University of Michigan Creates Memorable Game Day Experiences with Canare 32MDST-4U Patch Panels

ANN ARBOR, MI, JANUARY 7, 2025 — Michigan Stadium, the largest sports stadium in the United States and the third largest globally, is home to the University of Michigan NCAA 2023 National Champions Wolverine football team. With the team’s steadfast popularity, the University of Michigan has a continual need to elevate the fan experience. Prior to the start of its title-winning season, the school’s sports production team embarked on a comprehensive upgrade of multiple sports facilities on campus, most notably Michigan Stadium.

With the help of CTI, a leading audio-visual systems technology provider, the school installed Canare 32MDST-4U patch panels to monitor all the feeds going in and out of the production team’s video routers, which is crucial in this type of SDI router environment. The University of Michigan production team is led by Assistant Athletic Director for Broadcasting and Production Collin McCarty, and Director of Game Presentation and Fan Experience Jake Stocker.

“The University of Michigan team realized the need to update many of the facilities around the campus,” says Ryan Brodie, CTI branch director for broadcast productions. “We were brought in to update the video production system, which was the core of a comprehensive upgrade that included video, audio and lighting systems throughout the campus. Canare has been our go-to partner for all patch panels because the company has great product availability and reliability, so we called on them once again for this project. We installed Canare patch panels for all video patches around the router, which is fairly large.”

“I wanted to have everything patchable to ensure that we can work around problems in case other equipment goes down, and the Canare patch panels allow us to do that,” explains McCarty. “When we need to do quick checks, we can patch into monitors or quickly route around problems, if necessary, to provide fast fixes, which has proven to be very helpful. One of our switches went down during a recent soccer game and we used the Canare patch panels to very swiftly route to another feed and it was fixed within a few minutes.”

With Michigan Stadium and its sports teams being so prominent, the gear that is used is vital to guaranteeing smooth game-day coverage. “Canare is the safety net needed to ensure there is never any fallout. With so much on the line, our production teams cannot risk system failure. Canare provides peace of mind that no matter what, the game goes on,” says Brodie.

“What makes game day so special at the University of Michigan is having 100-thousand fans in Michigan Stadium. There are very few places in the country, or in the world, that have that many people there in a stadium of this size,” says Stocker. “It then becomes a question of ‘how do we put on the best show, but also cater to several different groups?’ We have season ticket holders, students, student athletes and alumni, and we’re targeting people of all walks of life, ages and demographics. So, we need to make sure that we are putting on the best show for everyone to ensure they all have a good time.”

According to Stocker, having a newly renovated stadium has also helped make each game day fun for everyone involved. “Going into this new season with all the upgrades made it especially enjoyable for us,” he adds. “We can now do so much more than we were able to do in the past, whether it’s using the new technologies that are coming into place, being able to include more stats in the picture, having different camera angles on the video board, or showing different replays. Highlighting all of this by using our new technology has helped us enhance the game day experience and has taken our events to a whole new level.”

In addition to the equipment upgrades, CTI was also on-site throughout the installation process to provide valuable training and support for the Michigan University production team. “All the training we received from CTI and their partners allowed us to be ready for the first game day,” shares Stocker. “Their knowledge of the system helped make the installation a huge success,” adds McCarty.