'Super' scores are Barco's specialty

LOGAN — Barco can help people know the score and get the message.

The Belgium-based company's Logan operations will help fans at this year's Super Bowl do just that. Every time they glance at the end zone scoreboards at Houston's Reliant Stadium, they'll be staring at a display assembled in northern Utah.

And while the giant video boards inside Reliant also were made by Barco operations outside Utah, the Logan plant did put together an outdoor two-sided marquee, including video boards, that greets fans on their way into the stadium parking lots.

Those are just some of the jobs the Logan plant has assembled for professional and college ballparks, stadiums and arenas that dot the American landscape — each one a challenge, and an opportunity, to do something different.

"Every job is a custom job," said marketing assistant Marlene Martineau. "We have no stock product. We have components we put in that are stock, but as far as the configuration, everything we do is 100 percent custom."

The company's displays in sports venues run the gamut from color LED (light emitting diode) video displays — think "large TV" — to scoring and timing displays, to fascia and perimeter boards. The latter are lighted "ribbons" that can display text, stats, scores, special effects and advertising along the lip of upper seating levels.

Among the venues sporting the company's sports panels are:

• Utah State University's Spectrum, where the entire overhead setup — from video panels to scoreboards to advertising panels to a 360-degree ring-shaped message board — was done by Barco.

• Cincinnati's Great American Ball Park, home of the Reds, where the company produced the main scoreboard, out-of-town scoreboards, a pitch-speed display and two fascia boards — virtually every display except the video board. The Reds say their outfield matrix board contains 87,808 lamps.

• The San Francisco Giants' baseball park, where the company supplied scoreboards.

• Virginia Tech football and basketball facilities, including video boards for the football stadium.

• Churchill Downs, the legendary Kentucky Derby site, where Barco built an outside-the-track video board and stats boards.

• The Pepsi Arena in Albany, N.Y., where Barco assembled the video board.

In addition to the sports projects, the Logan operations also handle some commercial work, including boards found in shopping malls and video boards used at two Sea World facilities.

Installations range from a couple of hundred thousand dollars to upwards of $3 million.