UO captioning for fans at Autzen Stadium

EUGENE, Ore. -- (Sept. 13, 2011) -- Fans who attended Autzen Stadium for the Oregon Ducks'
first home game of the football season on Saturday likely noticed a new feature
on the Duck Vision scoreboard.

The University of Oregon is now captioning athletics events at Autzen Stadium, joining just a handful of other universities around the country. The UO is committed to offering the service at other venues on campus as well.

According
to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), the number of Americans
with a hearing loss has doubled during the past 30 years to more than 28
million. The national increase and urging
from the local chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America led UO
Athletics staff to make the change at Autzen Stadium.

The
in-stadium announcements by Don Essig and game officials, and voiceover of
programming during stoppage of play, is
displayed as text on Duck Vision to enable all fans to
have a more complete experience in a venue known for its loud
crowd involvement.

"The
addition of captioning at Autzen Stadium will provide a larger portion of the
population with a full fan experience," said Mike Duncan, senior associate
athletic director for Facility Operations and Events. "The game day
experience involves audible and visible details that are improved for everyone
with text captions, and we're happy to launch it this football season."

The service is provided by LNS
Captioning
, based in Portland. A trained captioner --
working remotely -- receives an audio feed of what's being broadcast in the
stadium, and types the captions to be displayed on Duck Vision with a minimal
time delay. LNS provides captioning service for the City of Eugene's telecasts as well as numerous professional sports teams, including New York Jets and Giants games held in MetLife Stadium, formerly known as Meadowlands Stadium, and NBA All-Star games.

"The Athletics Department in general, and Mike Duncan
and his staff in particular, have made captioning of events in major athletic
venues a priority, an effort which is trend-setting and which we, representing
people who are hard of hearing and deaf heartedly applaud," said Clark
Anderson, vice president, Oregon Communication Access Project (OR-CAP).

Commencement ceremonies in 2010 and 2011 were captioned at the UO.
Plans are underway to provide captioning for additional events at the Matthew
Knight Arena, PK Park and Hayward Field.

About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions
chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High
Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of
Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the
Association of American Universities.

MEDIA CONTACTS: Julie Brown, 541-346-3185, julbrown@uoregon.edu; Dave Williford,
541-346-2251, diw@uoregon.edu

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