MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Facilities upgrades and their positive impact on the fan experience and student-athletes was in focus during the July edition of “Out of the Blue,” the television magazine program for Middle Tennessee State University.

Assistant Athletics Director Nathan Wallach, an MTSU alumnus and the executive overseeing many of the significant improvements fans will be seeing in Murphy Center and Floyd Stadium, sat down with program host Andrew Oppmann, vice president of the Marketing and Communications Division, to discuss the game plan for these facilities.

One those upgrades is a state-of-the-art audiovisual control center already in operation on the concourse inside Murphy Center — a significant enhancement from the outdated and much smaller control center designed and built in 2007.

“We wanted to keep doors open for students. We were having trouble getting students to come in and help us because the gear was just not what the industry standards were,” said Wallach, noting that the prominent location of the new control room is now a strong recruitment tool for students looking for real-world AV training and for student-athlete recruits visiting athletic facilities.

The control center also will help the university maximize use of the video board upgrades at Murphy Center and Floyd Stadium in recent years, as well as reopen opportunities for Murphy to become a more attractive concert venue.

But the most prominent upgrade on the radar is the highly visible transformation on the north end of Floyd Stadium with the construction of the $66 million, three-story, 85,000-square-foot Student Athlete Performance Center, the new home for Blue Raider football that will also include a state-of-the-art weight room for all MTSU student-athletes and provide a premium space on the third floor for fans on game days.

“It is going to completely rejuvenate our Athletic Department and alleviate some of the pressures of the Murphy Center, so that way other programs have the ability to grow in there,” he said.

A ribbon-cutting for the facility, officially named the Stephen and Denise Smith Student-Athlete Performance Center, is set for 9 a.m. Wednesday, July 30.

Watch the segment below:

“Out of the Blue” is available anytime on the university’s YouTube channel, the True Blue TV channel, Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV. It also airs on Murfreesboro cable Channel 9 daily at 6 a.m., 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.; NewsChannel5+ at 6:30 p.m. Sundays; WKRN+ at 7 p.m. Thursdays and noon Sundays; and streamed on the MTSU Jazz Network through WMOT.org at 7 a.m. on the first Sunday of each month; and on other cable outlets in Middle Tennessee, so check local listings.

It is also available as a podcast on iTunes and Google Play and as individual interview segments on Spotify at https://spoti.fi/453hxg3.

Watch previous episodes of “Out of the Blue” at https://mtsunews.com/out-of-the-blue.

— Jimmy Hart (Jimmy.Hart@mtsu.edu)