Temple Athletics Enters New Era With In-House Control Room for Live Streaming Built around Ross Video gear, the facility powers live production for ESPN+ By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Tuesday, May 4, 2021 - 2:54 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
For Kevin Hession, director, video production/broadcast engineer, Athletics Department, Temple University, it was an offer he couldn't refuse.
In fall 2019, he was happily producing live events in the ultra-busy (at the time) Ivy League for Brown University. But, when Kevin Copp, associate athletic director, video production, Temple - a former Ivy League colleague - came calling with an opportunity to oversee construction of a brand-new control room, how could he possibly say no?
Temple University's brand-new centralized control room in Liacouras Center supports live-streaming production to the AAC's media-rights partner, ESPN.
A move down I-95, a global pandemic, and a speedy integration later, Hession and his team of three full-time video-production professionals are ensconced in their new control room, delivering a wealth of live coverage of Owl sports to ESPN
This is an opportunity to bring more in-depth coverage of Temple's athletics programs than our alumni and fanbase may traditionally be used to, says Hession. We have a solid team here now, and we're starting to put some miles on this thing. We needed to do this, and this was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up.
The control room, which takes up space previously occupied by a storage room in Temple's primary basketball venue, Liacouras Center, and can produce live broadcasts of multiple sports from three athletics facilities on campus. In addition to Liacouras Center, the control room is connected via 24 strands of fiber to McGonigle Hall across the street (courtesy of the Temple University IT Department) and by NDI cloud through internet connection provided by Comcast to the Temple Sports Complex, which is about a half mile down the road.
Construction began in earnest in fall 2019 when Hession came on board, but it hit a significant roadblock when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down collegiate athletics in March 2020. The goal had been to have a control room operational for the start of the 2020-21 academic year, which is when the American Athletic Conference's media-rights agreement with ESPN would deliver live sports coverage to the rapidly growing ESPN+ streaming platform.
Integrated by Alpha Video, Temple's new control room is built around a core of gear from Ross Video.
Instead, Liacouras Center became a FEMA overflow center in Philadelphia's fight against the coronavirus, and full integration on the room didn't begin until September.
Working with integration partner Alpha Video, the Temple team built the space in just three months, finishing it five days before its first event: a men's basketball game vs. New Jersey Institute of Technology on Dec. 19.
To go from a storage space to a fully produced in-house men's basketball game in about a year, says Hession. I'm still shocked at how quickly that went.
The control room is built around Ross gear: Ultrix 5RU routing core, Carbonite Ultra production switcher, Carbonite Black 2S 2M/E control panel, a pair of Xpressions (provided by the AAC office to facilitate graphics integration with league media partner ESPN), Abekas Mira+ eight-channel replay system, Yamaha CL3 digital audio-mixing console, and Telex RTS ODIN 64-port intercom matrix.
The gear supports a full-fledged, two-bench primary control room. An additional B-level control room, Hession says, is being constructed in the back. The hope is, having the secondary space will enable simultaneous production of multiple events for live streaming. The need for such ability was emphasized during an extremely busy crossover season this spring, when numerous winter, spring, and rescheduled fall sports overlapped.
After construction and integration that took less than three months, a home men's basketball game on Dec. 19 was the first event produced from the new control room.
In addition to Copp and Hession, Live Production Coordinators Cristian Chavez and Russ Troeller are filling crucial roles as the team looks to make the most of the busy crossover season, delivering live coverage for such sports as men's and women's basketball, men's and women's soccer, field hockey, and women's lacrosse.
According to Hession, things are just getting started. He and the team hope to continue to build out the secondary production space to allow multiple full live productions and to bring even more live coverage to Temple sports in the 2021-22 season, when, hopefully, schedules return to a more traditional cadence.
The main goals are to provide the best coverage possible and to grow that coverage year after year, says Hession. I want to keep it going and keep building. I think Temple and the AAC have given us the tools to accomplish that.
Most recent headlines
26/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
26/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
25/12/2025
Holiday lights are twinkling, hot cocoa's on the stove and gamers are settling in for a well-earned break.
Whether staying in or heading on a winter getawa...
24/12/2025
What is AI good for? Posted by MTI Film on December 24, 2025
What is AI good for?
What is AI good for?
It's been three years since ChatGPT first cap...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Back to All News
The Boyfriend' Season 2 Unveils Heartwarming Trailer, Key...
24/12/2025
Back to All News
Love, Fights, and Everything in Between: Badly in Love' Returns for Season 2
Entertainment
24 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied t...
24/12/2025
Scripps Research study links sleep variability with sleep apnea and hypertension How consumers' digital activity trackers could enable personalized health s...
23/12/2025
How guilas Cibae as Dominican Winter League Games Are Locally Produced for Glob...
23/12/2025
BitFire's Jim Akimchuk on Supplying Scalability and Customization in the Clo...
23/12/2025
CAMB.AI Enables European Athletics to Offer Multi-Language SupportPlan is to eventually offer translation into all languages spoken in EuropeBy Ken Kerschbaumer...
23/12/2025
Analysis: As sports media values trend negative, scarcity and quality are king By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Monday, December 22, 2025 - 14:08
Print ...
23/12/2025
ESPN, Disney, and NBA Return to the Animated Altcast Fray With Second Edition of...
23/12/2025
End the Year on a High Note and Donate to the Sports Broadcasting Fund Today! By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 - 12:25 pm
...
23/12/2025
The year is winding down, the weather outside is frightful, and it's the perfect time to escape into a story that warms the heart. For listeners looking for...
23/12/2025
A Zeus motor is hot fire tested at L3Harris' Camden, Arkansas, solid rocket ...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Lightware will exhibit several major product innovations at ISE 2026, including the new USB-C BOOSTER-V1, Google Meet. integration for various Taurus UCX models...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix's The Great Flood and Culinary Class Wars 2 Top Gl...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things By the Numbers: How the Global Phenomenon Shap...
23/12/2025
Experience the power of WO Automation for Radio's newest service, the System Effectiveness Review. Designed to help you achieve more, a System Effectiveness...
23/12/2025
23 Dec 2025
VEON's Beeline Kazakhstan and Rakuten Symphony Collaborate to A...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
How Steamy Can It Get? Single's Inferno' Season 5 Pre...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
33 Million Global Viewers on Netflix Watched Jake Paul vs. Ant...
23/12/2025
New technique lights up where drugs go in the body, cell by cell Scripps Research scientists developed a technique that maps drug binding in individual cells th...
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
Temple Athletics Enters New Era With In-House Control Room for Live Streaming Built around Ross Video gear, the facility powers live production for ESPN+ By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
