NCAA March Madness

A few weeks prior to March Madness, Turner Sports asked Solomon Group for an assist. The network already had a set to use for its studio coverage of the tournament. But it was in storage and needed extensive remodeling. Our fabrication team traveled to Turner Studios in Atlanta to assess the existing set and bring the necessary elements back to our shop in New Orleans.

Our technical drafting team immediately dug into Jack Morton’s design for the environment and started making it real. We determined that the existing set involved three types of fabrication work: certain parts could be refurbished; others required retrofitting; and some needed to be built entirely new, including the set’s centerpiece - the anchor desk.

Solomon Group built a new desk that included integrated scenic lighting, two different paint color finishes, three different metal laminates, and a two-inch thick, CNC custom-cut, clear acrylic top that weighs nearly 1,000 lbs. We also retrofitted it to house five, Christie Digital LED display cubes that were part of the original desk.

Our team topped the desk’s existing platform with a gloss black laminate and gave it a custom, gray automotive paint finish. In addition, we extended the edge face and installed LED tape to create a light cove that surrounds the entire platform.

Less than a month after retrieving the original set pieces in Atlanta, Solomon Group’s team delivered and installed a dramatically reimagined broadcast environment in time for Turner’s annual coverage of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship - one of the premier American sports events.