Nov 19, 2025

CENIC, along with its high-performance California Research and Education Network (CalREN), is most often associated with the advanced networking and services we provide to our members’ cutting-edge big-data research and education programs.

However, since high-performance fiber-based networks are the foundation of modern life in almost every way, it’s worth noting that the networking and services provided by CENIC apply just as much to our members’ arts and cultural programs and also include athletics. Sports broadcast quality has rapidly moved from HD to 4k, with 8k broadcasts rapidly approaching, making our members’ athletic programs just as much big-data endeavors as research and education. Happily, member institutions in California can rely on both CalREN and CENIC’s engineering team to facilitate all of their programs, including athletics.

Fresno State Football and the Gigabit Gridiron

This was the case recently for Fresno State University when they and Pac-12 Enterprises, the broadcast arm of the Pac-12 Conference, contacted CENIC in July 2025. In advance of Fresno State joining the Pac-12 in 2026, the television network CBS contracted with Pac-12 to broadcast several Fresno State football games, the first of which would be aired on September 13, 2025.

To ensure a smooth turn-up, a network connection between Fresno State and Pac-12’s own network had to be planned by the team, physically and logically created, and tested well before this date.

Since Pac-12 Enterprises connects to Internet2, this placed CENIC at a convenient crossroads for all parties. Thus, when Pac-12 contacted Fresno State’s network architect Gabriel Lewis, he immediately reached out to the CSU Chancellor’s Office, which engaged CENIC. At this point, CENIC’s engineering team began facilitating meetings with Fresno State, Pac-12 Enterprises, and Internet2 to determine requirements and complete a network design.

In effect, the design consisted of provisioning a dedicated physical handoff at Fresno State and at CalREN’s Sunnyvale backbone site for Pac-12 equipment to connect to, and provisioning a logical network path between the two ports. After a dedicated port on the campus border router was selected for this purpose, an optical transceiver was installed by Fresno State network engineers according to CENIC instructions.

Networked Athletics Possible for All CENIC Member Institutions

According to Roman Kayutkin, senior network engineer at Pac-12 Enterprises, “This was one of the smoothest deployments we’ve experienced so far, with the service coming up immediately after we connected it to our equipment. This gave us ample time to complete testing before the first broadcast date.”

CENIC’s principal network engineer Gary Kazaryan emphasized that taking advantage of this kind of opportunity is a unique benefit of CENIC membership and something available to all member institutions.

“Given CENIC’s close relationships with so many high-profile networks and providers throughout the US, interconnections like this can be turned up for any of our members. Moreover, we can make sure that the right people are in the room when these discussions need to happen quickly. Our working culture and close relationships with member institutions enable these opportunities and ensure smooth and efficient deployments.”

Therefore, while the networking and services we provide to our members are often associated with research facilities, data centers, and classrooms, the gridiron and other athletic arenas are as driven by big data as any laboratory, and CENIC stands ready to facilitate global data-driven athletic competition as well as research and education collaboration.

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