EVANSTON-Fans attending Northwestern men's and women's basketball, volleyball and wrestling contests at Welsh-Ryan Arena during the 2014-15 season will experience the Wildcats as they never have before thanks to the addition of four high-definition quality video boards.

A center-hung two-sided display will face the north and south sides of the arena with each of the two boards measuring 23 feet wide and covering 280 square feet. Additionally, boards will be mounted on both the east and west walls of the facility behind each basket. Those displays are 25 feet wide and cover 238 square feet.

Installation of the boards is slated to begin following Northwestern University graduation ceremonies in late June and will be in place for the start of the 2014 volleyball home season.

"The new videoboards are going to take the atmosphere at Welsh-Ryan Arena to another level," Northwestern head men's basketball coach Chris Collins said. "This is another great step by our administration in showing their commitment to making a great gameday experience for both our student-athletes and our fans."

"We are really excited for the addition of new video boards to Welsh-Ryan Arena," Northwestern women's basketball head coach Joe McKeown said. "This is a game changer for our program, along with the other Northwestern teams that share Welsh-Ryan Arena with us. We appreciate the hard work of everyone involved that made this significant upgrade possible and we look forward to providing a quality game day experience for the student-athletes as well as the fans of Northwestern women's basketball."

"We're excited to announce the new videoboards to Welsh-Ryan Arena and cannot wait for our fans to experience the energy and new environment during our matches this season," Northwestern wrestling head coach Drew Pariano said. "With the historic annual Ken Kraft Midlands Championships and the always competitive Big Ten schedule, this is a fantastic addition for our student-athletes and all Wildcat fans."

"The state-of-the-art upgrades coming to Welsh-Ryan Arena will tremendously enhance the experience of both our student-athletes and our dedicated fans who constantly pack the stands throughout the season," Northwestern volleyball head coach Keylor Chan said. "These new videoboards are sure to improve the game day experience for all of us and we're really looking forward to opening our home schedule with the Wildcat Classic in September."

The scoreboards were designed by Anthony James Partners (AJP) of Richmond, Va. AJP has previously been responsible for implementing displays at Spartan Stadium and Breslin Center (Michigan State), Ohio Stadium (Ohio State), Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center (Notre Dame), Matthew Knight Arena (Oregon), Lambeau Field (Green Bay Packers), Nationwide Arena (Columbus Blue Jackets), Time Warner Cable Arena (Charlotte Hornets), BMO Harris Bradley Center (Milwaukee Bucks), Rose Garden (Portland Trailblazers) among numerous others at both professional and collegiate venues.

The Welsh-Ryan Arena project coincides with a new scoreboard and LED boards for Ryan Field for the 2014 Northwestern football campaign that also were designed by AJP.

Concurrently, a brand new control room that will manage the boards within Welsh-Ryan Arena as well as Ryan Field will be housed inside McGaw Hall. Hughes Integration, the same company responsible in part for ESPN's forthcoming new SportsCenter studio, will handle the same for Northwestern.

Season tickets for the upcoming Northwestern men's basketball season go on sale today (June 11).