Get a first look at the new video boards at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - The new video boards at Michigan Stadium are nearing completion one month before the start of the football season.
The project is four years in the making, with construction beginning in November 2022.
The boards were last upgraded in 2011, and officials said the technology was outdated.
"We decided to replace the video boards at Michigan Stadium because it was time," said associate athletic director Kurt Svoboda. "'Planned obsolescence' is the term in technology. Video boards and the underlying equipment that supports them are really only meant to last 10 years."
The new boards are 70 feet wider and 11 feet taller than the previous screens – expanding the screen size by 118%.
On the inside, 135 video cabinets house the lights that operate the board. Each cabinet weighs between 400 and 800 pounds.
The new columns supporting the boards are 12 feet in diameter, weigh 60 to 70 tons each, and are anchored 65 feet underground.
The $41 million project was funded privately by the athletic department.
"One of the things that we're usually trying to proactively message is the fact that we're a self-sustaining athletic department," said Svoboda. "We receive no revenue from the University of Michigan, no revenue from the state of Michigan. Everything that we do, we have to raise those funds or generate them on our own. And so the money spent on this project was specifically earmarked as such."
To date, a total of 35,000 work hours have been put in by three construction teams on the project.
Once complete, they will be the third largest boards in college football after Auburn and Purdue – both of which only have one board.
"So much work has to still be done on the infrastructure as well as the training of our staff with learning how to operate that equipment, to understand where the different keys are, to zoom in, how to change the screen from one type of screen to another type," said Svoboda. "So, staff are spending a lot of time learning the system right now."
"We enjoyed the old ones, but the new ones are going to be much bigger, much better," said Michigan fan Kel Bennink. "We just love them. I tend to watch a lot of the game on the screens, not the field."
Officials said the screens will be up and running in time for the home opener at East Carolina on Sept. 2.
