Tech This Out

Aviators take the fan experience to new heights (and widths) with one-of-a-kind LED scoreboard

It’s one thing to commit the time, effort and funds to construct a new minor-league baseball stadium. It’s an entirely different thing to commit to sparing no expense to ensure that your new stadium is state-of-the-art from top to bottom and all points in between.

Needless to say, the Howard Hughes Corporation (owners of the Las Vegas Aviators) chose the latter route when planning the brand-new Las Vegas Ballpark. From mesh seats that make a mid-summer night at the ballyard much more comfortable to a swimming pool beyond the right-field wall to a party deck and kids’ zone, every part of Las Vegas Ballpark was designed with a single goal in mind: Enhance the fan experience.

Part of achieving that goal meant going all-in on a massive, one-of-a-kind LED video scoreboard that stretches from the left-field line to center field. Designed and manufactured by Daktronics—a South Dakota-based company that has been a world leader in audiovisual systems since 1968—the scoreboard measures about 31 feet high by 126 feet wide and features a 13HD pixel layout.

Among its many unique features, the scoreboard was constructed to follow the contour of the outfield wall, so as the wall angles near center field so too does the scoreboard. Internally, the scoreboard was designed with flexibility in mind—it can display one large image or be divided into multiple zones to show various types of content.

“The size of the board and the Daktronics control system will offer the Aviators and their fans a tremendous amount of entertainment options,” says Will Ellerbruch, national sales manager for Daktronics. “The Aviators will have access to many different zones on the display that can show live video, scoring, stats, data and much more to keep the fans up-to-date and engaged.”

Daktronics’ innovative video displays can be seen in stadiums and arenas across the globe, including Coors Field (home of the Colorado Rockies), Angel Stadium (home of the Los Angeles Angels) and Mercedes-Benz Stadium (home of the Atlanta Falcons and site of this year’s Super Bowl). They also can be seen all over Southern Nevada, where Daktronics has installed more than three dozen displays, from Henderson to the Strip to Downtown Summerlin.

The company’s latest Southern Nevada creation at Las Vegas Ballpark has a surface area of 3,930 square feet, making it the largest scoreboard Daktronics has built for a minor-league stadium—in fact, it’s larger than the main video displays at seven Major League Baseball venues. To put the board’s size into perspective, it would take more than 400 60-inch TVs to cover the main display, and it stands six feet taller than the Welcome to Las Vegas sign.

Besides the huge outfield scoreboard, Daktronics also designed the Las Vegas Ballpark ribbon that stretches across the top of the scoreboard, as well as an LED display that greets fans at the ballpark’s entrance. In all, the three Daktronics-designed elements feature more than 3.7 million LEDs and cover more than 4,700 square feet.

“When we first sat down at the drawing board, we decided that everything about Las Vegas Ballpark was going to be first-class,” says Don Logan, president and chief operations officer for the Aviators. “That meant partnering with the world’s leading scoreboard manufacture to create a scoreboard that we truly believe is second-to-none for a sports venue this size. Much like everything else in the stadium, we think our fans are going to love it.”