A brand new video board at the home stadium of the North Carolina State’s football team malfunctioned during severe lightning storms, leading many to wonder if the massive multi-million dollar investment was worth the money. Carter-Finley Stadium saw its shiny new scoreboard unable to last into the second half, as the game was delayed due to lightning.
NC State debuted the scoreboard against the tenth-ranked team in the nation, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. The video shows the screen struggling to show any sort of display that has any meaning to the game, as the eleventh-largest college football scoreboard sees its various panels flicker on and off amid the storm.
As fans around the stadium came back into the stands for the completion of the game, the scoreboard was still missing a giant chunk in the top right corner. Some on social media, however, explained that the issue may have been less of a problem than fans had assumed. It may be a case of the scoreboard operating as intended.
One commenter explained, “I get We’re dunking here, but that actually looks like it’s reinitializing. Portions of the screen are coming back on and the picture of filling in. Actually seems the lightning protection worked as intended and it’s recovering.”
Another chimed in agreeing, saying, “Exactly this. If any panel shorted out they just have to replace that section, but it looks like it’s working as intended.”
As for the game, things went similarly poorly for the NC State Wolfpack who went on to lose by a score of 45 to 24. Putting up that many points against a stout Notre Dame defense is an accomplishment to be proud of, but the NC State defense was overrun all game by the high-powered offense of the Fighting Irish.
The school had hyped up this game as the unveiling of the new massive scoreboard in a press release in which the institution of higher learning wrote, “That scoreboard was rudimentary compared to the giant $15 million videoboard and sound system that will be unveiled Saturday at Carter-Finley Stadium in the Wolfpack’s 2023 home opener against Notre Dame. Kickoff is at noon.”
Touting the extravagance of the massive scoreboard, they wrote, “Manufactured and installed by Daktronics, the scoreboard is 7,121 square feet, boasting 6.6 million pixels and 75 audio speakers. It is believed to be the 11th largest single-display board at a college football stadium.At 166 feet wide, the new board is 50 feet wider than the Memorial Tower is tall. It is one of many off-season enhancements added to the Wolfpack’s home of football since 1966.”
No doubt, someone has some answering to do for the poor first display of the new toy that NC State was trying to proudly display on opening weekend. It will be interesting to see how the issue is fixed and if the screen is ready to go for the rest of the season.
NC State’s brand new scoreboard got struck by lightning and shorted out pic.twitter.com/9xZ7WN9r42
— Will Brinson (@WillBrinson) September 9, 2023
The featured image is a screenshot from an embedded Tweet.
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