Over the past few years of watching European soccer (especially EPL) I have noticed that not many stadiums have big videobaords with jumbo trons. I noticed that many German stadiums have these but I have only seen them at Arsenal, ManU, and Tottenham. Is this an American thing to have jumbo trons at stadiums or is it a money issue for many of these clubs to install them?
I have no idea the real answer but I suspect it has something to do with the age of the stadiums rather then it being a particularly "American" thing. The older stadiums might not have had a good place to install these huge things. Also, many English stadiums had to spend a lot of money converting to all seaters in order to keep themselves in the premiership in the early 90's. That probably ate up the funds for such things as jumbotrons.
i've been to stadiums in portugal, particularly the new ones...they all have big screens...they always have graphics up, because during games, they are not allowed to show replays and such
Yeah I know all the new stadiums do and will but why can't they put them in older stadiums, we did it in America (Yankee Stadium, Lambeau, MSG, LA Collesium, Texas Stadium)? Can they not show replays because if there is a controversial call the crowd will go nuts if what they thought was confirmed by the screen? If that is the case all sports in America just have rules saying the refs can't look at the big screens or they will be fined or fired.
While Big Screen Scoreboards are nice they aren't really needed, Home 2 Away 0 doesn't take up that much room.
They are plentiful here in the Premiership and they do show the action replays as well. I was at Stamford Bridge on the day the Grand National (horse race) was run and they showed that at half-time, while my horse was leading, but they switched it off about half a mile form home, as the second-half started! They won't show anything contraversial and they limit the coverage to goals/near misses!
we don't even have a scoreboard up here at St. James' people keep asking for one, but if ur to dumb to remember what the score is when your sitting there watching it then theres no need for you to be there. )
Money/not giving a crap. As long as you don't have them you really don't need them. When we movedto the arena in 1996 I can't say I was happy with them and I'm still not. Mainly because the of the 'Philips' name they carry, but the arena has always been a messed up pile of crap in that sense. Sometimes they can be handy for watching a replay... but I can't imagine it's worth the money of installing them. In the end I'd rather see them gone.
I think they have their uses, as they give you a different perspective and you can see things you may missed in the flash of the moment - but on the other hand, while you're watching them, your eyes are off the game and they don't follow it in real-time!
They show replays when the play stops for whatever reason as far as I know... they have their use but frankly I think they're a waste of money. What you see on the pitch is what you get in the end. When it's over, nobody cares about wrong calls caught in a replay on the 'jumbotron' or whatever... there's just a result.
I think Rangers have two of the biggest Jumbotron screens in Europe, but in fairness they just take up valuable space where there should be more seats. Also, the club rent these screens out (who to, I don't know) during the summer months. Sometimes we don't even have them back for the start of the season and there are just two gaping black holes to stare at at half-time!
No clock either, it keeps the players minds on the game, they can't look at the clock and see 2 mins left and think its all over. I personally don't see the point in screens all they do is take up space and cost money that they arn't going to make back
IIRC Villa has a screen in the corner of the stadium. They didn't show replays at the game I attended but they did show highlights from around the league at half time (something I'm still pushing for in Columbus). I don't remember ones at Brum City or Leicester (they might) but I wasn't really looking. They are not as useful as they are in American football since the game never stops. I only find them useful after a goal to get a different viewpoint.
I've seen some "screens" at European games where there wasn't a screen at all. The TV folk just superimposed a screen on top of the crowd. (For example, a corner kick will have half of your screen as the kicker, the top half showing the corner of the stadium and the crowd). You can tell this when it just doesn't "look like" it was part of the main picture, and sometimes they'll take this "screen" off the air a second or two before they switch the camera shot away. BTW, in the rugby matches on FSW, the video screen is used to give the ruling of a replay review. (It goes from "replay, call pending" to "TRY" or "NO TRY - 20-meter restart.") About 2-3 years ago, an article in Sports Illustrated discussed that the more modern convienences you put into a stadium, the faster it "gets old" and has to be replaced. Some stadiums from the 20's with little bells and whistles still stand, while those from the 70's and 80's are being demolished. ("Modern conveinences" mean video boards, luxury boxes, restaurants, ...)
The team (and the team's supporters) that was on the bad end of those wrong calls certainly cares. If there's a bad call, a bad call that affected the match, then fans of both teams deserve to know this, regardless of the fact that the result won't change. Human error is always going to be a part of the Game, but there's no reason for fans of teams who were deprived of a point by that error to also be deprived of evidence that they were done wrong.
In Frankfurt we used to have a giant one for about 15 years or so. At the moment teh stadium is rebuilt, so we only have a very little scopreboard at oen of the cranes, but int he new stadium we will have one of those giant cubes, hanging from the roof in the middle... Cant say that youd really need one... A clock would do for me.... THose giant screens are nice but really nto necessary. I guess since the Galaxy is also playing Football in this stadium it makes sense to put that cube there, but for soccer its really no need...
Ewood Park has one tucked away in the corner; I have a nice picture of it from my visit there, reading Blackburn 1, Manchester United 0.
Albion had the first set of widescreen er, screens in the UK installed at The Hawthorns two years ago. Apparantly the extra advertising revenue pays for the cost of the screens down our way.
When United where developing the end stands, they looked at building in 'big screens' to replece the old scoreboards. They opted, instead, for replacing the existing scoreboard with slightly larger, multi-coloured versions. Big screens have not had much of an impact in the English game, they are nice additions, but if a ground does not have them, they are not missed.