Fresh off another losing season — 7 out of the last 9, for those counting at home — the Seattle Mariners did what any franchise would do following such a run of ineptness: raise season ticket prices without telling anyone. It was the latest installment of the never-ending comedy of errors to trickle out of the Mariners’ front office. But ultimately, the question was why were season ticket prices going up? It appears we may have a partial answer: the Mariners want to turn Safeco Field into the Cowboys Stadium of Major League Baseball.
The Mariners plan to install an 11,425 sq. ft. HD screen, which is ten times the size of the 1999 original it will replace, and only slightly smaller than the screen at Cowboys Stadium (11,520 sq. ft.). The next largest screen in MLB is at Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium, clocking in at a puny 8,820 sq. ft. Here are the specs:
The new Panasonic HD video screen will combine 1080p x 3840 screen resolution and Surface Mount LED technology, which uses more pixels and therefore produces higher quality images. Paired with the latest ANC Sports VisionSOFT operating system, Safeco Field’s new video screen will have image quality that is superior to broadcast HD signals. VisionSOFT is the first 64-bit operating system in large format live event display.
Dave Martinez, Vice President of Marketing, provided the company spin job:
The Mariners are committed to building a winner on the field and providing fans with a great experience at the ballpark. After 13-plus seasons, fans have been asking, ‘When are we going to replace the scoreboard?’ It’s time.
Surely, after zero trips to the playoffs the last eleven of those 13-plus seasons, “scoreboard replacement” was high on the fan priority list. At least now the few thousand fans attending games in 2013 will have another thing to distract them from the putrid on-field product.
via The News Tribune
