Eck Stadium scoreboard will give baseball fans a new look (+video)

Eck Stadium enters the video age on Friday when its new scoreboard debuts. Also, the statistical age and movie night.

It is quite an upgrade towering over left field.

Sure, the old scoreboard played video. The video was standard definition and on a screen so small (13 feet by 20 feet) that the images barely registered with fans sitting 400 feet away. The new Daktronics scoreboard is 1,300 square feet of high-definition video space.

“You can read everything — it’s legible,” WSU director of marketing Kayla Blanding said. “The best part for me is getting to see a huge intro video. In past years, it didn’t matter because you can’t see it anyway.”

The press box at Eck Stadium is busy this week with training and installation. The scoreboard, which cost $1.2 million and will be amortized over 10 years by Shocker Sports Properties, will be ready for Friday’s opener against Northern Colorado.

The board is 20.5 feet by 63.5 feet and uses a 15 high definition pixel format. It is, according to Daktronics, one of the five biggest in college baseball and uses the same technology and equipment as Daktronic scoreboards at Wrigley Field and Marlins Park. The Eck Stadium rectangle can be divided into any number of segments to show stats, video, ads and more at the same time.

“We’ll typically have our video somewhere in the middle, and it will be flanked on all side by things like stats, sponsor signage, lineups, data on the pitcher,” said Nick Gnat, a trainer for Daktronics. “We can offer fans a lot more information and insight than what they might have had before.”

Blanding promises the radar gun, to measure the mph of pitches thrown, will work every game. WSU is planning a movie night. All the stats come from official stat monitors, so batting averages will be updated along with the lineups.

“These guys are going to have a lot of capabilities and they can continue to add to the show as they see fit without technology being a limitation,” Gnat said. “It’s basically ready to go right now.”

The Eck Stadium control room is remodeled in the press box, with equipment similar to the room in Koch Arena. The board will use four cameras— home plate, first base, third base and center field — for replays. WSU will use the cameras for its ESPN3.com or other streaming broadcasts. It can produce separate feeds, one for the scoreboard and one for viewers at home.

“This gives them a lot more capability for instant replay,” said Mike Marshall, a broadcast engineer for Alpha Video. “I was at Marlins Park this week and they do basically the same thing. They just have a lot more budget to work with.”

Shockers set rotation — WSU senior Chase Williams will pitch Sunday’s game against Northern Colorado, settling the final piece of the weekend rotation.

Coaches had considered sophomore Cody Tyler for the Sunday start. Instead, they will go with Williams, who threw WSU’s lone complete game in his final start of last season.

Sam Tewes will start Friday’s opener, followed by Willie Schwanke on Saturday.

This story was originally published February 17, 2016 at 4:30 PM with the headline "Eck Stadium scoreboard will give baseball fans a new look (+video)."