Integrating Technology in The Modern Locker Room: Transforming Athletic Training Facilities to Boost Recruitment and Retention

Hey, everybody, and welcome back to ProAV Today. I am your host, as always, Ben Thomas. You know, as an industry, we have quite a few conversations about things like higher education and k twelve. And, you know, a lot of times, those conversations center around classroom technology or teacher empowerment or, you know, distributed technologies. And one of the places that might not always get the credit in the world of education, is the world of athletic training and athletic complexes and locker rooms and things like that. So I wanted to spend some time today to talk about how our technology community, really through, things like digital signage and audio distribution and video distribution, really are elevating some of those athletic complexes, whether it's weight rooms, locker rooms, even training rooms and video replay systems and things like that. So to talk about that, I brought on somebody, who can answer a lot of those questions, and that's JJ Parker, CEO of Tightrope Media Systems and Carousel Digital Signage. JJ, you've got all the titles in the world, man. Thanks for coming on. Thanks, man. Happy to be here. Well, look, JJ, we'll we'll start kind of at a high level. Right? I think, you know, it's it's even funny to say you know, I I even hesitate to say the word locker room. Right? Because there's a lot of connotations that come with that. But I think athletic complexes, are a good way to really describe how the, quote, unquote, legacy locker room has evolved. Everything from, you know, connected weight rooms and connected film rooms all the way to the actual locker rooms themselves. And, you know, it's so interesting to see now, especially in the world of of collegiate athletics where there are millions and millions and millions of dollars, being invested into a lot of these these installations for things like player, happiness, but recruitment, retention, things like that. And even, at scale a little bit in the high school world as well, it's incredible to see how much evolution has happened from the digitization of a lot of these places. And at a high level, what are some of those things that are really driving that innovation? I know digital signage obviously is one of those things. What are some of the ways that that you've seen these digitization, the digitization of these installations happen? Yeah. It's, it's funny. When, when, we got coordinated on on, talking about locker rooms, like, I think, you know, you even said, like, everybody's notion of what a locker room is is probably some, like, thing from their high school experience. Right? Like, what was what when I when you say locker room, what do you think of, like, in your mind? Oh, just sweaty clothes on the floor, concrete, rusty locker rooms. That's a unique experience, I feel like, to those of us Americans who, at least on some level, had PE or something. We can all relate to that image, I feel. It's like the last place you wanna go. Like, do you wanna go to the locker room? Nope. And that place is stinky and gross. Yes. Well, you know, from, what we've been kind of seen over the years, and we've been in the digital signage, industry be you know, set for over twenty five years. Like, before it was a word. Right? And, we do a lot of, like, what you said. We do a lot of higher ed, university campuses, corporate campuses, and a lot of k twelve education. And, what's been interesting to start with is to watch the college and the university adoption of digital signage because, you know, it started in, like, student unions. Right? Just trying to tell this inform the students of what's happening, like, on campus. Then it kinda spread to, like, this wayfinding application, to help guide students and and other guests around the campuses. And then, more recently, it's kind of moved into the athletics departments, and, you know, specifically, the athletic complexes, right, where they're building out. And I think we've seen this, over the years is that, a lot of universities are building out really amazing athletic, complexes, not just for the proper athletes themselves, the ones that are on the football teams or on the basketball teams, but for all of the students. Right? So I wanna make these spaces that are really welcoming to to everybody, on campus, not just their top tier athletes. And then pushing in a little deeper, their top tier athletes, in those like, in the locker rooms, in the stadiums, in the in the places where they're playing, they really wanted to create a much better, nicer experience than the, like, sweaty brick wall situation that's that that it's been in Yeah. In years. And, you know, a couple of reasons why they're they're they're upscaling the locker rooms, is really, like, around getting that top tier talent. For a lot of universities, their athletic programs are a major driver of revenue, frankly. And when it comes down to it, it's a it's a revenue driver. Right? It's they wanna get, they wanna get more people to the games. They wanna have the best athlete best best student athletes come in. And, they wanna make sure that those athletes and those students and and those spectators have an amazing experience that might turn into future, you know, donations and things like that. So it's really like a a university is, like, thinking about the whole life cycle of their student journey, you know, from, you know, being a freshman, coming all the way through the program, being a, a student athlete, graduating out, and then maybe giving back to the university after after they've gone. It's so I always laugh. Right? Because, you know, even even, you know, in the world of of collegiate athletics. Right? You know, they've always kinda had the best of the best from a facility standpoint. And now, you know, I I get the opportunity from time to time to get to go to some of these facilities and tour installations, and one local one is is University of North Texas. Mhmm. And, a, their practice facility is incredible, but then you you start looking at their video distribution systems and their audio systems and even their their aesthetic lighting control systems and their recovery rooms. And, you know, it's it's interest and and I laugh almost because we say the word digital signage. And And and, look, you're watching film and doing all those things. And I think in our minds, a lot of time as a community, we think digital signage and it's, oh, I need to send a welcome, you know, screen over to, you know, the entrance. Right? And there's absolutely that application. Right? That's a large oversimplification for sure. But I think, you know, the world of video distribution and signal distribution evolves dramatically, kind of uniquely in that world because you're right. You have you have that donor engagement. So you have to have that showpiece element where you've got people touring and you've gotta have people walking. But then there's that practical element. And that's one of the things too really that that I wanted to ask is, you know, we we talk about the video distribution side of things and even kind of the transition to IP, but, you know, now there's a requirement of smaller environments. Right? We talk about these athletic complexes, and they are cities in some cases. Right? So we can't get by with the, oh, we've got five screens showing what we need. Like, there's a lot of scale in there. How have you seen a a lot of that scale and need evolve, especially on the video distribution side? Well yeah. So, like, back in the day, most of that video distribution used to be coaxial. Right? Like, it would be, like, modulated cable TV channels. The the architects, when they built some of those facilities, especially in seventies, eighties, even nineties, were were just throwing coax cables, into the corners of the hallways. Yeah. And and that there we go. We got now we can put TVs over here. And, a lot of those the infrastructure, a lot of the, you know, the building themselves, it's hard to run cables through there. Right? It's hard to run new stuff in there. So and even power. Right? I mean, you think about, like, all of the things that are required to just hang a simple panel onto a concrete wall, well, a lot of times, it becomes not that simple. So, obviously, that's, the the integrators and and and and all of our partners help, you know, get all of those, nitty gritties figured out. But, you know, having in especially in the realm of digital signage, when you're putting when you're putting signs and and, kiosks and things in places that maybe weren't originally intended to have it. You know, making sure that all of those players are on the network. They're network accessible. Possibly, some of them sometimes need to be wireless because we can't actually run, network cables there. Obviously, the best is to run hard hard cables everywhere. But, yeah. So when we're thinking about, like, distribution, it's it's, you know, it's on the network. It's, sometimes it's PoE. Right? Like, it's powered room powered over the Ethernet, so it's powered remotely. Even down to the display, sometimes, like, we've done a couple locker room installs where there are, displays above each locker in the locker room. And the infrastructure for that is all is all PoE. So I didn't have to pull power all the way through, you know, every little bay. They could just power it from their network switch. So Better have a good switch, though. No. Yeah. You gotta make sure you have the right switch. That's beyond my pay grade to recommend those. But but, yeah, kinda dealing with some of those basic things like you're saying is, like, how do we get connectivity and how do we get power to these this this places, and and what technology is, like, the easiest to do that, especially when what was there was probably not the right thing, like coax. Well, I wanna ask kind of about that specifically too. You know? I think look. I I'm shielded from reality of football outside of Texas. I acknowledge that. You know, but it's interesting because a lot of the times, anecdotally, I I see these new athletic complexes and locker rooms as new builds as most of the time they are. Right? Mhmm. You talk about funding. You talk about all these different things. And and that really not that it's not a challenge from an infrastructure standpoint, but when you're building a new building and have you know, you can you could, you know, spec all your ports wherever you want them. That's not as big of a challenge as a retrofit. Right? Right. I'm curious. You know, when you talk about these retrofits, do you typically see incremental upgrades? Are you seeing folks really want to do, you know, a wholesale changeover every seven to ten years, or or is it a little bit of everything? Yeah. I think it's a little bit of everything. I mean, like you said, it it goes kinda down to, like, funding and buildings, and that that that's a whole, big topic. But, you know, when we've been involved in projects, they're either, kinda really they're either new builds, and new builds is the easiest, because you can kinda design screens and and things exactly where you want want them to be. The retrofit stuff, the easiest if you're gonna do a retrofit is, like, a major sort of, like, gut. Right? A major remodel. And then the hardest, of course, is just trying to, like, put screens and information and things in place in your existing building without really doing any major changes. So, Yeah. You know, there's a a lot of the customers will start, I've noticed, with, like, doing the very simple thing. Like, hey. We'll put a we'll put a display digital signage will become a a bigger and bigger part of of those refreshes. Well, you know, what's cool too is, you know, there there typically is some level of infrastructure rebuilding. But, you know, even outside of the world, just digital signage specifically, there's so many things that you can do from an aesthetic perspective that really help create a lot of value. Right? Yep. Uplighting graphics, reskinning things. There's a lot of things that you can do. But I I really think and and it's it's like I mentioned earlier, it's a little bit uniquely suited to the world of of athletics where, you know, they they've they've got they reminded me it reminds me actually a little bit of, like, a security war room or something like that or command center where you've got to integrate so many different pieces of data from so many just disparate sources. You know, in one of those sources too, and and I'm curious. I don't know if if a lot of these athletic complexes sort of live I don't know that I would say off the grid of the the educational institutions themselves. I don't know that that's correct terminology necessarily. But do you see a lot of collaboration between the university itself and and even things like integrating emergency response systems into their field houses or integrating, you know, communication systems? Is that something that typically is a need, or do you find typically that they sort of live isolated in their own ecosystem? Yeah. Well, specifically on college campuses, we find that it it will often will often start, and and universities and colleges are are notoriously fragmented like this, is we'll start with, like, providing signage and, you know, our CMS software to the athletics department or to one particular college in the university. And if it gets too big, the university the IT people at the university would be like, wait a second. What's going on here? Why do we have, you know, three CMS providers, here? And then they'll then they'll go and unify all of it. So, I'm sure a lot of the listeners recognize that motion out of out of the behavior of, of universities. But to me, the athletics complexes, stadiums, all of that, that's part of the university system. So tying in all of the emergency alert, things that are are happening on campus is absolutely critical. I mean, for for us, integration with, like, the common alert protocol and making sure that their alert systems are feeding into the visual, sign the digital signage and the the the visual learning systems, is really important. So we've got university customers who absolutely push their alert notification integrations with Carousel all the way into the locker rooms because, you know, if something goes down, we gotta get people out and somewhere safe. Yeah. Well, one of the things you know, we we talk about IP a little bit from a signal flow standpoint. IP obviously gives you more flexibility in the long term for I almost hate to say the word future proofing. Right? That that's sort of like the forbidden Mhmm. Word in the industry right now. But it gives you some level of future proofing. Right? And it extends in theory, the life cycle of an installation. But, you know, just at a high level, you know, what typically do you see from an installation life cycle perspective? Is it that seven, ten years, or is it really that active replacement once you've done a a new builder, a full retrofit? You're just more aiming to to change out displays, speaker systems, or or do you see full refreshes every seven to ten years? Well, that's a great question. So in our early digital signage experience, I think this is probably common across all, signage installs. A lot of it was, like, Windows computers as the media players. So Yeah. It was either, you know, it was either like a Windows knock in a box behind the TV. Right. Like a yeah. Like a box behind the TV or or even before that, it might have been, like, some sort of player device, a playback device in a head end distributed out through classic, IP video techniques. Right? Like VOIP. Raspberry Pi made a living off that. Right? Don't don't knock. Today, what we see are, installations where, the media player there's a media player behind every single device. And whether that's showing the same content or different content, it's it's much more of like a one to one, player to display, topology, which works really well because you can discreetly change the content on each one of those, or synchronize them. And then, you know, if one goes down, you can just replace the one and the whole room doesn't go down. So there's there's kind of some some good redundancies around that one to one approach. And we have seen over the course of the past few years, you know, a lot of the Windows devices that were deployed, you know, ten years ago or fifteen years ago, a lot of that stuff's getting ripped out because that was just clearly the wrong show. I mean, it wasn't the wrong choice. It's kinda like the only choice back in the day. But and like you said, like raspberry pies or some other weird home brew thing that maybe universities that like, universities are awesome because, they do have the, a lot of times, the technical ability to to do a home brew solution. But a lot of times that doesn't last super long until they realize, like, oh, yeah. That one student who wrote the code that does this thing doesn't go here anymore. It's the same thing with churches too. You wanna you wanna go see a system, built on on, you know, toothpicks. Those are the best two places to go look as universities and houses of worship. So what we've, you know, what we've done at Carousel is we really focus on two primary media player, hardware, partners, which is BrightSign and Apple. Those two have proven over the long over the long term to be, like, the very best ROI. And and what we think about a lot for a lot of these installations, it's it's not what's the initial cost. It's what's the total cost of ownership. Because to roll to to have a a player go down and then that you guys have to roll a truck to go fix it, that costs a lot of money. Right? The end users will be under maybe, like, a service contract or or the the, integrator will be providing those services to keep keep that signage network up. And it costs money every time you gotta roll a truck. Right? So, for us, we like to really think about, like, how can we provide the most, like, stable, scalable system with the best hardware partners so, the total cost of ownership over, like, a ten year period is as low as possible. And sometimes that means that the initial purchase is higher, but that's that's that's the way we kinda orient. And so we don't really support the Raspberry Pis or the Amazon Fire Sticks or anything like that because we know, you know, that twenty five dollar thing goes down, and it's gonna cost the integrator two hundred and fifty dollars to roll the truck out there to fix it. Yeah. Well, you're right. And, you know, we're at the point now where so many of these are real enterprise installations. Right? And you have to have that level of connectivity even just beyond the infrastructure and the the digital signage. Right? You've gotta have your audio distribution systems. You need network connectivity. I need to be able to control, shutters and all. I mean, almost almost like a freaking smart home if I'm being honest. But the these places are so technologically advanced, and I think it really has done a lot for, athlete safety, athlete comfortability. Obviously, they're recruiting tools Yep. Like crazy, but also, driving revenue on the back and even from a donations standpoint too. So it it it's incredible to see how these have have evolved, and I think you you you kinda nailed it when, you know, you talk about the multipurpose use of these spaces now, and that is what necessitates an enterprise level installation, because no longer, like you mentioned, will the Raspberry Pi behind the TV always be the best answer, right, especially when you Right. The other the other thing that that that we'll see in in athletics is a lot of the facilities are becoming multi use facilities. Right? So it's not dedicated football. It's like, well, we're doing football, and then we're doing soccer, and then we're doing you know? So, so using digital signage and your lighting controls and and really creating, like, an experience that might change a couple times on a weekend. Right? Like, this morning's soccer. It's all branded soccer. Boom. We flip the switch. Now this is all football. Right? And we changed the color scheme. We changed the content on the signage. So really thinking about how we are creating spaces that are multiuse but still feel like the football team's stadium. And but when the soccer team walks in there, it feels like the soccer team's stadium. And this all goes to, like, things like you're talking about, like player pride, team unity. And and from a facilities perspective, it shows respect to the players too. Right? So, when we're kind of involved as an industry, as an AV tech industry who is supporting, customers, I I I always like to make sure we're thinking about, like, how are we creating spaces and what what kind of feelings are we creating in those spaces. And you kinda hit it with lighting. Like, that's another really powerful thing. Right? Simply changing the lighting can have a really big impact because because people are ultimately really affected by their environment. Yep. Absolutely. And you see a lot of that same, logic actually used in health care as well, which I'm sure you guys do fantastic work in. But I'll tell you what, JJ, we we appreciate you having on and really kind of breaking down the world of the video distribution technology installations inside a a lot of these athletic complexes and locker rooms. It's been helpful to kinda hear just from a technology side how people are leveraging these and some of the best practices and and applications. So I'll tell you what, we we appreciate you coming on the show today and look forward to having you back on soon. And thank you all for tuning in. Be sure to like and subscribe, and check us out next time on Pro EV Today.