Loading...Hello, and welcome to this edition of Electric TV, powered by The NECA/ IBEW Team, constructions finest electricians and electrical contractors.
Televisions, like this one, are everywhere in our lives today. Instead of trying to find one with the game one, you’d be hard pressed to go anyplace where there isn't one.
The TV- a main contributing factor for football and America’s growth and popularity, was once thought of the beginning of the end of the ‘Stadium Experience.’
But, on this NFL themed edition of Electric TV, we’ll tell you why, after coming to this realization, NFL franchises are doing whatever they can to reverse this trend, giving fan’s the best of both worlds on game day.
When the Jacksonville Jaguars invite thousands of guests into their home on game day, the preparations look like that of any other NFL franchise.
Except when it comes to their scoreboards.
This off season, the Jaguars installed not one, but two here at EverBank Field.
They’re not just the biggest in sports, they’re the biggest anywhere in the world. Sorry, Dallas Cowboys Fans.
And they were installed by NECA contractor Miller Electric and IBEW Local 177.
Each are sixty feet tall. And 366 feet long. Here’s what that means in real terms.
366 feet is longer than the 100-yard field below.
Each board is made up of 15,000 individual modules.
And with a total of 35 million LED’s, when the power is put to them, their picture qualities, in a word, blow your tiny flat screen, measured in inches, outta’ the water.
Mark Lamping- President, Jacksonville Jaguars
“The video board, strategically, is designed to ensure that the in game experience for NFL fans is uniquely different, is compelling, it gives people a reason to perhaps leave their home, because they know that those things that are important to them at home, they’ll still be able to get inside an NFL stadium.”
Larry Rosen- Executive Producer of Game Day Productions, Jacksonville Jaguars
“This is fundamentally four different high-def images stitched together and created on top of one another to make that wide canvas. If you’re looking from the farthest part of the stadium with one of our lenses at a player on the field, you can see individual mustache hairs of that player from several hundred feet away clearly, clear as day, as if we were 18 inches from one another.”
As giant as these boards are, they had a rather narrow installation timeline.
The NFL season would begin-with or without them. Enter Miller Electric and its IBEW crew.
Mark Lamping- President, Jacksonville Jaguars
“They can get that high-quality job done on time, they can get that high quality job done within the financial parameters that are established up front, and they can be a responsible company. And they can make sure that the workers that they bring to the job are well trained, highly motivated, positive members of the community. Quite honestly we weren't surprised to find that with Miller and the employees through IBEW.”
Kevin Tighe- Executive Director, North Florida Chapter NECA
“A project like this could not afford to not have union electricians on the job, and NECA contractors.”
Russell Harper- Business Manager, IBEW Local 177
“We have members that are trained from everything from doing the heavy construction to doing the voice and data, all of it plays together and our members know how to do it.”
Kevin Tighe- Executive Director, North Florida Chapter NECA
“We’ve developed the classification of CWEC, which are Construction Wiremen and Construction Electricians. And by using them as well as our journey men and our foreman, we are able to bring our composite rate down to be extremely competitive with our nonunion contractors.”
David Long- President, Miller Electric Company
“Once we got the thrilling news that we were going to be a part of the team of doing it, we had an internal meeting where we had our Senior Vice President of Construction Operations, we had our Vice President that heads up the stadiums, and then we had our Project Manager on and we had the Superintendent Clint Snyder and some other folks in the room the number one to find out what the project consisted of as far as labor wise, what could we prefab before we came to the stadium, what things could we do methodically behind the scenes that would help make it successful.”
Dave Rolison- General Foreman, IBEW Local 177
“Job went well, we went in it with about 45 men of the job. We had a short timeframe to finish it in, the guys did a real good job of bringing it in on time.”
John Powers- Project Manager, IBEW Local 177
“We have miles of cables in each individual scoreboard. There is over 390 8 foot by 10 foot thousand pound modules that make up one panel of this display, and each one has a 30 amp circuit and also has a fiber optic cable, and those cables come back to a head end within each board, and then has a home run of fiber optic that runs back to the control room, and that’s how they communicate and talk to each other throughout the building.”
Mark Lamping- President, Jacksonville Jaguars
“I would say it’s the equivalent of the fans, big screen, the second screen that they’re using to keep track of NFL Red Zone, and the smart phone that they are using to keep track of out of town scores, if the board is big enough you have the ability and capacity to communicate all of that.”
David Long- President, Miller Electric Company
“As a fan, it’s awesome. I get to bring my family here. I get to bring my friends here. I get to bring clients here. I get to bring associates and say I was a part of something that’s never been done before and it brings so much to the Jaguar spirit. There’s not a fan anywhere in the NFL that’s going to get the experience that they get here looking at these boards, watching the game, it’s exciting.”
Mark Lamping- President, Jacksonville Jaguars
“You know we could not have been happier with the quality of work that was exhibited and I think it shows in terms of the performance of the boards.”
The comforts of home are great, but so too is the experience of live, in person action. That will never go away. At least that’s the hope of every sports franchise no matter the sport. In Jacksonville, it’s the best of both worlds. Unlike anything else, or anywhere else on the planet. For Electric TV, I’m Dominic See you next time.