New Cardinals home a ‘moving’ experience

By Andrew Lippe

When the NFL s Arizona Cardinals began their 2006 campaign on August 12 against the Pittsburgh Steelers it marked a new beginning for a franchise that ever since its move to the desert has searched for an identity.

Helping with that efforts is Cardinals Stadium, the new 63,000 seat home of the team. While the fans focus on the action on the field two large end-zone scoreboards with Daktronics ProStar VideoPlus technology will keep them on top of the action.

The $5.1 million scoreboard projecthas two massive video displays. The south end-zone scoreboard display measures approximately 28 feet high by 97 feet wide (8.10m x 29.44m) with a Pure Pixel Resolution is 288 x 528 on 23 mm spacing and has 152,064 full-color LED pixels. The north end-zone video display measures approximately 23-feet high x 41-feet wide (6.62m x 12.14m) and has a Pure Pixel resolution is 352 x 1280 on 23 mm spacing and has 450,560 million full-color LED (light emitting diode) pixels. The LEDs make it possible to create displays bright enough for outdoor use.
“Our stadium is multipurpose,” says Scott Norton director of sales and marketing for Global Spectrum at Cardinals Stadium.
Cardinals Stadium incorporates two large end-zone scoreboards featuring Daktronics ProStar VideoPlus technology.
Both scoreboards feature 4.4 trillion color capabilities, split-screen picture in picture capability, wide screen aspect ratio, and live scoring. Each of the electronic displays is lined with channel letter advertising signage via two displays each measuring approx. 3-feet high by 300-feet wide (.92m x 92m). They have a 40×4,000 Pure Pixel resolution on 23 mm spacing and 1.35 million full-color LED pixels.


The four full-color LED displays have a total of 2.8 million pixels, comprised of 8.3 million total light emitting diodes. Additional components include All Sport game in progress control consoles, Venus 7000 controllers, V-Link video processors that assist in the displaying data from the NFL’s official statistics provider and other sports data from a wire service.

Moving Field
Designed by world-renowned architect Peter Eisenman, along with HOK Sport and Hunt Construction Group the design has caught the eye of clients, promoters, event planners, and team owners. For example, the stadium itself covers 1.7 million square feet of space and has the first fully functional moveable natural grass playing field in North America.
The grass field is attached to a 3.5-foot deep, 18 million pound tray that works like a railroad track system. With the push of a button the tray rolls the grass field out of the stadium and into a storage facility using almost 600 wheels and traveling at a speed of 11.5 feet a minute. It will only take 75 minutes to move the rolled out field approximately 741 feet.
The stadium has 88 luxury “lofts” and 12 to 16 luxury suites that break traditional standards.
”Each one contains three plasma screens, each is wifi capable, and every suite also has video conferencing capabilities,” said Norton.
In addition to four fascia displays there are two massive “thermometers” at the south end zone that will estimate crowd noise, and the north scoreboard will display large photos of past players. Also there are murals throughout the stadium of the Arizona landscape.


“Seventy five minutes is a short time, so we have the ability to use our floor for other events,” Norton said. “We have booked trade and communicator shows, eight proms and we anticipate 80 events in a 120 event day schedule.”