Three stadium observations

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Schnauzer

Schnauzer

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A new season is underway. Three TCF Bank Stadium observations, two related to the competition all stadiums/arenas are engaged in to pull viewers away from their HDTV's...

1. Scoreboard... Overall much improved for the first time. Much more full screen content and replays. With the recent B1G rule change to allow controversial replays on screen, I was expecting more, however. Watching a rebroadcast of the game today shows the folks at home are still getting much more definitive replays on the close calls.

2. Internet access. Dismal failure. I couldn't even check in on Foursquare until the second half. I realize someone will post and say "I had no Internet access issues". I'm happy for you. I have an iPhone 5, I tried any U wifi options available, and it was actually worse than the full-house games of 2009. And I wasn't alone, as nobody in my group had anything better than spotty success connecting to the Internet.

3. This next one is minor, but it has annoyed me since Nebraska entered the conference so I will point it out once per year until it changes. The stadium has 11 flag poles on the north rim. They originally had each team in the conference represented, with the MN flag raised higher in the center pole. When the conference went to 12 teams, they were either too lazy or too cheap to run down to Hardware Hank for a 12th pole, so they just replaced all the flags with Gopher flags. Still waiting for a new flag pole to find its way into the budget.

Anyone else notice any improvements or problems in the stadium as it begins year 5?
 

Whoever was running the scoreboard had no idea what they were doing. Every time I looked up at it to check the down it would say something obscure. I didn't mind too much since I can follow the game well enough in my head, but a lot of people rely on the scoreboard to check the down. It was terrible.
 

The cell phone/internet access really annoyed be yesterday as well. I'm on Verizon and couldn't get internet at all.

I noticed they changed the banners that wrap the fence at the top of the upper level. Instead of having all of the bowls it repeats 7 NC, 18 B1G, MN Football, and of course NIKE

They need fans or something in the bathrooms....holy crap was it hot!
 

Schnauzer said:
A new season is underway. Three TCF Bank Stadium observations, two related to the competition all stadiums/arenas are engaged in to pull viewers away from their HDTV's...

1. Scoreboard... Overall much improved for the first time. Much more full screen content and replays. With the recent B1G rule change to allow controversial replays on screen, I was expecting more, however. Watching a rebroadcast of the game today shows the folks at home are still getting much more definitive replays on the close calls.

2. Internet access. Dismal failure. I couldn't even check in on Foursquare until the second half. I realize someone will post and say "I had no Internet access issues". I'm happy for you. I have an iPhone 5, I tried any U wifi options available, and it was actually worse than the full-house games of 2009. And I wasn't alone, as nobody in my group had anything better than spotty success connecting to the Internet.

3. This next one is minor, but it has annoyed me since Nebraska entered the conference so I will point it out once per year until it changes. The stadium has 11 flag poles on the north rim. They originally had each team in the conference represented, with the MN flag raised higher in the center pole. When the conference went to 12 teams, they were either too lazy or too cheap to run down to Hardware Hank for a 12th pole, so they just replaced all the flags with Gopher flags. Still waiting for a new flag pole to find its way into the budget.

Anyone else notice any improvements or problems in the stadium as it begins year 5?
Click to expand...

The internet issue plagues many stadiums and concert venues beyond TCF. Whenever you have a large concentration of people in one specific location, all of their devices are trying to fight for signal and the networks can't compensate for huge spike in traffic for that one area. Some people will get through and not have problems, some won't. Text messages may take a whole half of the football game to go through. There is probably something the U could do, but it would probably need to enhance tech infrastructure.

The flag pole thing is annoying, but I guess they need to add a few more flag poles next year. So maybe they are waiting for that? Probably not.
 

afurry91 said:
Whoever was running the scoreboard had no idea what they were doing. Every time I looked up at it to check the down it would say something obscure. I didn't mind too much since I can follow the game well enough in my head, but a lot of people rely on the scoreboard to check the down. It was terrible.
Click to expand...

Scoreboard was ran just awful. Half the time the down & distance was WAY off. It would be like 2nd & 2 and it would say 4th & 20. It was ridiculous. I can follow the game pretty easily, but it was just annoying to see.
 


4. The band looked lame without their uniforms. I don't care if the weather was warm. So much for the color and pagentry of college football.
 

e.bigelow said:
Scoreboard was ran just awful. Half the time the down & distance was WAY off. It would be like 2nd & 2 and it would say 4th & 20. It was ridiculous. I can follow the game pretty easily, but it was just annoying to see.
Click to expand...

Sid was running it.
 

I liked the new banners on the top of the stadium. Better to repeat our Big Ten and National Championships than advertise our MicronPC.COM Bowl appearance, IMHO.

I also agree on the scoreboard that the replays were better but I could tell we still weren't getting the full picture of the TV viewers. I think that may take a little time as we aren't patched into their live feed. Plus the announcement on that was pretty recent.
 

Noticed that on the scoreboard, wow that was weird. How can that not be worked out ahead of time. I like the change of font and layout but not having yards and down/distance for extended period of time is ridiculous.
 



Schnauzer said:
3. This next one is minor, but it has annoyed me since Nebraska entered the conference so I will point it out once per year until it changes. The stadium has 11 flag poles on the north rim. They originally had each team in the conference represented, with the MN flag raised higher in the center pole. When the conference went to 12 teams, they were either too lazy or too cheap to run down to Hardware Hank for a 12th pole, so they just replaced all the flags with Gopher flags. Still waiting for a new flag pole to find its way into the budget.
Click to expand...

So I'm not the only one who is bothered by this? I don't think the flags by the University Ave. parking ramp have been updated either.
 

Eagan said:
4. The band looked lame without their uniforms. I don't care if the weather was warm. So much for the color and pagentry of college football.
Click to expand...

And I think the fans should of dressed up in the old college sweaters to show their pride....dress slacks too.
 

e.bigelow said:
Scoreboard was ran just awful. Half the time the down & distance was WAY off. It would be like 2nd & 2 and it would say 4th & 20. It was ridiculous. I can follow the game pretty easily, but it was just annoying to see.
Click to expand...

This is accurate. On a related note (sorta) does anything else think the "karaoke" thing was a total failure? I bring it up here due to how the displayed the words on the scoreboard.
 

Norsk_Gopher said:
This is accurate. On a related note (sorta) does anything else think the "karaoke" thing was a total failure? I bring it up here due to how the displayed the words on the scoreboard.
Click to expand...

Butchered from the get go. It wasn't karaoke. It was words on a screen. The Twins play a song during the 7th inning stretch and actually make it real karaoke. You know. where the word lights up as it is supposed to be sang. Do the Gophers even know what karaoke is?
 



Gopherdrummer said:
The internet issue plagues many stadiums and concert venues beyond TCF. Whenever you have a large concentration of people in one specific location, all of their devices are trying to fight for signal and the networks can't compensate for huge spike in traffic for that one area. Some people will get through and not have problems, some won't. Text messages may take a whole half of the football game to go through. There is probably something the U could do, but it would probably need to enhance tech infrastructure.

The flag pole thing is annoying, but I guess they need to add a few more flag poles next year. So maybe they are waiting for that? Probably not.
Click to expand...

In regards to the cell phone connection; I agree it is annoying (I couldn't get a good connection at the alumni center (on the U's guest network) before the game either, but in the end it is not a big deal. What it is is an expensive deal. I work as an IT project manager for a large local company and we have major issues with cell strength in our larger buildings. We have put in AT&T repeaters because we have a partnership with them so we got a good deal, the others would make us pay the full cost and it is very expensive (we just did an upgrade and put repeaters every 30 feet or so in the hallways). For a place the has these capacity issues only 9 times a year, the cost is not justified....but if you want to make a donation I'm sure they will accept....same with the flagpoles.
 

Norsk_Gopher said:
This is accurate. On a related note (sorta) does anything else think the "karaoke" thing was a total failure? I bring it up here due to how the displayed the words on the scoreboard.
Click to expand...

I uh, did find out that I've been getting some of lyrics wrong to Sweet Caroline and the Bon Jovi songs for quite awhile now...:banghead:
 



Internet access a point of emphasis elsewhere to combat lost crowd to HDTV.
 

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