Are You Ready for Some Football?– Part Three

Are You Ready for Some Football?– Part Three November 27, 2015

I’ve been saving the best part for last, namely the $46 million dollar score board, which is of course larger than any other one on the planet. By comparison, the old Texas stadium where the Cowboys used to play only cost a mere $45 million to build. Here are two shots to give you some sense of the size of the scoreboard.

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Let’s just hope that little thing never falls on the field when anyone is below. Among the many statistics I could dazzle you with, here is a basic fact sheet courtesy of the good folks at the stadium…

“Center Hung Video Board Fact Sheet
Produced by Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Vision™, each of the four sides of the
center-hung LED display is the world’s largest: 72’ high by 160’ wide equaling
11,520 square feet per side or 23,040 square feet of sideline displays. It would
take 4,920 52” flat panel TVs to equal the size.

Each side consists of the first true 1080 HD display in an NFL stadium-
1080 true pixels in height at 20mm spacing and capable of displaying HDTV at 1920 x 1080 [16:9] resolution.

Each display contains over 10.5 million Light Emitting Diodes’ (LED’s) using
Mitsubishi’s 10mm quad pixel pattern technology. The LED’s are contained
within 5,168 individual lighting units or panels per side or 10,336 total. The video board uses 30 million light bulbs.

The video board weighs 1.2 million pounds and the video screens span 25,670
square feet. The overall weight of the video board structure is more than 3.5
percent of the total roof weight.

To hold the video board in place, a 72-foot tall
steel structure was created that contains a 10-level network of catwalks. Three
-inch diameter steel cables grip each end of the video board and are tethered to the stadium’s large steel box truss arches. The center-hung structure is also designed to support a 90,000 pound basketball arena style scoreboard hung from below when needed for other events.

The only access to the video board is via one of two motorized platforms. The
motorized platforms stop at Levels 1 through 9. Level 10 is the top of the
scoreboard and holds the backlit Cowboys star. These platforms move at a rate
of 30 feet per minute. They are operated from the field when there is nobody in
the board. They are also operable from within the cages themselves when
getting down from the board.”

I could go on and on about the scoreboard. Some folks come to the games and simply watch the scoreboard, especially if they are in the nose bleed seats. The perspectives from the field and each endzone concourse are pretty amazing as well…..dall22dall23

You will notice the Ford sign up there in one of the upper ends of a concourse. There are four major sponsored concourse areas, so if you get bored, you can go to the Ford area, and look at new cars….I’m not kidding…
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I’m thinking that if your spouse is prone to impulse buying when it comes to cars or trucks… it’s probably a bad idea to go see a game in this stadium. After all…..it’ supposed to be about worshipping at the shrine of Texas idolatry— namely football….. where instead of golden calves you find golden helmets to worship….
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