Spartan Stadium scoreboard renderings revealed

The State News was the first to get ahold of these renderings from MSU. The Board of Trustees is expected to vote on whether or not to proceed with the construction at a meeting Friday.

MSU has since tweeted out the renderings on its football Twitter account.

According to The State News: "The system is expected to cost $10 million and be funded through sponsorships and other areas, according to the documents."

If approved, they're expected to be completed by the start of next season.

Overall, it's about what I expected, and of course it looks nice. This has been a needed upgrade to Spartan Stadium. Having a bigger screen in the south end zone clearly helps all viewers. The north screens are smaller, but by splitting them and putting them in the corners, it keeps the view of campus. Notice the ribbon below the north screens. As shown in the image below, that could be the biggest revenue in terms of ads. 

I'm curious if the screen image in the south screen will be at all accurate. I'm a big fan of having the game stats on the screen. 

What do you think?

Trustees approve stadium scoreboard planning

From The State News:

@thesnews: The MSU Board of Trustees approves for the administration to plan for replacing the scoreboards at Spartan Stadium.

@thesnews: Scoreboards: large one at south endzone, two smaller ones at north on corners not to block campus views. All tentative.

@thesnews: Scoreboards: Deputy Athletics Director Greg Ianni: project will max out at $8M … financing will come from sponsorships, other areas.
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It should be noted this approval is for the planning process. The trustees will still have to approve the construction after the planning.

I was curious how they would plan around the view of campus in the north end zone. So by the end of this, Spartan Stadium will look a bit like a horseshoe. No taxpayer money will be used, it appears. This is all coming from the athletic department. The hope is to have it finished by the Boise State opener.
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UPDATE: The Lansing State Journal got an idea of what MSU is hoping for: a 10-foot video wall in the north end zone. Remember the screen at the U2 concert at Spartan Stadium? The one that turned this into this? Well, that may be a possibility, apparently (on a much smaller scale, of course).

Ianni said he will return to the board in January with a proposal. As President Lou Anna K. Simon put it, the size of a scoreboard can affect public opinion.

New stadium scoreboards could be on the way

The long-awaited dream of new scoreboards at Spartan Stadium could move one step forward on Friday.

According to the Detroit Free Press, the MSU Board of Trustees will be asked to approve the start of a planning process for an $8 million upgrade to the scoreboards and sound system on Friday. The current setup, which has one video board in the south end zone and a message board in the north end zone, was installed in 1998 and is outdated in comparison to most other Big Ten stadiums.

This summer, the image below began circulating around the internet about being a possible upgrade. But that image has a video board in the north end zone and MSU senior associate athletics director Greg Ianni told the Lansing State Journal much of the design has not been determined.

Ianni told the LSJ there would be "no comparison" to the current boards and that the new boards would be different than the new ones at Michigan Stadium.

Ianni said the hope is to have them done by the 2012 opener against Boise State, but there still are hurdles to get over. An important point from the Freep, the boards will be paid for by the athletic department. I think recent $1 million donations from Tom Izzo and Magic Johnson have helped bring this closer to reality.

The website that released the above rendering no longer has it up. Instead, a Spartan logo with "Coming Soon" is shown.

I think a larger video board should be in the north end zone. The north end zone stands hold the fewest amount of people and the sun usually is near the south end zone, sometimes making it hard to see the current board. A north end zone board would cover up some tree scenery, but the south end zone is affected more by wind, and I think it's a sacrifice fans would be willing to make.