Texas Longhorns Kit Out New Football Locker Room With Screens Over Stalls

August 3, 2017 by Dave Haynes

Other people can engage in the argument over whether Division 1 college athletes in the United States should be paid, and based on social media posts, it’s already evident the new University of Texas Longhorns football locker room has people griping about money being spent on bells and whistles, instead of paying players or putting funds into academic programs.

All I know is that the new UT locker room in Austin has addressable flat 43-inch screens above every new high-tech locker stall – with the content mapped to the student athlete assigned to that stall. The screens are Samsungs and the content is being driven by PingHD, a company I mostly think about as doing food services menu displays. Of course, there’s no reason the CMS couldn’t also run videos about defensive linemen.

The use of money debate aside, I think this is really, really clever – because a big part of elite level college sports is attracting a steady stream each year of graduating high school athletes. Some of those kids will be moved by a beautiful campus, or discussions with brilliant future professors. But probably a healthy percentage of them will go bug-eyed walking into a locker room like this, and seeing a locker dummied in with their image on the screen up top.

My guess is more colleges will copy this sort of thing, or more likely, try to one-up it.

 

Leave a comment