MORE: Board of Trustees approves two key Ross-Ade Stadium projects
The game-day experience at Ross-Ade Stadium is about to get better with today's announcement of a new video board at the south end of Ross-Ade Stadium for the 2020 season.
According to a university release, the new board will be one of the largest in the country for college football, measuring 56-feet, 9-inches high and 150-feet, 4-inches feet wide. Those measurements are more than four times bigger than the current board (31 feet by 68 feet), which debuted in 2007.
Back in August, Purdue A.D. Mike Bobinski said the south end zone video board work would begin in December at the end of the 2019 season and be complete by May of 2020.
“It will be a bigger board with higher resolution,” he said at the time. “It will be a state-of-the-art board we think will add a lot to the experience and be light years more reliable and have more capabilities. And it will all be paid for by gift funds.”
The athletic department already has those funds in hand. The cost: $10 million.
The new board will be 30 feet closer to the playing field, as it will be put at the back end of the south end zone patio.
“We believe our fans will find the live in-stadium experience at Ross-Ade is enhanced by the addition of this prominent, state-of-the-art video board,” said Bobinski. “The unique combination of the board’s size, clarity of image and proximity to the field and seating bowl will be second to none in college football.”
This new board is part of an on-going plan to enhance Ross-Ade Stadium. The big elements of the proposed stadium renovation, as discussed prior to the start of the 2019 season:
1. South end zone structure. Purdue wants to construct some type of structure in the south end zone to house a number of different elements, from game-day team facilities, to new fan opportunities, to seating, to club opportunities and to other types of patios that the athletic department thinks will be important. Bobinski also wants to connect the concourse all the way around Ross-Ade so fans could make an uninterrupted loop around the stadium
2. Upper bowl. Everything above the vomitories is on steel decking. And that has maintenance issues, according to Bobinski. Purdue would like to consider the idea of constructing a cantilevered mezzanine second deck, which would then open up the concourse and allow for an open view from the concourse to the playing field which is how most modern facilities are being developed. The deck could go around the entire stadium—at least that’s the hope.
3. Updating the Ross-Ade Pavilion. Bobinski said the Shively and the Buchanan Clubs need updating and modernizing to attain a modern standard.
Now, Bobinski and company need to raise the money for the Ross-Ade renovation.
"As we think of the ultimate renovation project, that is the next big, heavy lift for us to get focused on, raising the significant dollars its will take to renovate Ross-Ade,” said Bobinski in August. “To plan a project of this scope takes time, it takes energy, no question.”
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