New scoreboard brings college like experience

At every basketball and volleyball game, scorekeeping is a complete necessity. About two weeks ago, the main gym received new scoreboards, replacing the old TVs with a new single LED board.

“We went with Score Vision last year who is a scoreboard company,” Athletic Director Tom Kerkman said. “We were one of the first, if not the first school in the United States to go with these types of scoreboards.  Last year there were four TVs stuck together but the scoreboard company did more and more research and they were able to find new LED boards.”

Marketing students Anna Knutson and Alex Belgrade say that a special donor paid for these boards.

“DJ Rezac, who is a Westside alum, owns KB building services and bought two of these massive scoreboards in the main gym for a large price,” Belgrade said. “Our plan is to go to local businesses and selling advertisements to pay off the board.”

Although it did cost $45,000 a board, the students say that it will be payed off with multiple advertisements.

“We have two really big advertisers, four medium advertisers, and fifteen small ads,” Belgrade said. “We totaled it up and when we sell them all, we can pay back DJ fully, plus some money going to athletics.”

Kerkman also said that while the technology stayed the same between the old and new boards , the students running the board will now be able to express more creativity in what they show the crowd.

“It can do a lot more than before,” Kerkman said. “It’s going to be a learning experience for the kids that are going to work on the boards. We are really going to be able to do a lot with fan engagement.”

Knutson agrees, and says that the new scoreboard will be able to create some graphics that crowd members aren’t used to at a high school level.

“There is [now] an app now where you can look at the score, and check what time is left, and ads will be able to play on the app,” Knutson said. “During games, you can now play live videos like as replays and actions such as ‘Three point ball!’ or ‘Blocked!’ It will be basically just like college games.”