Blinged-Out College Sports Locker Rooms With Screens For Each Player Seemingly Becoming A Standard

September 13, 2024 by Dave Haynes

A few years ago some big US college football teams started adding digital to their blinged-out locker rooms and training facilities, and it is now looking like elements such as digital signs over each player’s locker and stall are something of a standard in new builds or renos.

This is the new $14 million facility for the University of Michigan, which like some other college football programs now has custom screens to highlight the players’ names and numbers above them. The facility also has a lot of BIG screens all over the place, as well as a lounge room with a golf simulator, in-house barber shop and even a bowling alley.

It may seem a bit over the top, but getting impressionable 18-year-old boys to sign to play with one school over another may come down to Wow Factor as much as the quality of coaching and playing style.

Another famous football program, at the University of Nebraska, also just opened a new facility that includes a Times Square-sized LED video display in the lobby, visible outside from the campus grounds. That one is the new training home of Nebraska Football, but also the primary student-athlete dining center and academic center for all 22 sports. It cost $165 million.

Football programs tend to bring in the biggest crowds and most money at US colleges, so the men’s programs tend to be the ones getting these blinged-out digs. But not in every case. This is a shot from the new locker room of the University of Oklahoma’s women’s softball team, which has won the national title the last four years.

It’s an interesting vertical for solutions providers and integrators. There are a LOT of colleges and teams, and a lot of alumni seemingly happy to help fund these venues if bling helps recruit the top student-athletes.