Venue News: Duke’s Wallace Wade Stadium Slated for Renovation; Minnesota Governor Threatens to Halt Stadium Deal

Compiled by Karen Hogan, Associate Editor, Sports Video Group

The recently announced renovations to Wallace Wade Stadium will begin at the end of the 2013 season and be completed before the start of the 2014 season, Duke football coach David Cutcliffe told members of the Raleigh Sports Club on Wednesday. Last month, Duke announced a $3.25 billion, university-wide capital campaign named Duke Forward. Of that sum, $250 million has been earmarked for athletic facilities improvements, with Wallace Wade the central focus of those plans. By the time the 2014 season starts, the track will be gone, the field will be lowered, and the façade of the stadium will be bricked in a style that matches the rest of the campus…

…The Vikings could eventually be back in play for L.A. As the team’s new stadium moves from blueprint to bricks and mortar, the politician who helped push the deal through a reluctant legislature isn’t happy.  And he has threatened in a roundabout way to nix the project. The problems arise from the team’s willingness to play home games in London while the new stadium is being constructed, along with the notion that a portion of the team’s contribution toward the stadium costs could be raised via season-ticket holders…

…America’s pastime is headed to the Alamodome. It’s the story that no one ever thought possible — baseball in a dome that wasn’t built for it — but the Texas Rangers aim to change that for a weekend in March, before the 2013 Major League Baseball season begins. Officials with the Rangers and its Triple-A affiliate are slated to announce Friday a deal with the city to play exhibition games on a Friday and Saturday in March. The dome wasn’t built to hold a baseball field. It’s longer than it is wide because of railroad tracks that run along its eastern wall. But a “short porch” — a left- or right-field wall closer than normal ballparks — could make for exciting games with plenty of home runs…

…When the Carolina Panthers put the finishing touches on the HD upgrade to its in-house video control room, just in time for the start of the 2012 NFL football season, it turned to Nucomm’s CamPac2 (CP2) wireless camera system for its wireless transmission needs. The Panthers purchased two complete RF systems, including Nucomm‘s CP2 camera-mounted transmitters and DR2 diversity receivers with camera control. The new RF system, along with a custom remote-location antenna mounting, provides the team with reliable, solid wireless coverage throughout Bank of America Stadium, including in locations not previously accessible. The Carolina Panthers employ the two CP2 systems during in-house game-day video presentations as well as sideline game coverage…

…Green is more than a team color for the Philadelphia Eagles. By the end of the year the team’s stadium, Lincoln Financial Field, will generate enough energy from 14 wind turbines and 11,000 solar panels to power every home game. Construction of the wind turbines was to be completed this week. The 15-feet-tall structures were installed atop the north and south ends of the stadium, in direct view of the nearly 70,000 fans entering the “Linc” and the countless drivers passing the complex on I-95. A canopy of solar panels shields tailgaters in Parking Lot K from the elements with installation continuing around the exterior of the stadium’s south side and above some bleacher seats. Of the 126 professional sports teams in the five major professional North American leagues, 38 teams have shifted to renewable energy for at least some of their operations.