Behind The Sound

With a 400% increase in size and pixel quality, the brand-new XFINITY Center video board is bigger and bolder than ever. 

However, what Maryland fans will see when attending sporting events at XFINITY Center going forward is just one component of the upgrades made in the past year. As Terps basketball fans flock back to College Park for the men’s basketball 2024-25 season opener against Manhattan on Nov. 4, their eyes and ears will be exposed to a video board and sound system that could host an entire music festival.  

Maryland Athletics announced in January that it would soon unveil the brand-new video board and sound system. After several months of work over a year in the making, the venue was transformed and outfitted with modern tech upgrades that are more friendly to the fan experience. The project was part of Maryland Athletics' continued commitment to upgrading its venues and facilities to deliver a premium, immersive entertainment experience.  

Josh Clayton, Maryland Athletics’ Assistant Athletic Director of TerpVision and Video Operations, boasts more than a decade of broadcasting and game operations experience within the sports and media entertainment industry. He understands professional audio and video standards and expressed his pleasure at how everything turned out.  

“It’s a very high bar in this area when it comes to entertainment and sports experiences, and we knew we needed a serious ‘wow’ factor when it came to sound and video,” Clayton said. “We knew we needed to make the experience here really impactful. … We nailed it.”

The new XFINITY Center video board installed by Daktronics is considerably larger and has better pixel quality than the old board, which had been in place for a decade. The board’s four-sided display measures approximately 92 feet all the way around and 20 feet tall, with a pixel dimension of 7,800 wide by 1,470 high.  

The expanded surface area allows for greater flexibility when displaying statistics and in-depth personal player stats, providing fans with insights during every game. The video board features near 8K HDR resolution, and most importantly, the new center-hung's surface display size is 72% larger and removes all previous obstructed viewing angles. 

L-Acoustics integrated the arena’s audio element, marking both companies' first collaboration on a project. The sound system replaced the original one, which had been in place since the XFINITY Center opened in 2002. It contains over 100 Kara II loudspeakers and more than a dozen subwoofers. 

“Daktronics has been integrating audio into its sports-venue video systems for years now, but this is the very first time we’ve collaborated with L-Acoustics for audio, and the result has been spectacular,” Daktronics Audio Applications Engineer David Sturzenbecher said. 

He continued. “The University had been using L-Acoustics components for its portable and temporary systems for some time in various applications, and they always had good experiences with them. So they brought L-Acoustics into the fold at the very beginning of this project.”

L-Acoustics has been around since 1984 and prides itself on trailblazing innovation. According to its website, it’s the number one brand chosen by the world’s largest music festivals. Its equipment is installed in over 13,000 premium venues, from music halls, theaters and sports entertainment to wellness, hospitality, homes and yachts. 

Clayton says the revamped video board and sound system closely resemble the tech, equipment and layout used in the Phoenix Suns’ arena — the Footprint Center. The configuration tailors the arena for basketball games, Olympic sports and other special events.

“Gymnastics is totally different from a basketball game, and they have very different audio needs,” he explained. “We need one set of speakers for the floor routines while the rest of the system has to provide highly intelligible speech to the audience areas of the venue. The way this system is set up, each line array has three individual zones that we can manage separately from each other, and it’s even broken out so that we can separate the main arrays from the subs and the center-hung array.”

Clayton provided an example of the system’s capabilities.  

“We can turn on the X12 speakers and the subs as a separate system to cover the court for practices while the rest of the system plays other program material. We expected a lot from this sound system, and we got it.”

The XFINITY Center upgrades officially make the home of Maryland men’s and women’s basketball a premier venue. They also allow the arena to host a diverse range of shows and sporting events. 

When Maryland fans return to XFINITY Center for the 2024-25 basketball season, they will not only see and hear the video and audio upgrades but also be able to feel them.  

"Upgrading our venues with a focus on student-athlete and fan experience continues to be a top priority for us at the University of Maryland," said Damon Evans, the Barry P. Gossett Director of Athletics. "Maryland Athletics is leading boldly with the newest innovations, and this video board at XFINITY Center will be one of the best in the nation, a showpiece we can all be proud of."