New Installations To Entertain Football Fans In 2017

The NFL regular season is upon us. Thursday night, the Kansas City Chiefs visit the defending champion New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium for the first game of the 2017 season. While it’s not a main end zone display, the new Union Point display will improve the fan experience at the stadium.

The Patriots are one of nine teams with new LED display technology installed this year. A combined total of 74 displays and 129,000 square feet of Daktronics displays have been installed across those nine venues to make sure fans benefit from the best live game-day experience possible.

The Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Rams will open their seasons at home Week 1 with new LED displays from Daktronics. Similarly, the Atlanta Falcons, Los Angeles Chargers, Oakland Raiders and Pittsburgh Steelers will welcome new technology in week 2. The Arizona Cardinals will unveil new LED displays at their home opener on Monday night of Week 3. And, adjusting their schedule due to weather concerns, the Miami Dolphins will now open at home on Week 5.

Here’s a quick rundown of what each team received for this season:

• As many have heard about, the new largest display in sports, the Halo Display, will make its regular season debut for the Atlanta Falcons at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The massive display combined with 15 other LED displays throughout the venue account for 83,500 total square feet – the most of any stadium in the world.
• The Falcons Mega Column Display will have more square footage than 17 NFL teams’ main video displays. And the curved, triangle-shaped Feather Wall Display is blowing people away as they enter the stadium. Fans at Mercedes-Benz Stadium are in for a technological treat.

• The Detroit Lions also put the final touches on a major renovation at Ford Field this summer with new end zone displays and two very unique super column displays. The super columns wrap 360-degrees around support structures at each end of the venue to provide additional space for graphics and information to entertain and engage fans.

• The Los Angeles Rams are benefiting from renovations to Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum with new LED displays as part of the peristyle restoration project. A total of 6,700 square feet of displays bolster their fan experience.

• Across town, the Los Angeles Chargers are the beneficiary of StubHub Center installing 10 new LED displays for a total of 5,000 square feet of display space to show engaging, energetic content for their new tenant.

• The Pittsburgh Steelers installed a new main end zone display at Heinz Field, improving the technology to 13HD for improved resolution, image clarity and contrast. The upgrade in the south end zone increases the size of their video display by 45%.

• Elsewhere the Miami Dolphins added new ribbon displays to their main seating bowl, the Oakland Raiders have a new plaza display to welcome fans to the stadium, and the Arizona Cardinals have new lounge displays to improve their fan experience in that space.

That’s a lot of LED technology. It’s safe to say NFL teams are focusing on engaging with their fans, giving them something interesting to look at and providing them with the information they want, when they want it. And the 2017 season culminates with U.S. Bank Stadium, a venue with Daktronics equipment inside and out, hosting the big game.

The only question I have is: Which venue are you headed to this football season? When you get there, you’ve got an 80% chance that Daktronics has equipment there to keep you entertained.

This article is by Justin Ochsner
in Live Events Marketing.
Connect on LinkedIn or Twitter @jochsner4