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There are a lot of cool things the Florida Gators can do with the renovated O’Connell Center. One of them was made reality on Saturday night, as the Gators employed a three-dimensional court projection during a rousing pregame introduction in advance of Florida’s game against the Kentucky Wildcats.
When the lights go out... #TheSwamp comes alive. #OneNight #OneTeam #Gators pic.twitter.com/NrFK6Y9i43
— Gators M-Basketball (@GatorsMBK) February 5, 2017
In all my years of attending @gatorsmbk games, this pregame ranks up there with the last home game for 04s and Senior Day for David Lee. pic.twitter.com/L4DhbtuIf5
— Kyle Niblett (@KyleNiblett) February 5, 2017
Sorry for shakes, but here's the court projection. HOLY CRAP @AliciaLongworth THAT WAS INSANE pic.twitter.com/wAIwXvMuvH
— Jonathan Arnholz (@JArnholz) February 5, 2017
From any angle, that is a technological masterpiece, and a brilliant homage to Florida’s recent history — including the banners that Florida earned with back-to-back NCAA Tournament titles, giving the Gators one more national championship than Kentucky has had millennium.
Whether using this sort of technology to make a big game seem like the biggest in the world is a sustainable promotional strategy for the program remains to be seen. The price tag for the programming and setup of those introductions may well be massive, given that it reportedly cost more than $1 million per team when the technology was in its infancy back in 2014.
Given the overwhelmingly positive response to the intro, though, it’s possible that getting fans hyped with this sort of intro is worth every penny.