Venue News: Lambeau Leaps to Upgraded Fan Experience

The Green Bay Packers this week proposed the NFL version of big-screen, high-definition TV for Lambeau Field. The Packers want to replace the scoreboards at the north and south ends of the stadium with state-of-the-art digital screens on par with those in 24 other stadiums and improve game-related audio in the bowl and club seats. “We can’t take [fan support] for granted, and we need to continue to innovate,” Packers President/CEO Mark Murphy told the Green Bay/Brown County Professional Football Stadium District board on Tuesday. “I think it will be a tremendously positive thing for the stadium and our fans”…

…The University of Southern California is in talks with the state to buy the land beneath the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the adjacent Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. That would make USC the collector of rents for the properties. A representative for USC said the school has a vested interest in preserving the Coliseum, which has hosted two Olympics and is the home field of the USC Trojans football team…

…Los Angeles has been waiting for an NFL team for 15 years. Tim Leiweke, president/CEO of AEG, doesn’t want to wait much longer. He is hoping to reach an agreement with the City of Los Angeles and the NFL for a team to move into a new $1 billion stadium in Downtown Los Angeles in the next three months. “I am very focused on this,” Leiweke said during a luncheon for Central City Association of Los Angeles. “I spend most of every waking hour on the NFL. I’m going to tell you this; we’re going to give this our best shot in the next two to three months”…

…The New Jersey Devils continue to build on a new social-media center at Prudential Center in Newark, preparing to offer hockey fans access to iPads so they can stay connected with online friends and the team’s mobile Website. Devils Arena Entertainment, the team’s arena operator, invested “well into six figures” to build what project officials describe as a digital command center on the venue’s main concourse, with six desktops and six 50-in. HD televisions showing the team’s games, said Rich Krezwick, the group’s president…

…The MLS Houston Dynamo will use and operate a $15 million, 40-acre training complex in Southwest Houston. With construction funded by the city of Houston, the Houston Amateur Sports Park will have seven training fields, including one set aside solely for the Dynamo and its academy. It also will have a 45,000-sq.-ft. facility housing a 5,000-sq.-ft. locker room, a sports-performance center, and a rehab clinic. Ground was broken on the project in January after the city government allocated $8 million to purchase land and then raised $7 million in bond money to pay for construction, which is being overseen by McShane Construction…

…The good news for folks in San Diego? The Chargers will be back in 2011. The bad news? The threat of a move remains very, very real. According to the Associated Press, the Chargers informed San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders this week that the team won’t exercise an escape clause that would allow the franchise to leave Qualcomm Stadium as of 2011. “We decided to make it now, especially given all the rumors that have circulated over the last week or so about Los Angeles,” said Chargers Special Counsel Mark Fabiani. “It seemed to be the right time to do it”…

…The early returns on Bypass Lane, a new smartphone-based plan for ordering food and drink at sports events, have been encouraging, and officials using the system at three big-league facilities are confident it will gain traction as more Americans buy those mobile devices. The Phoenix Coyotes, Carolina Hurricanes, and Texas Rangers are among the six clients now under contract with Bypass. The Austin, TX-based company produces a Web-based service that enables fans to order concessions through their mobile device and pick up the order at an express line set up at the food stand.

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