Ron Poe Stadium Press Facilities are A+

Thursday, September 7, 2006

Posted by Monte Walker at 10:44 AM

The newest additions to the 44 year old stadium now known as Ron Poe Stadium are top notch.  I had a chance to take a tour well before my first broadcast on September 1st and was completely impressed with the detail that went in to the construction of the new pressbox.  To a broadcaster, little things can make or break the press facilities in a broadcast booth.  Since we use a Comrex cellcast to transmit back to the radio station, a phone line is not necessary for the broadcast....that is, until something goes wrong.  At that point, it is not only necessary, but crucial.  The pressbox was installed with live phone lines in each of the pressrooms.  In the old pressbox, in order to get crowd noise for our broadcast, we’d run a "shotgun" microphone out of the pressroom and hang it on the stadium.  That usually meant that the door wouldn’t close very good because the wire was in the way.  The new facility has built-in crowd noise that requires me to simply plug a cord in the wall.  That is tremendously helpful!  The amount of room was very comparable to all of the new press facilities that we’ve visited around the area.  Plus, the placement of the radio room was stationed directly at the 50 yard line (which was brilliant).

Overall, I’d give the new facilities an A+ in all areas.  If I were to be picky, I’d want a deeper counter in which to set the equipment on...and probably holes drilled in the counter in order to hide the wires.  Other than that, great job MISD!