
Please tell me this opens the door for Bill Roth to broadcast all our regional games on tv/streaming
Isn't he doing a course on that stuff? So why don't we get one of his protégés to do it?
Currently enrolled in it! We talked about this whole setup before we started class today (we're currently working on calling baseball games in class, just to make y'all jealous).
Hokie Vision is going to hire 80+ students, but he's not really sure who the talent is going to be. Somebody shouted out that he should do it and he just kind of laughed it off. So... who knows.
Already announced what sounds like a great hire.
http://www.hokiesports.com/pr/recaps/20180328aaa.html
Happy to see this. There was a lot of concern about where it would go when ACC announced all schools needed one. Not surprised the price tag went up with having to basically build from scratch instead of space in Cassell or Merryman.
I think this could be really good for the academic side too. When I used to work on SEC network games, a lot of schools would staff their studio with 80% - 90% students. It would be a great way for comms or media production types to get some hands on experience.
What could possibly go wrong?
Poor fella, I'm sure he's gotten over it by now, ...but the internet never forgets.
People don't forget!
While having the opportunity for communications students makes me happy, I sure hope my donations go to player scholarships and not this project.
This isn't being built for the communications department though. Students having increased opportunities to learn on campus is definitely a bonus but the real reason for this is the television network. A network that every school in the ACC is counting on bringing much more than 10 million in returns to them season to season, of which will allow more dollars to player scholarships.
I haven't gone into the actual hardware requirements to know if everything in this is "needed" but from my understanding a control booth has been needed for a while now and a network capable control booth was not on campus as of yet.
It's also required for the contract with ESPN for the ACC network.
Correct
That's the key in the whole thing. If the ACC Network brings $8-10M (I think I saw that figure recently) then it is worth the investment.
Even if it was for the comm students, if you're talking HC donations, you can specify that they go to the scholarship fund.
ACC network mandated that all schools have a studio like this. Having ACC network will increase exposure for not just football but all other sports and therefore helping generate more interest and eventually donations.
This is a tremendous move forward for the university with regards to athletics coverage and academics development. Sorry in advance for the long post. I graduated in 14 in Communications, and I can't even describe how much I would give to be a student there now to experience this opportunity.
I think Bill Roth himself said he wants our broadcasting /comm program to be like Northwestern's journalism school. When i graduated I had one year on the Moss Arts Center (which houses the current student studio for classes) but I was vastly unprepared for real world work. I was fortunate to break into the industry at all. This studio will help so many students and athletes with hands on experience, probably our own TKP writers.
I had classes with Koma and instantly could tell he had a knack for the business. He was so polished, all the time both writing and broadcasting. He's doing tremendous things, but he would be at a national publication or station by now if he had this experience at Tech. That's not hyperbole. I'm sure Skutt will be right there with him in the future.
I know that for revenue figures, football is the money maker. Having a dedicated studio to cover ALL of our sports will only increase visibility and interest in the rest of our athletic teams. Wrestling, baseball, softball, lacrosse, soccer, track etc could all benefit from prospect of increased screen time. By investing in a quality studio, it'll help with espn requirements but also be good for the university.
I know i'm biased but I love this development.
This is going to bring more money in to the school/ACC. Anytime you bring something like this in-house it reduces cost and increases value.
I was a big believer, that the ACC should have just made their own propitiatory app to distribute content, instead of getting in bed with ESPN.
Surely they could have done so, and still had an agreement to distribute marquee games on the big networks. They pay us millions of dollars to broadcast them, imagine what their returns must be.
They didn't have the infrastructure to do that at the time, but they will in the near future. That may be the plan for the post-ESPN contract.
They have one of the best resources in the world... free labor by ways of student internships and what not.
Hell one of our CS majors could have created the damn app.
Each school would have just needed to invest in some infrastructure to support it.
It's not like any of these schools don't have a sports media department that produces videos and what not already.
I sure hope they do this in the future though. It's a step to getting there.
No streaming app a single VT CS undergraduate could make would be enterprise ready in any amount of time.
I mean I was being a tad sarcastic lol.
The "app"? sure.. the cloud infrastructure, testing, hardware setup, etc? correct, would take some time.
I may be simplifying it a bit, but cloud infrastructure would be easy. Just call Amazon or Google.
So could the Tech take a practice run at broadcasting in a few weeks and host a live stream of the Spring game. They can send out login and password information to the local alumni association chapter presidents so that we can host an event for those outside of driving distance. They could also make this available to all Hokie Club members as an incentive to join. Just an unselfish thought.
Just as long as we don't let the lacrosse team make a music video... yeesh
I wondering what the football players were talking about on Twitter and then I saw it this morning. Hoooooboy.
I think the new coach handled it very well though. Doesn't help that certain "media outlets" have a headline saying "players chanted ______ on team bus"
Its ok, you can call out Deadspin for their BS on that. Lord knows nearly 75% of the comments on that article do as well.
Hm...what's this now.
The womens lacrosse team was singing along to Lil Dicky's "Freaky Friday" on the way home on the team bus after a win.
Roanoke Times Link
Deadspin link with video
Life lessons from scrubs:
Artist renderings out today of the studio and plans for overall space.
https://247sports.com/college/virginia-tech/Bolt/Virginia-Tech-Athletics...
Not sure how it will work with it divided up into two separate parts of Lane. Anyone able to figure out where in the stadium it will actually be going besides "South" stands.
Beats the hell out of the trailer that ESPN used to bring in for broadcasts.
Where exactly is going to be placed at Lane though?
Supposedly mostly under south in the current media area and partially in a memorabilia area under west.