Posted by My favorite time of the year is March Madness. As a basketball fan, I can’t help but appreciate the most exciting month of the year when the top Division 1 basketball teams play in a sudden-death style tournament to claim the NCAA national championship. It could be anyone’s last game, and unlike professional sports, college athletes don’t get this time in their lives back, which makes the sweat and tears you see after each game that much more thrilling.
Before working at Quantum, I only really appreciated the gamesmanship of March Madness. Now, I have a whole new appreciation for the key role that video plays in college sports. Sports video production not only provides fans with energy and excitement through emotion-evoking promotional videos highlighting the season on social media, and in-game hype videos before players come out—but it also plays a behind-the-scenes role with recruiting and scouting, and post-game analysis footage for coaches.
Sports video production continues to push the envelope in unique ways by leveraging technology to enhance the viewing experience. Standing at the forefront of 4K adoption—and testing the waters with 8K and beyond—producers allow us to experience games as if we were there. And if that wasn’t real enough for you, put on your virtual reality (VR) headset and enjoy the games courtside from the comfort of your couch. Both the Big East Tournament and the Division 1 Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) provided fans with a VR experience for their playoff games. And this year, six NCAA March Madness games, as opposed to four last year, were available in VR, including the NCAA’s championship’s first live VR experience. Sports fans are moving away from just consuming video content to actually experiencing video content—and sports video production is leading the way in providing us with those experiences.
The demand to create more compelling video experiences through greater viewing choices at higher resolutions will only continue to grow. Add this to the increase in distribution channels, like YouTube and Facebook, and the pressure to reuse and remonetize video content, and you’ve got a massive storage problem on your hands.
Luckily, Quantum can help. Many college and professional sports teams and leagues are using StorNext® as their storage platform because it provides the access, collaboration, and high performance that video production teams need, while still reducing the cost of producing content. In addition, Quantum’s archiving solution allows you to easily access video content for future reuse, analysis, and repurposing.
Up your game. Learn how to improve your video production workflow and archiving solution while preparing for future growth. View our dedicated Sports Production web page at https://www.quantum.com/en/solutions/media-and-entertainment/sports-production/