Oral Roberts University, home to the Golden Eagles, has more than 5,000 students from over 145 nations, representing all 50 U.S. states. To help students maximize their potential—whether for recreation or as aspiring professional athletes—ORU recently added the new 50,000-square-foot, $15 million ORU Mike Carter Athletic Center (MCAC) to replace the “old and outdated” training and academic facility. The PPDS range of Philips Signage D-Line digital displays and Philips LED 6000 Series L-Line dvLED displays were selected and installed inside the new facility.
Opened in April, the MCAC is now hailed as among the best facilities in the world, featuring basketball practice courts, administrative and coaching offices, a 10,000ft2 performance area, plus the ELI (Education, Learning, Integrity) Academic Center, which includes individual and group study areas, and dedicated team rooms.
[SCN Goes Back to School with Joe Way: Reading, Writing, Replays]
With technology key to the ORU’s strategy and strengths, PPDS and partner, NWN Carousel—a cloud-based communications provider specializing in learning environment technologies—were entrusted to devise and deliver a range of highly flexible and fully tailorable visual solutions, to bring enhanced communication opportunities, including site and campus messaging, marketing, and branding, facilitating advanced learning capabilities for students and athletes.
Installed inside the Athletic Center’s ground floor sports performance area were ten 43-inch Philips D-Line digital signage displays, strategically placed throughout the gym area, providing full visibility for all workout areas and machines. On the second floor, a wall-mounted 75-inch Philips D-Line display has been installed in the Academic Center’s main reception area, greeting students as they enter, and providing branding and marketing opportunities to visitors.
A few more steps inside, a 16x9-foot, 1.5 pixel-pitch Philips 6000 Series dvLED wall is mounted and capable of displaying content beyond 8K, and supporting refresh rates as high as 3840 Hz. This ensures an optimum viewing experience wherever a student is sitting in the room.
[SCN Goes Back to School with Canon: How to Collaborate on Collaboration]
The project was completed in just two days—halving the originally agreed timeline. “Teamwork on this project was imperative and our great relationships with both NWN Carousel and ORU made this one of the smoothest installations we’ve seen," said Mitch Rosenberg, director of dvLED at PPDS. "We spoke with all teams on multiple occasions before we set foot on site, and by the time we did, we knew exactly where everything was, the mounting hardware had already been installed, so it was a flawless installation. We estimated this project would take around four days, and it took just two. Everything was perfect.”
