University of St. Thomas Ushers in Division I Era With New Arena and a Broadcast Operation Built for the Big Time

University of St. Thomas Ushers in Division I Era With New Arena and a Broadcast Operation Built for the Big TimeDual control rooms feature Ross production gear, Sony imaging, robust infrastructure, VITEC IPTVBy Brandon Costa, Director of Digital

Tuesday, December 9, 2025 - 12:09 pm

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When the University of St. Thomas - a private, Catholic research institution in Minnesota's Twin Cities - made the unprecedented leap from NCAA Division III directly to Division I in 2020, the move came with questions about whether the Tommies could truly compete at the highest level.

Last week, they offered their clearest answer yet when the women's volleyball team became the first St. Thomas program ever to qualify for a Division I NCAA Tournament, winning the Summit League's automatic bid. On the field (court, ice, etc.), the Tommies have arrived, but this landmark moment follows years of work behind the scenes within the athletic department.

The Lee & Penny Anderson Arena on the University of St. Thomas's St. Paul campus hosted its first athletics events on Oct. 24: a doubleheader of women's and men's ice hockey games vs. Providence. (Photo: St. Thomas Athletics)

The move to DI has been highlighted by the opening of the Lee & Penny Anderson Arena, a new $183 million facility in St. Paul designed to elevate the entire athletics department's competitive and production capabilities. Its broadcast infrastructure just may represent its most ambitious effort ever.

This whole project is a microcosm of the DIII-to-DI jump, says Mike Gallagher, assistant athletic director, branding, digital content, and production, St. Thomas Athletics. Every step built toward this. And now we're in a place that lets us compete - and produce - at the level we want to be.

The arena's opening weeks were a whirlwind: the team produced streaming and in-venue videoboard shows for 26 events across the entirety of athletics. (That's crossover season for you!) Undergirding the successes is an operation representing a quantum leap from what St. Thomas had known before - one built in close collaboration with Alpha, the Minnesota-based integrator that joined the project early, alongside Ryan Companies, Collins Electrical, and WJHW.

Control Rooms Built for Flexibility - and Built TwiceInside the arena, St. Thomas's broadcast backbone consists of two fully equipped control rooms, each designed to support simultaneous in-venue and streaming productions. The primary control room features Ross production gear: Carbonite Ultra 60 switcher with expanded I/O, an Ultrix 5RU router, Ultriscape multiviewers, dual XPression Studio/Designer systems. Four Sony HDC-3100 cameras (with RCP-3500 control) and a network of Panasonic UE100 PTZs and Marshall POVs are placed strategically throughout the venue. Through Alpha's integration work, the room ties directly into the Daktronics show-control space, enabling tight coordination between broadcast, videoboard, audio, lighting, and fan-engagement elements.

St. Thomas Athletics' video-production staff produces a men's basketball videoboard show from one of two control rooms inside the new Lee & Penny Anderson Arena. (Photo: St. Thomas Athletics)

The secondary control room - added to the design spec after Alpha and St. Thomas jointly reallocated budget - mirrors much of the workflow of the primary. It houses a Ross Carbonite Ultra Solo switcher, Ross Ultrix 12RU frame for routing, Zeplay replay, Sony BRAVIA monitoring, and full KVM and conversion infrastructure.

Together, the two control rooms give the Tommies the ability to run parallel events, support overflow production, and take on an expanding slate of Summit League and non-conference broadcasts.

But the star of the technical plan - and the element Gallagher and Casey Eakins, senior media production systems technician, ITS Central Engineering, St. Thomas, are proudest of - is the network of 11 JBTs (junction boxes) embedded throughout the building. Retaining all 11 of these broadcast-signal connectivity boxes was not guaranteed, and, as the design moved from concept to actual budget, something had to give.

To me, the biggest thing was being able to retain all the JBTs, Gallagher says. It's not sexy, but, behind the scenes, you can count on, specifically, Casey and our other engineers and rely on what you're going to get [from the JBTs].

St. Thomas Athletics' Mike Gallagher: We're in a place that lets us compete - and produce - at the level we want to be. (Photo: SVG)

While researching the build, Gallagher consulted St. Thomas's aspirational peers - Creighton, Marquette, Notre Dame, Georgetown - plus Summit League colleague Omaha. He learned from colleagues at Georgetown, which play men's basketball games at Capital One Arena, that they rely heavily on 20 JBTs in their NBA/NHL-caliber venue.

The home of the Washington Wizards and Capitals - which seats four times the people we do - has 20, Gallagher notes. We were able to retain 11. That speaks to the ample flexibility and possibility for future expansion we will have, not only for varsity events but for commencement, external sporting-event rentals, concerts - all of it.

Additionally, the venue's IPTV system, powered by VITEC EZ TV, comprises 71 endpoints feeding nearly 140 displays. Concourse monitors, club areas, premium lounges, and lobby features all operate as extensions of the broadcast environment.

We got past the initial learning curve, and it has been awesome, Gallagher says. We deliver the game feed everywhere. We run branded L-bars before games. We flip between matchup graphics, radio, and stream feeds.

A Videoboard That Catches the EyeThe arena's visual centerpiece is a Daktronics-designed centerhung that gives St. Thomas a

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2025/12/09/university-of-st-thomas-ushers-...
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