Exclusives

Recently, Avid Technology marked a milestone, passing the 25 mark when it comes to college sports programs, across both the U.S and Canada, who use the company’s tools and workflow solutions, to help create and manage content, for everything from in-stadium displays to broadcasts.

For David Colantuoni, senior director of product management for Avid, it’s an important mark for the company: from the beginning, Avid has made it a point to work with universities, and not just their athletic programs.

“We’ve has these discussions internally, about our robust relationships with colleges,” he said. “They all use our tools differently, an expansive range of workflow solutions. From USC to Berkeley, what Avid brings that’s unique is that we can tailor to each individual workflow need.”

Dozens of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) colleges are currently using Avid’s MediaCentral Platform, which offers sports production solutions while also preparing working students access to industry-standard tools they’ll be using upon graduation.

For example, Auburn University’s Athletics video department, War Eagle Productions, uses several Avid products — including the editing solution, Avid Media Composer, Interplay Production for production asset management, and MediaCentral UX — to produce live content for video boards on campus and for two football TV shows, features for ESPN and the SEC Network, web content and a basketball show. More than a dozen full-time employees work with 80-plus students at War Eagle Productions to produce more than 300 live shows each year.

“Avid is the backbone of our operations,” said Weston Carter, director of video services for Auburn Athletics Department, in a statement. “Our Avid workflow allows us to edit, search and archive seamlessly, and our students gain experience with the professional hardware and software standards in the industry. It’s mind-blowing to see how quickly our students and staff can produce high-quality videos using Avid solutions.”

Over at Colorado State University, the athletics department recently debuted a new on-campus football stadium 4,200-square foot video board (along with 1,290 feet of ribbon board around the stadium), to display in-game stats, ads and scores. The new control room needed to operate the system is located in nearby Moby Arena (connected via fiber optic cable to the football stadium) and uses three Avid NEXIS PRO software-defined storage systems to handle everything.

“We’re ecstatic about the new capabilities Avid NEXIS will bring to the table for us,” said Benjamin Brune, director of RamVision at Colorado State University, in a statement. “Avid NEXIS will allow us to work collaboratively and securely across different locations, while focusing our time on being creative. At the same, we’ll be able to train our students on professional solutions they’ll work with beyond graduation.”

Soonervision at the University of Oklahoma Athletics, 12th Man Productions at Texas A&M, the Atlantic Coast Conference headquarters, the University of Hartford, Razorbackvision at the University of Arkansas, the University of Iowa Hawkeyes athletics, SUNY at Binghamton University and The University of Vermont athletics are among the other major colleges using Avid solutions this year.

“Collegiate sports organizations want to create increasingly more content to captivate and satisfy fans and alumni everywhere they watch their teams — whether on a stadium jumbotron, or on TVs, computers or mobile devices,” said Avid president Jeff Rosica. “With the MediaCentral Platform and Avid’s powerful sports production tools, top colleges are staying well ahead of content demands, while giving students access to professional tools to build skills that prepare them for successful careers.”