The Illini turned on the new 96′ by 36′ video display at Memorial Stadium Friday. The Illini Productions video crew was able to do some testing on the main board in the south end zone. The frame around the video display is still getting the finishing touches, and the new sound system is not quite ready to go yet, but there’s still plenty of time to get everything up and running before the Aug. 31 season-opener.
When the Illini take on Southern Illinois.
The Illini will have one of the most state of the art video displays in college football. Two LED ribbon displays each measure over 420 feet in length and are fastened to the front of the east and west balconies, while the two auxiliary video displays – one in the Southeast corner and one in the Northeast corner – measure about 17′ wide by 10′ tall.
The old video board, which was originally installed in the North end zone in 2002 before being moved to the South end in 2007, measured 39′ wide by 22′ feet tall, making the new display over four times larger (3,456 square feet vs. 858 square feet). The size of the new main board ranks in the top 25 among NCAA video displays.
The new Memorial Stadium video board in action! #Illini https://t.co/dXGJpvSAj2
— Illinois Football (@IlliniFootball) July 26, 2013
Big fella looks great! RT @IlliniFootball: Photo of the new video board from the north end zone #Illini pic.twitter.com/tCyFKsOLI2
— Illinois Athletics (@IlliniAthletics) July 26, 2013
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, a Fox Sports affiliate. He is also an analyst for 95.7 The Fan, and writes on Chicago sports media for Chicago Now. President Obama follows him on Twitter (@PaulMBanks), like him on Facebook