When the Pac-12 Convention confronted one of the turbulent intervals in its historical past, their broadcast manufacturing arm, previously Pac-12 Networks, stood at a crossroads. With the departure of legacy member universities, the group confronted an existential problem. Relatively than retreat, they selected to reinvent themselves as Pac-12 Enterprises—reimagining dwell sports activities broadcasting with better agility, effectivity, and innovation.
From Disaster to Catalyst: A Strategic Pivot
In 2023, the Pac-12 Convention was rocked by realignment. A complete of 10 universities departed for different conferences and two faculties—Oregon State and Washington State—remained to hold the Pac-12 banner.
Pac-12 Networks, the convention’s media firm and cable tv channels, was formally sundown. Their last duty was to ship over 850 broadcasts through the 2023-24 athletic season. To proceed the convention’s broadcast operations, Pac-12 Enterprises was fashioned.
“Each morning, I wakened and couldn’t return to sleep,” recalled Michael Molinari, SVP of Enterprise Improvement and Studio Operations. “My thoughts would simply race, how are we going to do that?”
The brand new workforce was tasked with finishing their state-of-the-art broadcast facility in San Ramon, California—underneath tight deadlines and pandemic-era provide chain constraints. Whereas supporting Pac-12 Networks’ last season, Pac-12 Enterprises additionally needed to onboard shoppers, join venues and ship flawless dwell productions—all with a leaner workforce and tighter budgets.
The stress peaked when an exterior consumer’s broadcast was jeopardized only one week earlier than airtime as a consequence of problems with the unique community confronted problems. And not using a resolution, the published risked cancellation.
Actual-time Infrastructure for Actual-time Sports activities
In that vital second, Pac-12 Enterprises turned to their trusted associate: Lumen. Inside minutes, Lumen deployed Community-as-a-Service (NaaS), restoring connectivity and saving the dwell broadcast. What started as a speedy response to a disaster grew to become the catalyst for a deeper, extra strategic partnership.
NaaS is a versatile, self-service community resolution that permits organizations to scale bandwidth on demand—excellent for the unpredictable nature of dwell sports activities manufacturing. For Pac-12, it meant:
- Low latency as little as 1/fifth of a second—for real-time manufacturing and referee evaluate.
- On-demand bandwidth provisioning (1–10 Gbps), offering cost-effective scaling for occasions from seashore volleyball to NCAA tournaments.
- Constructed-in redundancy and reliability for uninterrupted uptime, particularly throughout high-stakes productions.
- Lumen® Web On-Demand (IoD) and Lumen® Ethernet On-Demand (EoD), supporting speedy provisioning of high-bandwidth circuits and seamless site visitors movement between distant venues and manufacturing endpoints.
Howie Chung, Director of Engineering Infrastructure, defined, “Beforehand we’d work to provision devoted circuits, which might take time and can be value prohibitive. With NaaS, the flexibility to provision high-bandwidth circuits inside minutes was key.”
Engineering for Efficiency: Contained in the San Ramon Hub
Since 2012, Pac-12 Enterprises has relied on Lumen® Vyvx media transport providers to ship dwell sports activities broadcasts shortly and reliably. That long-standing partnership laid the groundwork for one thing greater: a next-generation manufacturing facility in San Ramon, California, constructed to help a brand new method of working.
This new method is named REMI—brief for Distant Integration Mannequin. As a substitute of sending full manufacturing crews to each sport, REMI permits Pac-12 to seize dwell occasion footage remotely and transmit it to their centralized location for manufacturing and distribution. This mannequin dramatically lowered prices and logistical complexity whereas sustaining broadcast high quality.
“This constructing was designed with REMI in thoughts,” stated Molinari. “We’ve produced over 10,000 occasions. We’re not a fledgling within the manufacturing division—we’re able to go.” The San Ramon facility is now one of many largest and most superior IP broadcast facilities of its form on the West Coast.
Because of the highly effective Lumen Community, Pac-12 Enterprises can ship high-quality broadcasts with near-zero delays. “We’ve performed a 20-path present out of this constructing, and our delay is only a fifth of a second,” Molinari added. “Whether or not the truck is 600 toes away or 600 miles away, there’s not a lot distinction.”
Monetary Affect: Growing Manufacturing Income with Leaner Ops
Born from the legacy of Pac-12 Networks, Pac-12 Enterprises not solely survived the upheaval—it emerged stronger. The manufacturing capabilities and property helped appeal to new member faculties for the league, together with Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Gonzaga, San Diego State, Texas State and Utah State. They’re additionally opening new alternatives for future media partnerships beginning in 2026.
The impression of the Lumen partnership has been transformative:
- Enterprise progress: In simply months, Pac-12 Enterprises has seen robust income progress. They now serve each present and future member faculties.
- Broadcast excellence: Pac-12 now produces network-quality reveals with simply 1/fifth of a second delay—far outperforming rivals, who typically expertise 2–3 second delays.
- Price financial savings: REMI manufacturing and on-demand bandwidth have slashed infrastructure and operational prices by eliminating the necessity for full manufacturing vehicles and intensive journey.
- Scalability: The versatile infrastructure in place helps the onboarding of seven new member faculties by July 2026.
“With the Lumen partnership, we’ve been in a position to have actually superb connectivity—not simply high-speed, however clever pricing. It’s actually a partnership,” Molinari emphasised.
AI, automation, and the way forward for dwell manufacturing
With rising momentum, Pac-12 Enterprises is concentrated on the way forward for sports activities broadcasting, exploring new applied sciences that improve each manufacturing and fan experiences.
A brand new collaboration with Objective Line Productions is already pushing boundaries. Collectively, they’re integrating a 100-foot curved LED wall to create immersive 3D results that carry followers nearer to the motion.
AI can also be central to their imaginative and prescient. With a century of archived content material, they’re exploring how automation can streamline spotlight creation, enhance storytelling and help dwell manufacturing. “AI will permit our individuals to concentrate on what issues most—technique and creativity,” stated Molinari.
“We’re taking a look at integrating AI into our facility and dwell productions this season—whether or not it’s for content material creation, digital camera monitoring or captioning,” added Chung.
To energy these improvements, Pac-12 Enterprises continues to depend on high-speed, low-latency networks from Lumen. “Our capability to leverage AI depends upon the energy of our infrastructure,” Chung stated. “Lumen helps us keep aligned with the way forward for sports activities manufacturing.”
Innovation and partnership flip disruption into alternative
The story of Pac-12 Enterprises is greater than a comeback—it’s a blueprint for resilience within the face of disruption. With Lumen as a trusted associate, they didn’t simply adapt; they redefined what’s doable in faculty sports activities broadcasting.
“Our partnership with Lumen is driving developments in dwell manufacturing, content material supply, and fan engagement,” stated Molinari. “It’s enhancing our effectivity and reinforcing Pac-12 Enterprises as a pacesetter in sports activities media innovation.”
Wanting forward, Molinari sees the connection persevering with to develop: “As we each proceed to remain revolutionary, I see this as a really long-term relationship.”
From a disaster of identification to a catalyst for innovation, Pac-12 Enterprises has confirmed that with the suitable associate, even essentially the most daunting challenges can turn into defining moments.
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