Three new videoboards "will be installed at U.S. Cellular Field in time" for the White Sox' opening game next season, according to Colleen Kane of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE. The improvements "will come one season after the Cubs unveiled their video board upgrades." But White Sox Senior VP/Sales & Marketing Brooks Boyer said that it is "not about keeping up with the North Siders." Boyer: "This is more motivated by the fact that the right-field and left-field (boards here) were falling apart and the center-field one was the smallest in baseball." Kane notes the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, which owns the ballpark, "voted Wednesday to modernize boards that are both faulty and not up to the standards" of MLB ballparks. The center-field videoboard, installed in '03, "is expected to more than quadruple in size from its current 1,484 square feet," and a rendering shows that it "will be shaped as a pentagon with multicolored digital pinwheels at the top." There "won't be ads on the sides or bottom as there are on the current board" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 10/2). Boyer said of the current videoboards, "You've seen the flickering. You've seen them going in and out. There is proprietary software and hardware in the right field and left field boards from a company (White Way Signs in Mount Prospect) that is bankrupt." He added, "We will have a lot of things going on with other renovations that we are doing in the ballpark. So, come Opening Day next year, it's going to look a lot different" (Chicago DAILY HERALD, 10/2).
NEW AND IMPROVED: In Chicago, Danny Ecker wrote the roughly 6,500-square-foot videoboard in center field "will dramatically alter the park's backdrop." The ISFA noted that the center-field board "will be one of the 10 largest in the league" (CHICAGOBUSINESS.com, 10/1). Ecker reported the ISFA "will foot" the $7.3M bill for the three new videoboards. The ISFA board voted to move forward "after several years of pushing from the White Sox." Under the team's management agreement, the ISFA "must replace any 'obsolete component' with 'modern replacements'" if at least 75% of MLB ballparks have it. ISFA Exec Dir Lou Bertuca said that he hopes the new videoboards "will be a recruiting tool for concerts." The ballpark "has not hosted a concert" since a Bruce Springsteen show in '03 (CHICAGOBUSINESS.com, 10/1). In Chicago, Rick Telander writes, "Let’s be joyous over this video jihad, not cynical! Bigger, bolder, brighter, badder! Such is the mantra of the new age" (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, 10/2).
