Update: High School Video Boards Just Got Bigger

As the saying goes, things really are bigger in Texas. In its August issue, Athletic Business reported on high schools in Minnesota, Tennessee and Wisconsin that are among the first in their states to erect large video boards that rely heavily on sponsorship revenue. Then came word late last month out of Carthage, Texas - a small city of fewer than 7,000 residents located on the Louisiana border - of what Carthage ISD athletic director Scott Surratt calls "the biggest screen in the world in high schools."

Measuring 44 feet wide by 26 feet tall - that's 1,200 square feet, the size of a small house! - the high-resolution, full-color LED video display screen weighs 10,000 pounds and is part of a new scoreboard, manufactured and installed by Nevco, that stands 50 feet tall and spans 58 feet from end to end. The unit cost $750,000, and ISD voters approved the expenditure by a 68.6 percent margin in a recent bond election, according to the Longview News-Journal. Carthage's Bulldog Booster Club has already sold more than $35,000 in annual video advertising and sponsorships.

The new screen, which debuted at Bulldog Stadium during Carthage's home opener on Aug. 31, can show live-action video, instant replays, live crowd shots, crowd-energizing graphics and animations, and advertisements. It utilizes four cameras and commemorates Carthage High's three consecutive state football championships between 2008 and 2010. According to the News-Journal, students in the school's acclaimed broadcast journalism program will be among the eight people operating the new scoreboard, which is supported by a base buried 23 feet below the football field's surface.

09_Carthage.jpgNevco "It's something we can say we have that nobody else does," Shannon Baldree, a 35-year-old Carthage teacher who wears football-shaped earrings told The Wall Street Journal. "It's a point of pride." Added Nevco salesman Wes Wood, "I can guarantee there's someone out there that is saying, 'We can't let Carthage have the biggest [video board] in the nation.' "

By November, Houston's Toyota Center (located approximately 200 miles southwest of Carthage) will have what the NBA's Houston Rockets call the largest indoor center-hung scoreboard in the United States, offering patrons an unprecedented view of the action at Rockets home games and the 2013 NBA All-Star Game. "The video board at Cowboys Stadium is obviously larger ... but the roof at that facility opens so we guess it doesn't count," wrote Houston Press blogger Richard Connelly.

According to Rockets.com, the new board is the literal centerpiece of a sweeping arena-wide improvements project that also includes the installation of new HD flat-panel screens in concourses. The Panasonic board is expected to be operational in time for the Rockets' regular-season home opener against the Portland Trailblazers on Nov. 3. It will provide a video image that is more than 600 percent larger than the previous scoreboard that had been used since the building opened in 2003.

0912_ToyotaCenter.jpgRockets.comThe new unit will contain four large screens; two rectangular-shaped displays measuring approximately 25 feet high by 58 feet wide will face the east and west seating areas, and a pair of 25-foot-square screens will face the north and south ends of the bowl. Plans also include the installation of ancillary boards in each of the four corners of the upper concourse that will be used to display additional statistics during Rockets games and other sporting events.