More Than Just Muscle: The technology behind Philadelphia's Sports Stations

By Chintan Desai, Triangle Writer

In two of the most popular sports in America, football and baseball, the turnover rate for stadiums for professional teams has risen incredibly. With the building of new stadiums and reliance upon stadiums as an economic growth mechanism for cities, much technology and engineering is required to create these technological wonders that were once just built for the sole purpose of playing the game. New stadiums bring new innovations to the field and to the fans. Two of the professional teams in Philadelphia have built two brand-new stadiums in the past 5 two years, the Eagles in Lincoln Financial Field and the Phillies in Citizens Bank Park. These stadiums are a significant upgrade from the notorious Veterans Stadium that housed both the Phillies and the Eagles.

Lincoln Financial Field

The total cost of Lincoln Financial Field came out to nearly $512 million dollars with the Philadelphia Eagles footing 64% of that bill and the rest by the public. The new stadium seats 68,532 people. Some of the marvels at “the Linc”, as it is referred to, are the two gigantic 27 ft x 96 ft HDTV, flat screen technology boards situated at each end zone of the field. The boards are used to display scores, replays, and other announcements to the fans. They came at a cost of more than $8 million dollars. The two largest video screens of any NFL stadium in the country, each screen multiplies the size of their predecessor “Phanavision Screens” that were used at their former residence, Veterans Stadium. Also, there are flat screen boards that go around the width of the field between the upper and lower seating areas, each capable of displaying 68 billion shades of color.

The sound system consists of hundreds of speakers placed at specific locations throughout the stadium to create a surround-sound effect for every seat in the stadium. The sound system also allows specific sections to be messaged during games and in case of an emergency. There are 20 foot steel “talons” located at the top of the stadium to serve an aesthetical purpose for the talons of an eagle and have speakers attached them to provide sound to the end-zone seats. The sound system and roof were designed to send the noise back into the stadium in order to provide a louder experience for the fans and opposing teams that visit the “Linc”.

Even the playing surface is not an ordinary sod grass field. It’s a combination of natural grass and synthetic fibers. The top layer consists of Kentucky bluegrass grown at a turf farm New Jersey. However, artificial fibers were also sewn into the grass to make it stronger and more durable. Nearly 20 million synthetic fibers were injected into the turf 8 inches deep to prolong the life of the grass on the field and help anchor the roots of the grass by being attached to the artificial fibers in a process known as the DD Grassmaster system. Below the grass/fiber combination, there is a drainage and irrigation pipe system which keeps the field dry. In order to preserve the grass during cold weather, there is a heating system below the field that consists of 28 miles of plastic piping. An antifreeze mixture consisting of water and glycol is pumped through the pipes via computer to keep the grass at a temperature of about 60 degrees in the winter. In addition to all these layers, the Eagles also had a SubAir airflow system installed to aerate the grass and soil, leading to denser and healthier grass. All of these improvements kept in mind that the Veterans Stadium’s Astroturf surface was dubiously known as one of the worst fields in the league. The complex technology and engineering used for the new stadium is a significant improvement over the old turf, which was often referred to as the “hard-as-concrete” artificial turf.

In addition to all the amenities and technology used to improve the stadium, concessions and sales are made more convenient and quicker for the fans through the PowerPay system. Essentially, the PowerPay system is similar to the EZ-Pass system used for tolls and the Mobile Speedpass system. PowerPay is a plastic tag that has a tiny antenna and a radio-frequency ID chip embedded inside. When the key is swiped in front of a special reader at the concession stands, it matches the tag number with a consumer’s credit card number on file. The wireless payment system allows fans to spend less time waiting in line for concessions and more time watching the game.

In order to manage this entire network of marketing concessions, stadium maintenance, and information communication, the Eagles hired Harbor Technologies to design and help manage a state-of-the-art computer and communications network for Lincoln Financial Field. The network connects more than 1000 devices such as turnstiles, food service, and ticketing booths. The network can handle 345 million packets per second and provides two gigabits of bandwidth across a fiber optic network. Different departments of the stadium are split up into different virtual networks that allows for all the networks to be managed by one system but secure enough so that individual departments only have access to their respective divisions. Harbor Technologies is also building a wireless network that will connect the Linc with the Eagles practice facility, the NovaCare Complex, located about 400 yards away. This wireless network has a speed of nearly 430-megabits per second.

Citizens Bank Park

The total cost of Citizens Bank Park came out to nearly $458 million dollars with the Philadelphia Phillies footing $172 million dollars of the bill and the rest by the public. The seating capacity of the stadium is 43,500 people. Bud Selig, commissioner of Major League Baseball, said “This is Philadelphia, and it has everything that a ballpark ought to have here. It’s unique. It has a style of its own. It’s spectacular.”

The scoreboard is the largest display in the National League at approximately 35 x 71 ft. It uses full-color LED technology and is accompanied by smaller LED screens distributed around the park that informs the fans of pitch speed and type and displays advertising messages, graphics and animation. At any given time, fans can check on statistics from other games concurrently going such as scores, current pitchers, outs, and the number of runners in scoring positions.

In addition to the scoreboards and video screens, the Phillies installed nearly 700 TV’s within the stadium to allow those fans that are not in visible distance of the scoreboard to see the highlights of the game. 20” tube TV’s were installed in the concession areas and outside seating , 42” HD plasma displays were installed in the premium seating areas such as the club restaurants, and the club suites were outfitted with 15” LCD screens and plasma TV’s for private viewing of highlights. All of these components lead to a fan-friendly stadium where the fans don’t miss a single play of the game even when they are in line for concessions or finding their seat inside the park. Similar to the Linc, the field is a significant improvement over the Astroturf used at Veterans Stadium. The field is made up of 100% Kentucky bluegrass grown in New Jersey.

In order to manage a telecommunications system in the park, all 1000 concessions vendors and team front offices are connected in a single telephone system. Also, a separate network provides high-speed internet access to several locations in the park such as the press boxes for the media and the luxury box suites. Comcast also installed a 6000 feet fiber optic cable connected to Citizens Bank Park to help it broadcast in 5.1 surround sound mixes of the major sports events at nearby sports complexes

Franklin Field

Penn’s own Franklin Field, where the Eagles once played and the permanent home of the Quakers, underwent an overhaul of its playing surface this past summer of July 2004. AstroTurf had been the primary playing surface of the Quakers since 1970. The old and worn down AstroTurf was replaced by Sprinturf. Sprinturf is an all rubber infill system that feels like natural grass but is much softer and safer than Astroturf. The new surface has more give slack and thus is softer and safer for athletes and has a good drainage system below the field and around the perimeter of the field. The new field is a significant improvement over the old AstroTurf system that was also phased out from the Eagles, Phillies.

Technology

Jeffrey Lurie, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, said “Lincoln Financial Field will bring fans so much closer to the action as well as provide them with dramatically improved sight lines and the most state-of-the-art amenities and services. In terms of technological enhancements, the stadium represents a world of difference from what fans have experienced at Veterans Stadium and even from what is available in some of the newest facilities around the country.” The stadiums of yesterday, such as Veterans Stadium, are replaced by the newer age of stadiums where technology, engineering, and science are harnessed to create an entertainment center that is fan friendly and safer for players.