Iowa’s Largest Scoreboard Generates Excitement and Student Opportunities

The outdoor stadium, shared by Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson high schools, previously featured a Daktronics digital scoreboard that was state of the art when it was installed more than a decade ago. However, the installation of the new 13’6” x 24’4” video scoreboard transformed the experience.

Cyle Forney, a retired principal and current technology support specialist for the district, says the video board makes a huge impact during every game.

My advice to any school is to go big—as big as your resources allow. A bigger board gives you the ability to zone off and still have enough video real estate to have your live camera going on some action, but also have sponsors scrolling at the bottom banner or off to the side.

Finding Sponsors with Daktronics Sports Marketing

For the Council Bluffs community school district, there was plenty of support for the board from the community and the school board, but funding is always critical.  That’s why the district turned to Daktronics Sports Marketing to provide sponsorship packages and connections to potential sponsors.

John Stile, Chief of Technology and Facilities Officer for the district explains, “We have four top-tier sponsors that advertise on the Daktronics video boards in the gymnasiums in both high schools along with the outdoor stadium. That’s about $3,500 a year. Then we have other packages that are just a few hundred dollars. None of it will break the bank, but it’s very helpful to the schools.

Stile says they’re using those sponsorship dollars to pay off their video boards. After that, they will use the revenue to make necessary repairs to the stadium, such as replacing the turf.

Enhancing Student Opportunities

The school district has been using the DakClassroom curriculum for quite a while, helping students develop skills and experience during their high school years that they can continue to use at a university or even college level.

We’ve had students go on to the next level. We have one that did a lot of game day content for the University of Nebraska, and another one for the University of Nebraska-Omaha,” says Forney.

Students create content for the video board in the classroom using FrameWrx by Daktronics – a content design platform that provides professionally designed templates that students can customize with school colors, logos and more.

“FrameWrx has really been a good starting point,” says Forney. “It’s a short turnaround between games, so those templates make it much more efficient to build content. If you have to start from scratch, you need more than a week to build something good.”

Forney says the new, upgraded video board generates even more interest.

“The new video board has been a trigger for excitement. We have more students interested. We even recruited two new ones during the opening game. They’re creating content and operating cameras on the field. We even have hype videos that run during the pregame.”

Promoting Fan Engagement

The investment in this board also increased fan engagement, according to Stile.  “I like to stay down towards one concession stand, and I can see there are people that are coming down there just to watch the board. The crowds are louder."

We get more visitors because they want to check out that board. You can see it and feel it. The vibe is just amazing.

Discover more about how Daktronics can amp up high school game days and provide student opportunities!