UVa getting gargantuan video screen for stadium

University of Virginia football fans will have a big reason to be excited about attending games at Scott Stadium next year.

We’re talking really, really big.

UVa’s Board of Visitors has approved a new video screen for the 60,000-seat stadium that will more than triple the size of the current board.

The new $2.4 million board will be installed in time for the kick-off of the Cavaliers’ fall 2009 schedule.

“It’s going to be a better experience for fans,” said Jon Oliver, UVa’s executive associate director of athletics. “The homerun here is to have people look at the new board and love what they’re seeing.”

The bigger, better and brighter board will be paid for by CBS Collegiate Sports Properties, which has a 10-year, $29 million multimedia agreement with the university’s athletics department. As part of the deal, CBS committed to providing new video boards at UVa’s Klöckner Stadium, Davenport Field and Scott Stadium by Aug. 15, 2009.

The football stadium’s new video board will be 32 feet by 57 feet and will have a substantially higher resolution than the current board. Built in 1998, the existing screen is 21 feet by 28 feet.

By expanding the so-called Hoo Vision’s size, UVa athletics will have additional space for lucrative advertising, as well as spots for statistics during games. Plus, Oliver said, it’ll offer fans an improved view of instant replays, the “Adventures of Cav-Man,” live in-game footage and more.

“It’ll give the fans a better shot of the action,” he said.

The screen’s resolution will exceed the average stadium’s Jumbotron picture, said Randy Dobrinska, director of project management for CBS Outdoor Digital. Using LED technology, the screen’s images will have 20 millimeters between pixels. A typical arena’s screen has 25 millimeters between pixels, he said.

“This is going to be a little bit bigger than normal and will have a little better resolution than normal,” he said. “It’s going to be bigger and have a clearer and brighter picture.”

The board will be manufactured by Taiwan-based Opto Tech, which made UVa’s original video board 11 seasons ago.

Though bigger than before, UVa’s new screen will still be dwarfed by a few other college stadiums. Auburn University debuted its new 30 foot by 74 foot, high-definition screen last fall. And at the University of Texas at Austin’s stadium, fans watch the Longhorns play on a 134 by 55 foot screen that is nicknamed the Godzillatron.

“We’re not trying to join the arms race of having the biggest board possible,” Oliver said. “We think this one will be a nice fit for Scott Stadium.”

The new Hoo Vision screen will not be high-definition. Oliver said he felt that HD would not be worth the higher price tag.

Such massive screens can pay huge dividends when it comes to recruiting top-level players, said Nathan Toma-sini, interim director of Virginia Commonwealth Uni-versity’s SportsCenter, a graduate program in sports leadership.

“It’s that wow factor for an 18-year-old student athlete,” Tomasini said. “When these kids see themselves standing 20-feet tall on a screen, that’s a major selling point.”