Twins Partner With Daktronics For Nearly $9M HD Scoreboard
 |
Twins Tap Daktronics To Install Nearly
$9M HD Scoreboard At Target Field |
The Twins today announced Daktronics will install an HD scoreboard at Target Field, with construction beginning next April. The scoreboard will be approximately 101-feet wide by 57-feet high. The ballpark will also feature five different LED ribbon displays, the longest of which will be 523 feet and located behind home plate (Daktronics). In St. Paul, Charley Walters reports the scoreboard will cost nearly $9M and will be the "fourth-largest in baseball" (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, 10/23). Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, Steve Brandt reports Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak's proposal to "use part of a one-time city windfall to finance $3[M] in traffic improvements near the new Twins ballpark ran into heavy questioning" yesterday. The City Council "debated whether the vehicle, pedestrian and bike access projects should be paid for with the one-time money or from added tax revenues produced by the stadium." The ballpark "will pay the 3[%] tax on tickets, unlike the Metrodome," and the Twins expect that will "generate an added $3[M] annually." But the city is "more conservative," projecting $2M annually "for the first few years, then $1.5[M] per year after that" (Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE, 10/23).
ON TARGET: In Minnesota, Jay Weiner reports AEG President & CEO Tim Leiweke Tuesday traveled to Minneapolis and "jump-started an effort to renovate 18-year-old and tired Target Center." Leiweke met with Rybak, City of Minneapolis Finance Dir Patrick Born and T'Wolves execs and said that he "has a vision to refurbish the Target Center and to turn the deficit-laden building into a profitable enterprise." Leiweke said the project would cost "somewhere between zero and $100[M]." Leiweke: "It's a fraction of what a new arena would cost." Leiweke added, "The city has a choice here. The choice is either you put some amount of money into this building to renovate it and upgrade it. Or you build a new arena" (MINNPOST.com, 10/22).
|
