Little Caesar’s Arena
New Technology Aids in the Comeback of Hallmark American City Through Enhanced Fan Experiences
The in-stadium fan experience is not what it used to be. Sports Stadiums are continually looking to upgrade their cameras, broadcast control room, switchers, scoreboards, graphics systems, and overall workflow.
After nearly four decades at Joe Louis Arena, the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings began playing home games at the state-of-the-art Little Caesars Arena, also home to the NBA’s Detroit Pistons. The arena is considered the cornerstone of The District Detroit, a 50-block sports and entertainment district that is contributing to the city’s comeback with new retail, office and residential developments.
As its canvas, the arena features one of the world’s largest, seamless center-hung videoboard systems boasting more than 5,100 square feet of video display content. Still, to take advantage of the seamlessness that the videoboard provides, the production team needed a state-of-the-art broadcast control room as well.
The 1080p broadcast control room, located on the arena’s club level and integrated by Diversified, features a Grass Valley Karrera production switcher, Evertz Magnum router and two DreamCatcher replay servers, and three ChyronHego graphics servers. The Diversified team built a secondary control-room space in the arena’s “gondola” area, which is suspended over the rink/floor, for the game-day entertainment director, the Daktronics operators, the lighting director, and the DJ.
The control room not only services the in-game show, pre-game and post-game shows but will be able to support the whole District Detroit. In addition to the centerhung videoboard, the entertainment-services team creates content for 45 large LED displays throughout the venue, including two 360-degree ribbon displays, 15 additional ribbon displays, seven exterior displays (including a 900-sq.-ft. Chevrolet Plaza display), and much more.
A step up from the Red Wings’ previous facility, Little Caesars Arena creates an unforgettable fan experience that is sure to wow visitors for years to come.
