Nashville Predators' Bridgestone Arena Has a New Broadcast Infrastructure The downtown Nashville mainstay is finally fully recovered from a devastating flood in 2022 By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Wednesday, November 6, 2024 - 7:00 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Black Friday 2022 was indeed a dark day. When a water-main break flooded downtown Nashville, millions of gallons of water poured through Bridgestone Arena, home to the NHL Predators, at around 6 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving. The venue suffered millions of dollars in damage and had to postpone games for three days because of water 3 ft. deep in some areas, including the broadcast-control rooms.
The hockey resumed quickly, thanks to a herculean effort by the arena's staff and more than a dozen agencies and service providers, but full recovery took more than a year. A month into the new NHL season, the Bridgestone and the Preds have a reconstructed media infrastructure.
Bridgestone Arena's Jacob Lutz: We launched our new control room in the middle of a season. Over the summer, we dialed everything in closely, to make the facility what it can be.
The control room went down Black Friday of 2022, recalls Jacob Lutz, director, tech operations, Bridgestone Arena. We [produced] hockey three days later out of the small TNDV Red truck. Then we brought in Lyon-17 video truck on the first of December and used that until the 2023 CMA Awards in November 2023. It would've been almost a whole year under those circumstances. Right after the CMA Awards, we had a two-week period to finish the final commissioning and get online. We played hockey and used our new control room that first game the Saturday after CMA Awards. We pretty much worked through the night, got the room up, got it going, and haven't looked back since.
Said Predators CEO Sean Henry at the time, It would have been easy to shut the building down for 20, 30, 40, 50 days. Relocate the games. Work a deal with another city. Temporarily cancel or postpone concerts.
Instead, the production team decided to press on through the disaster. This season marks the first time the team is using the new broadcast infrastructure after it has been fully tweaked and fine-tuned.
We launched our new control room in the middle of a season, which is unheard of. Over the summer, we dialed everything in closely, to make the room all it can be, make the facility what it can be, Lutz says, noting that this was done even as some key staff positions changed, including the addition of VP of Game Presentation and Video Production, Dan Clark, Lutz's counterpart on the creative side. It was the first time an NHL team and venue had ever been taken out suddenly since it happened in Calgary some years ago. Even though we did get back up and running quickly, the full recovery has taken until now.
(A flood in June 2013 that ravaged parts of Southern Alberta inundated the Calgary Flames' Scotiabank Saddledome. The venue's event level was completely flooded, as was the control room for the video-replay screen, but the broadcast infrastructure was left largely intact. The timing gave the venue and team several months to recover before the start of the 2013 NHL season.)
Updates, Technology and Otherwise Restoring the infrastructure included adding a DiGiCo Quantum338 front-of-house audio console, which also feeds the game broadcasts, as well as new video displays around the arena concourse. Among other new gear are a Ross FR12 Ultrix Acuity switcher and a Riedel Artist 1024-frame comms system with MADI- and AES67-conversion capability.
Also new is a strengthened disaster-response plan for the venue, which sits five blocks from the Cumberland River, whose devastating 2011 flood cost an estimated $2 billion in reconstruction.
A water-main break in 2022 flooded parts of Bridgestone Arena, causing millions of dollars' worth of damages.
We did a number of key improvements and modifications to the space, Lutz explains. We raised the flooring system in a way that, if we have another a hundred-year flood, there's now a drainage pathway. Our control room is still on ground level; in most arenas, it's on the top floor. In 2010, the water came up from below, being so close to a river. You can't prepare for everything, obviously, but there's a lot that you can prepare for. Especially with everything that's going on in the Carolinas right now, it's timely having disaster-recovery plans and having everything ready for when you do have that dark midnight hour.
We're right at the corner of one of the busiest streets in the U.S., he continues. We're not moving, so it's all about how we make the best of the space that we have and improve it. That's the name of the game that we're in right now.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
The days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and playlists are filling up for the season. With summer around the corner, Spotify's global edito...
29/05/2026
New retro-inspired MPC announced
There are few devices that have gained the status held by Akai Pro's MPC range, and in recent years, the company have s...
29/05/2026
Save up to 30 on acclaimed titles
Following a successful launch at Superbooth 2026, Bjooks have revealed that they will be continuing the Kickstarter campa...
29/05/2026
Binaural monitoring application improved
Genelec have just released an update that brings some powerful new features to their HRTF-based binaural headphone ...
29/05/2026
6 June 2026 at SAE Institute, London, UK
IMSTA FESTA 2026 is almost upon us, with some of the biggest names in pro-audio set to descend upon SAE Institute i...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Comparing 5 AI Video Enhancers for Restoring Old Video Quality
Kate Luvis May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Digitizing VHS, MiniDV, and other legacy formats doe...
29/05/2026
Studio Hamburg Builds New Post Pipeline with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Workflow replaces a patchwork of legacy tools...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
At the Intersection of Music and Dance, an Epic Collaboration Boston Conservatory musicians and dancers found creative parallels in their recent performance o...
29/05/2026
May 29 2026, 09:00 (PDT) Dolby and rednote Bring More Immersive Storytelling to...
29/05/2026
Something fundamental has shifted in how people consume media. Audiences aren't abandoning television or radio content; they're just expanding how, wher...
29/05/2026
Youtube exclusive special drops today
Watch now
UKTV today announces another e...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
The Official Trailer of Physical 100 Italy, on Netflix From Se...
29/05/2026
Genelec announces V2.1 for Aural ID binaural headphone monitoring application posted: 29/05/2026
Aural ID 2.1 enhances binaural monitoring for stereo and ...
29/05/2026
At just 20 years old, Sean Melia from Summerhill Co. Meath has been revealed as the winner of Super Garden 2026. Sean is the youngest ever contestant and winner...
Nashville Predators' Bridgestone Arena Has a New Broadcast Infrastructure The downtown Nashville mainstay is finally fully recovered from a devastating flood in 2022 By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
