UGA getting new scoreboards

[BetweenTheHedges]

http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/0505/15sptbiz.html

[JBryant12]

you have to join to see it...

[BeeDee]

http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/0505/15sptbiz.html
Can you post the image? Don't wanna get on the AJC's mailing list for this...

[Spurrierismyhomeboy]

whoopdido Basil but what does it all mean?

[dudeman0501]

you have to join to see it...
http://www.bugmenot.com/view.php?url=www.ajc.com

[BeeDee]

Awww, crap. I thought there'd be pictures of the new fancy schmancy boards. :rolleyes:

[BetweenTheHedges]

The Braves aren't the only local sports entity spending big bucks on new video boards.

The University of Georgia athletics association will brighten Sanford Stadium and other on-campus venues with extensive new scoreboards and video boards, including 500 feet of LED "ribbon" board on the fascia below the football stadium's upper deck.

Sanford Stadium also will get a new main scoreboard with a substantially larger video display than its predecessor. Stegeman Coliseum, home of Georgia's basketball and gymnastics teams, will get a new scoreboard with larger video display, as well as new fascia boards. The baseball, softball, soccer, volleyball and tennis facilities will get new scoreboards. Sanford Stadium and Stegeman Coliseum, as well as the baseball and soccer venues, will get new integrated sound systems.

Total cost: $5.7 million, according to the school and South Dakota-based Daktronics, which will design, build and install the systems.

Georgia figures the cost will be recouped within five years from increased marketing revenue, including sale of advertising on the new boards, according to Alan Thomas, UGA assistant athletics director for marketing.

Installation will begin this summer and is slated for completion in each venue before the start of its next season. When the football Bulldogs open Sept. 3 vs. Boise State, Sanford Stadium's enlarged video scoreboard and 250 feet of ribbon board on each the north and south sides will make for an "extremely dramatic" change, Thomas said.

"There definitely will be some ooh and aah factor that goes with this," he said. "I look forward to the Boise State game; I hope we don't have to have our crowd rise to the occasion late in the fourth quarter, but if we do it'll be pretty cool with [crowd prompts] running through the stadium."

In addition to crowd prompts, the LED ribbons will be used for advertising, "university branding," animations and game information.

Sanford Stadium's new main scoreboard will not carry fixed advertising; rather, advertising connected to specific features. "What we really want is to create rhyme for the reason," Thomas said. "While there is a sponsorship element, we want it to be tied to elements within the game."

Daktronics' technical services group, Keyframe, will staff and operate the video and scoring systems at Sanford Stadium, Stegeman Coliseum and Foley Field (baseball) for the next five years. Keyframe will provide creative content for the boards.

Although Daktronics says the new Sanford Stadium video board will be among the largest in college football, it is much smaller — and cheaper — than Turner Field's new mega-screen. Turner's $10 million board is 71 feet by 79 feet, all of which can be used for high-definition video display. The Sanford Stadium scoreboard will be 52 feet high by 76 feet wide, of which 25-by-46 will be video display (not high-definition) and the rest used for animations, scoring information and ads.

"We're talking about a board [at Sanford Stadium] that is going to be used six or seven times a year," Thomas said. A Turner Field-type board "wouldn't make sense for us."