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With a new year and new teams to challenge in Big East football, it’s only proper that Rutgers football fans are treated to a new sporting experience.
A $700,000 video scoreboard was erected in the football stadium in mid-August. With the ability to show instant replays, spirit-boosting animations and player statistics, the board brings Rutgers up to par with major football universities and professional stadiums – literally. The people who will operate the flashy graphics that light the board throughout games are the same who program animation at Yankee Stadium.
“Everything we are doing is top of the line,” said associate athletic director Kevin MacConnell. The scoreboard will pay for itself through a unique partnership designed to attract advertisers to its prime space.
The new board complements the new field turf. “Natural grass cannot withstand the multitude of events that we want to have in the stadium, yet the new field can,” MacConnell said. With the new turf, the stadium can host high school playoff games, Pop Warner championships and band competitions. And the Rutgers team can practice in the stadium as well.
It all brings Rutgers into a new league.
“This takes us right up to the next level in terms of program and fan appreciation of the experience of coming to Rutgers football games,” said Tom Varga, vice president of Nelligan Sports Marketing in Little Falls. Varga also spent more than 20 years as a volunteer in Rutgers Athletics fund raising. “With the addition of the field turf and the new video board, I think the fan experience is going to be fabulous.”
It’s the partnership between Nelligan Sports Marketing and Rutgers that enabled the athletics department to get the scoreboard at no cost. Nelligan purchased the board – which is about as high as a five-story building – and will solicit advertisers to pay for the cost. It will also provide space for existing sponsors. There are five permanent spots and three rotating “Tri-Vision” displays. Varga estimated his company would pay for the scoreboard over four or five years.
The scoreboard is 54 feet wide and 49 feet high – about 25 percent larger than the previous scoreboard – and the video screen itself is 30 feet wide and 23 feet tall, Varga said.
Fans will be treated to continuous information on the video screen, MacConnell said, from “short player bios to upcoming football game dates to sponsor thank you’s.”
When the old scoreboard went up in 1994, it was considered high-tech.
“Now, just 10 years later, this is the state-of-the-art technology,” Varga said.
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