The Oakland A’s are replacing some of the oldest video boards in major league sports with two new Daktronics screens at O.co Coliseum.
The upgrades, the first in nearly 20 years, cover two high-definition LED boards in the outfield, a pair of ribbon board displays attached to seating fascia along the first- and third-base lines and a new control room to run the high-definition system.
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A rendering shows the displays planned for the Oakland stadium.
Photo by: DAKTRONICS |
The A’s are paying for the $10 million project as part of their 10-year contract lease extension at the stadium, said Ken Pries, Oakland’s vice president of communications and broadcasting.
The two primary boards both measure 36 feet high and 145 feet wide and will be inserted into structures that held the older screens. Combined, the square footage ranks second in MLB behind the Seattle Mariners’ single screen at Safeco Field, a Panasonic product.
For the A’s and the Oakland Raiders, their co-tenant, the new boards present a dramatic upgrade over the old Mitsubishi Diamond Vision screens dating to 1996. The newer screens are the first LED technology in the 49-year-old stadium.
Starting this baseball season, both teams, in tandem with their sponsors, have the ability to create singular images between the two video boards and the ribbon boards, Pries said.
In addition, the new video board package includes a super-slow-motion camera to be placed on a tripod behind first base and third base to capture scoring plays.
The new system uses the same technology as the A’s rights holder, Comcast SportsNet California, enabling both properties to share feeds from the video boards and the television network, Pries said.
“It’s a whole new world for us,” Pries said. “We even hired an animator, which we have never had before.”
The A’s were set to announce details of the boards during last weekend’s fan festival at the stadium, and they are working on a special introduction for the screens for the team’s first regular-season home game April 6.
