Work continues on the brand new stadium video board at Jones AT&T stadium. Photo by Sarah Scroggins.
When Texas Tech football fans fill Jones AT&T Stadium this upcoming season, the new-look Red Raider team led by Kliff Kingsbury will not be the only new product they will be entertained by.
Before the 2012 season began, Tech approved a project to build a video board at the north end of the stadium. However, specifics were not given until a week before Tech’s bowl game. It was then that the $11 million project was revealed.
For the past three months, construction workers have worked on tearing down the old scoreboard and building the structure for the new one. Although there is not much more than several beams in place at the moment, Michael Molina, Tech’s vice chancellor of facilities and planning, said the construction is on track and set to be done by the football team’s season opener on Aug. 31.
“This superstructure is being developed now,” Molina said. “We’re two tiers up on a five tier top and you can see and imagine how tall this is going to be. Sponsor screens, graphics, a high-def video screen, unparalleled clarity, LED technology. It’s an 11 million dollar solution and we’re on track for kickoff for 2013.”
The overall housing of the video board will be a 190-foot by 57-foot box, making it the largest of its kind in the Big 12 Conference, Molina said. The screen itself will come in measuring 100 foot by 38 foot.
In recent years, there has been a strong push for Tech to get an updated video board, as many fans have complained that seeing the video board or hearing the audio from it has been very difficult in the past. However, Joe Parker, deputy athletic director, said the new screen will give everyone in the stadium a great view of replays and other videos shown.
“We’re very excited about it,” he said. “It’s going to really help us with fan engagement at the stadium, give us an opportunity to really get the crowd involved in what’s taking place.”
The screen will feature a high-resolution LED video board with four million red green blue colors and a pixel spacing of 16 millimeters.
“That gives us 281 trillion — that’s trillion with a ‘T’ — color renditions or color combinations red and black will never look better when we get this screen completed,” Molina said.
The new video board will also address the audio problems with the old screen. With the old board, the sound varied greatly throughout the stadium. However, Molina said the new board will feature new and improved speakers.
“The soundbanks on each side are 16 feet wide by 38 feet tall just outside the video scoreboard piece, so it’s embedded in a vertical format,” he said. “There are actually several speakers in there that are angled at every seat out here in the stadium — your almost designing as if you were in a living room — so the farthest seat will have the same crystal clear sound not just in volume but also in pitch.”
The legs of the structure will also reflect the Spanish Renaissance architecture that can be seen throughout the stadium and the rest of Tech’s campus.
This will also mark the fourth time in the last 10 years that Tech has worked to improve the 55-year-old stadium. In 2003 the west end was completely renovated to feature new suites, while the same was done to the east end in 2010. Also, in 2009 Tech added two new seating areas at the north end of the stadium.
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