technology

In 2010, see TDs in HD at M&T

LIZ FARMER
Daily Record Business Writer
July 17, 2009 7:42 PM

By next football season, Ravens fans will be able to enjoy instant replays and team videos in high definition at M&T Bank Stadium as the stadium’s landlord has started the search for a contractor to build Proposals to replace the SmartVision screens at M&T Bank Stadium are due to the Maryland Stadium Authority by the end of July.two new video boards.

This month, the Maryland Stadium Authority issued a Request for Proposals to replace the video boards at the stadium and hosted a meeting for applicant contractors last week. The proposals are due at the end of the month and the work would begin immediately following the 2009 season, according to Roy Sommerhof, vice president of stadium operations.

According to the RFP, the video board should be finished by May 2010 and testing the new board with the new control room will take place during that summer to be ready in time for the first regular season home game next year.

The stadium authority recently finished overseeing a $9.1 million high definition video board and control room project at its neighboring property, Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

The long road to uncertainty

LIZ FARMER
Daily Record Business Writer
May 14, 2009 6:57 PM

On a typical Saturday at Pimlico Race Course, longtime Maryland horse racing reporter Dale Austin could walk into the racetrack’s press box and find it flooded with at least 25 or 30 reporters.

“Pimlico was a red-hot place, the hottest in the East,” said Austin, who covered racing for The Baltimore Sun for 29 years. “You could go up to a window in Washington to get a ticket the day of a Redskins game, and, except for Opening Day, you couldn’t fill up the ballpark for baseball games. But there’d be 20,000 people at the racetrack in Maryland.”

But that was in 1962.

And since that time, perhaps the only thing that the horse racing industry nationwide and in Maryland has done is consistently miss the boat, falling further into obscurity and an uncertain future.

Maryland launches online sports venue directory

LIZ FARMER
Daily Record Business Writer
May 8, 2009 9:04 PM

With the launch of a new online directory detailing the state’s more than 600 sports facilities, officials Left to right, Cal Ripken, Jr., President and CEO of Ripken Baseball; Christian Johansson, Secretary of DBED; Terrance Hasseltine, Director of the Maryland Office of Sports Marketing and John Morton III, Chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority, announce new state online sports venue directory.say Maryland is finally “ready to play” as a destination for world-class sporting events.

“This is a $182 billion industry and is growing annually,” Terrance Hasseltine, the state’s sports marketing director, said at a press conference Friday at Camden Yards. “It’s time we go out for a bigger piece of that proverbial pie.”

Hasseltine was joined in the announcement by Cal Ripken Jr., whose Ripken Baseball operates the largest youth baseball complex in the state, and representatives from the Department of Business and Economic Development and the Maryland Stadium Authority.

Camden Yards' video boards complete HD transition

LIZ FARMER
Daily Record Business Writer
April 1, 2009 6:36 PM

If you thought there was something a little off last year with the footage on the high definition video board at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, you were right — the project was only half finished.

Bryan Krandle, in-game entertainment manager for the Orioles, works the high-definition scoreboard at Camden Yards from the stadium’s new control room.On Tuesday, after two off-seasons of work and an investment of approximately $9.1 million from the Maryland Stadium Authority, team officials unveiled the completed control room, which can now play high definition video and sound.

Last year the new video board went up — replacing the 16-year-old JumboTron — and fans got sharper graphics, but the control room at the park was still only capable of transmitting in standard definition.

“We are now one of 10 teams to be fully high definition-capable, which is an honor,” said Monica Barlow, director of public relations for the Orioles. “This is going to be a great entertainment experience for our fans.”

The Orioles join the Nationals, Mets, Yankees, Braves, Reds, Royals, Marlins, Diamondbacks and Giants in teams with ballparks that are fully HD-capable. The video board for Nationals Park, which opened a year ago, has about twice the square footage of the boards at Camden Yards.