Daktronics scoreboards light up MLB in Arizona and KC

By Andrew Lippe

Arizona Diamondbacks and Kansas City Royals fans spring fever will be complemented this season by Daktronics HD scoreboards in their ballparks. Chase Field, home to MLB’s Diamondbacks, is decorated with the widest LED screen in all of Major League Baseball. The Kansas City Royals HD video board is part of a larger project to renovate Kauffman Stadium. By 2010 Kauffman stadium will have a brand new entrance pavilion as well as a Royals Hall of Fame area.

The Diamondbacks board can display two 16:9 HD images side by side and can serve as one giant display or be divided into multiple sections to show statistics, graphics, or video. “The large LED board is a giant canvas to paint however you want,” says Mark Steinkamp, marketing & sales support manager for Daktronics, Inc. The Scoreboard displays video in 720p to match the team’s broadcast partner, Fox Sports Net Arizona.

The Kansas City Royals LED will contain more than 1,800 full-color lines of resolution. The HD LED, called the Crown Video Dispay, is 105-feet tall and is topped with the Kansas City Royals’ golden crown. The 2008 upgrade also includes a ribbon board incorporated into the fence in left field, which will be used to display scores from other games in progress.

Daktronics will also continue to implement to MLB teams their StatVision software. StatVision software will be used by three new teams this season including the Oakland
Athletics, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Philadelphia Phillies. The StatVision software was used by 11 major league teams during the 2007 season and was also used during the MLB Winter Meetings. StatVision directly ties into the MLB mainframe for situation statistics. StatVision software allows scoreboard operators to quickly choose from a list of relevant statistics to display with the click of a button. StatVision provides statistics for any situation and content is changeable on the fly.

Both the Diamondbacks and Royals scoreboards are utilizing Daktronics HD-X technology. “HD-X technology provides improved contrast and really makes colors pop more in the sunlight,” adds Steinkamp. “HD-X also provides improved ultra-wide viewing angles for those seated far from the display,” says Steinkamp.

Daktronics is already working on the 2009 season, where it will have scoreboards installed at the new homes of the New York Yankess and New York Mets.