Our demand for the best technology is insatiable, and sports fans seem to be on the top of that food chain. Big isn’t big enough, it now has to be gigantic, in full blazing HD color and in our face. Some of the nation’s largest scoreboards give a view of such excellence that the people in the nosebleed area think they are on the field. This is the era of electronic scoreboard-a-rama.
In 2009, the Dallas Stadium premiered their 160’ HD display. This goes beyond a scoreboard: weighing in at 1.2 million pounds, it requires a team of technology experts to operate it and the cost was twice that of the old stadium used by the Cowboys. The screen was an extravaganza of brilliance. The color was crisp and every fan was aglow with the view. There was only one problem with something so large – when an opposing team’s backup punter made a rather non-descript kick, the football bounced and ricocheted off the screen. It turns out the entire thing was too low.
Continue reading “Electronic Video Scoreboards on Steroids”
Each new school year the Director of the Sports Department has a meeting to review the needs of the various teams. Everything is examined: from uniforms to the condition of the field or stadium. As each sports team regroups for the season, they will also add their input for what they feel is needed for the success of the year. On the top of the list is the electronic scoreboard.
There is an entire generation that has grown up not knowing what life was like without the internet, phone apps and high tech electronics. As a society, we have sped with lightning evolution into an age where everything can be viewed, communicated and shared, in an instant. In the U.S., the supply and demand channel for high tech has been backed by the hungry fans of our sports teams. We have progressed from a nation attending a hometown game with the old fashioned manual scoreboard to an expectation level of streaming, moment-by-moment updates on electronic scoreboards.
