The future is upon us, with 5G becoming the norm and the main driver behind so many major technological innovations. In this age of rapid digital transformation, the combination of speed and quality is crucial for business success and customer satisfaction. As the leader in fiber-based communications infrastructure solutions, Zayo empowers the leading innovators and disruptors in industries like e-commerce, entertainment, and financial services, to change the world. Zayo’s robust product suite enables organizations of all sizes to reach their maximum potential every single time.
That’s why it only makes sense that Zayo and the Pac-12 Conference have teamed up, with Zayo becoming the official sponsor and technology partner of the Pac-12. The Conference of Champions, the Pac-12, has long been the gold standard of excellence in collegiate athletics, with more NCAA team national championships than any other conference in history.
“It’s all about the user experience – viewers don’t want to miss a moment.”
Being the best collegiate conference in the country starts with having a strong, dedicated internet foundation to maximize productivity every day. It also means having the fastest data speeds with minimal disruptions to deliver high-quality broadcasts to millions of Pac-12 sports fans wherever they are.
“It’s all about the user experience – viewers don’t want to miss a moment,” said Aaron Werley, VP Technology, Lit Networks. “They want to consume high-definition content without any lag or blips. You need an incredible amount of bandwidth on a highly resilient network to satisfy this and Zayo is able to provide that.”
Earlier this month, Zayo powered the Pac-12 Football Championship Game on the Zayo Wavelength Network, which offers high bandwidth solutions and custom network designs with flexible and competitive pricing. The game was the highest viewed program of the day among 18-49-year-olds, with an audience of 4.2 million viewers.
“The Pac-12 runs 850 live events in a season and that’s a lot of content. Zayo provides us almost 90% of our connectivity to each of our campuses – so all of this content traverses Zayo’s network, back to our San Francisco headquarters, and then into our viewers’ home,” said Howard Chung, Director, Campus and Events Infrastructure for the Pac-12.
Below are some highlights of this monumental partnership between Zayo’s unmatched global network and The Conference of Champions.
- The Pac-12 Network utilizes Zayo’s DIA network as their primary ISP at their Corporate HQ in San Francisco and Zayo’s Dark Fiber Network to broadcast the Men’s and Women’s basketball conference championships in Las Vegas.
- The Pac-12 Network utilizes Zayo’s Wavelength Network to broadcast 24-hour coverage of Pac-12 sanctioned sporting events, including Olympic sports and broadcasts of archived sports telecasts via satellite and cable networks.
- Live events from all 12 universities including 30+ football games, 100+ men’s basketball games, Pac-12 Championship events, more than 300 live Olympic sport events as well as original and studio content such as The Pregame, The Drive: Pac-12 Football, Inside Pac-12 Football, Our Stories and Pac-12 All-Access.
- In addition to the national channel, the Pac-12 Network also operates a group of six regional sports channels focusing on different schools within the conference under the Pac-12 Networks brand.
We all know that big, splashy tech developments like autonomous vehicles and virtual reality are powered by the latest developments in communications infrastructure, like 5G. But, high-level technology is necessary in areas you don’t always consider, like sports broadcasts.
Organizations are always looking for an opportunity to gain even the slightest edge over competitors, and the Pac-12 Conference is no exception. Offering the best product to fans of the best conference in the nation requires a high level of innovation behind the scenes, and that’s what Zayo is bringing to the table for the Conference of Champions.