Players were not the only thing making a season debut last Thursday at Rice-Eccles Stadium as the Utes took on the Aggies.
After complaints that it was sometimes difficult to hear the public address announcer during games, the U introduced a multi-phase closed captioning service at the stadium for fans who are hearing impaired. It was implemented for the first time during Utah’s season opener.
“We were able to get quite a bit of support from athletics and President Pershing to make this happen,” said Zach Lowder, tech services manager at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Lowder was tasked with researching and implementing the system.
The first phase of the system allows fans to check out iPad minis from guest services, located on the east and west concourses of the stadium. The service is available for any fan, and the iPads are rented on a first-come, first-serve basis. A person need only provide some basic information, such as his or her name, seat number and credit card number.
The iPad is locked to the closed captioning services, so it makes the process simple and efficient for the staff and the fans utilizing the service. A stenographer sits next to the public address announcer during the game and sends instantaneous streams to the iPads. Approximately 10 lines of text are scrolled onto the screen at any given time during the game.
“[The Utah State game] went pretty well, especially with all the new stuff we had to implement,” Lowder said. “It was our first captioned event, and we had a few little hiccups, but we got those resolved, and it went perfectly smooth the rest of the game.”
The second phase of the system is expected to be implemented by midseason and will include the installation of an LED board in the northeast corner of the stadium. The LED board will display the score, advertising and have closed captioning services.
“[The closed captioning] makes the experience at Rice-Eccles more accessible to everybody,” said Utes head coach Kyle Whittingham. “I think it’s going to be a benefit to a lot of people.”
During the Utah State game, three of the 10 iPads were checked out. Guest services staff expect more people to check them out as time goes on.
For more information, contact Rice-Eccles Stadium at 801-581-7695.