Lynn Family Stadium – Louisville City FC (LouCity)
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INDUSTRY
SPORTS
CUSTOMER
LouCity | Lynn Family Stadium
CHALLENGES
A main challenge of this project was meeting critical timelines for completion before the beginning of the USL’s season. "The scope of the project required extensive project management in order for the completion of the stadium to stay on track." said Brian Walls, Director of Operations for Strategic Communications.
SOLUTIONS
Strategic created an all-encompassing AV design for Lynn Family Stadium and implemented it with the help of meticulous project management. This AV design included indoor and outdoor video displays, audio and speaker systems, broadcast infrastructure, and IPTV content deployment.
RESULTS
"Whether it’s a video being played on the video board, the PA announcer, a live DJ or goal celebration, our goal is to pump a lot of energy and sound quality into the venue," said Mitch Ried, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at LouCity. “We were blown away by the service and quality that we received working with Strategic Communications."
INTRODUCTION
Louisville City FC
Since starting play in 2015, Louisville City FC (LouCity), Kentucky’s only fully professional soccer club, quickly established a reputation both for winning on the pitch and solid fan support off it. LouCity is a member of the USL Championship, now sanctioned Division 2 by U.S. Soccer, and the top division of the United Soccer League. The USL Championship includes teams across the country, some of them independent and others acting as close affiliates with MLS clubs.Louisville City FC originally launched with the help of local architect Wayne Estopinal, a part-owner in Orlando City SC, a former USL member that moved up to MLS in 2015. The USL franchise shifted to Louisville, and James O’Connor, a native of Ireland and former Orlando City player, was hired as coach. John Neace currently serves as LouCity’s chairman, heading a local ownership group.
Louisville City FC originally launched with the help of local architect Wayne Estopinal, a part-owner in Orlando City SC, a former USL member that moved up to MLS in 2015. The USL franchise shifted to Louisville, and James O’Connor, a native of Ireland and former Orlando City player, was hired as coach. John Neace currently serves as LouCity’s chairman, heading a local ownership group.
Lynn Family Stadium
While LouCity was enjoying competitive success and building a fanbase, they were still competing out of Louisville Slugger Field: a baseball stadium that traditionally houses Louisville’s Triple-A baseball team, The River Bats. Playing in a converted baseball stadium hampered the fan viewing experience, as well as limited their maximum attendance to approximately 8,000 fans. To accommodate their growing fanbase LouCity made the decision to break ground on a new soccer-centric stadiumBeginning in 2020, LouCity moved from Louisville Slugger Field to the new Lynn Family Stadium, a soccer-specific facility in the Butchertown neighborhood just east of downtown. It can accommodate 15,304 fans and is also home to Racing Louisville FC, the organization’s National Women’s Soccer League franchise that started play in 2021. The stadium boasts 18 luxury suites, premium seating amenities like club and loge seats along with ledge tables, and a massive safe-standing supporter section.
CHALLENGES
LouCity required a larger, more soccer-centric venue for their men’s and women’s soccer teams. The venue had to accommodate a variety of shops, eateries, and large-scale events. “My goals were to enhance the fan experience and give our fans a place they’re proud to call home, while not sacrificing quality for budget,” said Rusty Fazio, Vice President of Technology at LouCity. “We wanted fans to be able to follow the game wherever they are at in the venue.” In capturing the passion and excitement of their fan base, LouCity decided on the construction of Lynn Family Stadium. The stadium accommodates over 15,000 fans, boasts over 18 luxury suites, and provides an array of amenity seating for clubs, VIPs and the press.A main challenge of this project was meeting critical timelines for completion before the beginning of the USL’s season. "The scope of the project required extensive project management in order for the completion of the stadium to stay on track." said Brian Walls, Director of Operations for Strategic Communications. "We had to coordinate with the builder, the electricians and the consultants to ensure everyone was on the same page. One miscommunication could have delayed the project days, if not weeks." This created a strict deadline for project completion, and added additional burdens of project management between organizations.
LouCity needed an integrator to put together an Audio-Visual (AV) design and installation package that created an immersive experience for their fans while adhering to project timelines and budget constraints. This design required large format 4K video displays for both indoor and outdoor applications, powerful speakers meant for large outdoor venues, broadcast cable infrastructure to enable onsite television production, an IPTV system to distribute television content to viewers, and digital signage for concessions and guest services.
OUR SOLUTION
Strategic created an all-encompassing AV design for Lynn Family Stadium and implemented it with the help of meticulous project management. This AV design included indoor and outdoor video displays, audio and speaker systems, broadcast infrastructure, and IPTV content deployment. Each component of the AV design is discussed in more detail below.INDOOR & OUTDOOR VIDEO DISPLAYS
Strategic Communications AV team designed a visual solution encompassing beautiful LCD imagery on large format 4K displays from NEC. Over 100 NEC 4K UHD displays were included in the design. Wall mounts and swivel mounts were installed for all displays. In addition, Strategic’s AV team designed and deployed network infrastructure in creating a self-contained content distribution system responsible for pushing out video feeds and graphics to every display. “Our installation team put in a lot of time into installing, mounting, cabling and programming the indoor and outdoor video displays,” said Walls. “Connecting and programming the displays through Vitec’s IPTV administrative gave LouCity a great platform to distribute video content to every part of the stadium.”“The Vitec EZTV digital signage solution was the perfect fit for our stadium,” said Fazio. “This product was brought to the table by Strategic and they worked with the manufacturer Vitec to meet financial constraints. This allowed us to have a digital signage kit that was user friendly and packed with the features we needed.” Vitec’s EZTV solution, along with NEC MultiSync Large Format 4K displays, created an immersive video experience for fans, and provided a powerful content delivery system. This allowed LouCity to easily deploy and control video content to all of the indoor and outdoor video displays in the stadium. In short, the solution created a centralized and dynamic video experience for their fans within every section of the stadium.
AUDIO AND SPEAKER SYSTEMS
In creating an immersive soccer experience for fans, LouCity needed The Lynn Family Stadium to possess powerful and clear audio systems for home games, events, and concerts. Strategic’s AV engineering team included QSC 4-channel high performance amplifier platforms with DSP and Dante to power Concourse and Auxiliary speakers. In addition, Danley OS80 fully weatherized high output speakers were wired and mounted above the stadium for an optimal surround sound audio experience for fans. “Hats off to our installation team on the deployment of the indoor and outdoor audio system,” said Walls. “Mounting 50-plus lb. speakers while being suspended one-hundred feet above the ground and dealing with a variety of outdoor elements really speaks to the dedication of our team to the project.”
IPTV AND BROADCAST INFRASTRUCTURE
To expand the viewership of home games and further market LouCity soccer, The Lynn Family Stadium required a modern Broadcast and IPTV platform for real-time video streaming. Strategic’s AV engineering team designed and implemented a robust Broadcast infrastructure to include broadcast rooms and media interview areas. In addition, Vitec encoders/decoders were integrated into The Lynn Family Stadium’s IPTV solution. “IPTV has become a go-to technology for fans to view video content,” said Walls. “The solution we designed, led by Vitec, enables LouCity to scale and manage the distribution of IPTV content both live and on-demand. In short, our highly reliable head-end gear acquires any type of TV source and delivers broadcast-quality, secure video streams to TV’s, personal computers, laptops and smart devices.”In addition to the current in-house broadcast and production infrastructure, Strategic created modular broadcast systems to allow for expansion of the venue’s current in-house broadcast production capabilities. Strategic installed SMPTE HFO (Hybrid Fiber Optic) cable from the Broadcast Truck Pedestal and In-House Control Room to Broadcast Junction boxes located throughout the stadium. This allows state-of-the-art broadcast production trucks to seamlessly integrate with the stadiums current broadcast infrastructure.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND SUPPORT
A project the size of The Lynn Family Stadium required constant communication between Strategic’s AV team and LouCity, the contracted builder, electricians, plumbers, and consultants. “In establishing project timelines and deliverables to meet LouCity’s completion date, our project management plan had to be very precise,” said Walls. “Our team took a very proactive approach in scheduling kick off calls for every stage of the project with all stakeholders involved.” Strategic’s installation team developed punch-lists for every scheduled site visit to ensure all tasks were completed in mitigating contractor overlap.“Strategic has been great to work with. They have great communication, and commitment to their clients.” said Fazio. “The work they performed was high quality and completed on time. They made sure we had the proper technologies installed even if the spec was inaccurate. They went out of their way to help ensure we were going to be happy with the solutions they provided.” Strategic used their experience as a long standing IT and AV integrator to support the project and offer key recommendations in meeting the club’s requirements. Strategic was able to make these recommendations while also meeting strict deadlines and collaborating with all parties involved in the project.
OUR RESULTS
The Lynn Family Stadium has been in operation for over a year for LouCity’s soccer teams. The amount of great publicity and fan response the stadium continues to receive excites LouCity and has inspired greater aspirations on the technology front.“Whether it’s a video being played on the video board, the PA announcer, a live DJ or goal celebration, our goal is to pump a lot of energy and sound quality into the venue,” said Mitch Ried, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at LouCity. “We were blown away by the service and quality that we received working with Strategic Communications.”
Strategic Communications continues to support LouCity in maintaining the AV, IPTV and Broadcast Infrastructure equipment and refreshing hardware as they go end-of-life.
“I will continue to work with Strategic on our AV needs,” said Fazio. “In fact, Strategic also completed the AV at our brand-new training center. Strategic has already performed ad-ditional upgrades at the stadium this season and we have more planned for the remainder of the year.”
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