You got a link to that or is that a typo?
SportsMoney
FSU Utilizes New Football Facilities To Attract Top Recruits
Alicia Jessop
CONTRIBUTOR
I write about dollars and cents in the world of sports.
Earlier this summer, FSU unveiled new facilities for its football program, including a new locker room, players’ lounge, team meeting room and coaches suite. The upgrades are part of FSU’s “Champions Campaign,” which is a $250-million fundraising initiative aimed at enhancing the school’s “athletic facilities, scholarships and team operation budgets.” The recent facilities upgrades were paid for with $4.85 million out of that fund.
FSU’s new football facilities are nothing short of spectacular. The project merged tradition with technology, by creating spaces aimed at recognizing Florida State’s great players, while also giving current players an ability to improve their game through technology. FSU’s tradition is highlighted by the statues of former FSU players’ jerseys surrounding the team’s new locker room. ”There is such great history and tradition here at FSU and we wanted to find the best way to show off that history and tradition. The statues of former players’ jerseys always stay lit. Our thought behind that, is that our current players are sharing this locker room with all of the greats who have played here, so we never turn the lights off on the jerseys,” Florida State’s director of football operations, Mark Robinson, explained. Technology was emphasized in the project by installing various amenities in players’ lockers, including iPads. ”We wanted to improve our players’ morale by giving them the best resources available. We integrated our entire video system onto their iPads, so if a player has five minutes before practice and say, wants to watch some Clemson plays, they can. Or, if something happens at practice and they’re coming off of the field, they can pull up the practice video right away to figure out what happened,” Florida State’s director of football operations, Mark Robinson, said. To see a look of FSU’s new football facility upgrades, click here for a behind-the-scenes video.
"" loaded="1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: bottom;">
While FSU was heavily focused upon tradition and technology in upgrading its football facilities, it was also focused upon attracting recruits. ”While our first goal with this project was to give our current student-athletes a more modern locker room and space, we also were focused on recruiting with this project. We have so many recruits that come through this building, and we wanted to leave a mark with them. We wanted to make sure that they come in, have a big ‘wow’ factor and see everything FSU has to offer,” Robinson noted.
In that regard, FSU turned to outside help to begin determining how to give recruits the “wow” factor with their new football facility. One company that FSU brought in for the project wasAdvent, a Nashville-based company that helps brands tell their stories by designing unique spaces for them. Recently, Advent has completed projects for USC’s athletics facility, Stanford’s football program and Maryland’s football stadium, amongst others. Through its projects, Advent relies upon creating graphics packages that are built into the team’s facility to tell its story.
SAPVoice
Are Employees the Biggest Roadblock to Digital Transformation?
Utilizing Advent’s services, FSU was able to create eye-pleasing and interesting spaces to share its traditions with players and recruits. Amongst other things, Advent helped FSU showcase the three Heisman Trophies its players have won. It also helped the program highlight its relationship with Nike, by creating an interactive video board, through which players can mix-and-match FSU’s uniforms to customize their own game-day attire. Advent also helped FSU become the first college football program with a life-size College Gameday broadcasting desk in its football facility, complete with pictures of the famed College Gameday sign holders behind it. ”A program is so much more than the iconography of the brand. There’s a real sense of story behind every program. We understood FSU’s story in a way that was different and unique and we tried to interpret it through their new facilities in a way that was different and unique,” Advent’s CEO, John Roberson, said.
In approaching FSU’s project, Roberson and Advent also had some important data to help the FSU football program attract top results. Every year, Roberson commissions a survey of blue chip football recruits to learn what drove their decision to sign with a particular school. Through this survey, he gleans information about the trends that are driving college football recruits’ decisions. And from that information, he is able to help programs utilize their facilities to convey a story that recruits want to see told.
Recommended by