"Godzillatron" goes live at Texas' Royal-Memorial Stadium

We've seen Varsity Blues and Friday Night Lights enough times to know that bragging rights are an important part of Texas football culture, so it's no surprise that the UT Longhorns are filled with pride over their ginormous new stadium display, nicknamed Godzillatron. At 134 feet wide by 55 feet tall, the $8 million dollar screen needed to be mounted to tree trunk-like support columns with 5-inch diameter grounding bolts, and requires 40 five-ton air conditioners to keep it cool in the sometimes unrelenting Texas heat. Problems start to arise, though, if and when school officials refer to Godzillatron as the world's largest HD display -- not only is that plain false (the Tokyo Racecourse's new Mitsubishi monster trumps it in both square footage and diagonal length), but as we noted before, it may not even be the largest display on American soil. You see, although the Longhorns' screen can boast a total area of 7,370 square feet, the other Daktronics-built display at Dolphin Stadium still has it beat on the diagonal measurement: 1,750 inches to Godzillatron's 1,738. However, as a wise man once said, "Being perfect is not about that scoreboard out there. It's not about winning. It's about you and your relationship with yourself, your family, and your friends." That may be true, but if the Longhorns don't bring home another championship trophy this season, the alumni who shelled out millions of bucks for that scoreboard are gonna be pretty darn pissed.

[cap'n @ Aug 28th 2006 3:49PM]

This thing is minutes from my house. Freakin huge!

[clay @ Aug 28th 2006 3:53PM]

I can't wait to see this saturday for the first homegame!!! HOOK 'EM!!!

[DJ @ Aug 28th 2006 3:58PM]

I heard that you can get a great suntan if you lie close enough to it. Did y'all coeds hear that???

[Kyle @ Aug 28th 2006 4:06PM]

Too bad they don't play the Red River Shootout there this year. Be nice to see Oklahoma beat them on the Godzillatron. Boomer Sooner!!

[AllThingsSimple.net @ Aug 28th 2006 4:12PM]

WOOT! That screen is 5x the sq ft of my apartment!

[nosportsfan @ Aug 28th 2006 4:18PM]

Wow - $8 million. That would buy alot of textbooks, fund alot of research, or provide alot scholarships. What a pathetic waste of money and a terrible distraction from the mission of a university.

[captainjaroslav @ Aug 28th 2006 4:34PM]

Seems like they're stepping on the IP toes of Bootsy Collins' "Zillatron" project to me.

[James @ Aug 28th 2006 4:36PM]

Haha, love the friday night lights reference. That may have been the most random, rambling speech I've ever heard given by anybody. No clue how that pumped up the players... half of it didn't even make sense.

[huh @ Aug 28th 2006 4:37PM]

lets spend $8 million on something a hurricane could beat the crap out of

[jr78 @ Aug 28th 2006 4:37PM]

Considering the team brings in over 20 million annually in ticket sales alone let them spend the money as they see fit.

[Will @ Aug 28th 2006 4:42PM]

jr78 -> That just proves that the entire state's priorities are screwed up. But, what can you expect from the state that GW calls home? I mean, look at his priorities.

[pito189 @ Aug 28th 2006 4:45PM]

"Wow - $8 million. That would buy alot of textbooks, fund alot of research, or provide alot scholarships. What a pathetic waste of money and a terrible distraction from the mission of a university."

Way to not make an informed comment. Most large Universities such as Texas, and the REAL UT, have athletic departments that are pretty much separate entities from the school and completely fund themselves, all their athletes, facilities, travel expenses. Also when Alumni donate money specifically for athletics, it is only earmarked for that purpose. Talk to the Alumni about who they donate the money to, not the university.

[Matt Chanoff @ Aug 28th 2006 4:46PM]

There appears to be a growing gap between the size and cost of verious communications technologies (including displays and handsets) And the value of the junk being communicated over them (football scores, reality shows, inane conversations). Just to mention.

[AndrewNeo @ Aug 28th 2006 4:53PM]

In reply to nosportsfan and pito189:

Pito's very correct. A lot of people were mad that my high school bought a brand new LED sign for the front of the school that probably cost a few grand. But it was spent on the athletic budget, where the money was already allocated and had to be spent somewhere, so they bought the sign.

[Aaron Rodriguez @ Aug 28th 2006 5:11PM]

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j126/corndog04/morescoreboard.jpg

and they are wasting most of the screen for ads and its not even going to be widescreen (using 2 4x3 feeds)

[Hap @ Aug 28th 2006 5:21PM]

It actually is the largest HD display, you are forgetting that EVERYTHING is bigger in Texas.

[nosportsfan @ Aug 28th 2006 5:35PM]

I'll concede that the athletics department is a moneymaker at some schools, but the cost is often the disruption of the school's academic mission. The coach becomes more important than the dean, alumni give money earmarked for athletics, and many student athletes leave withou a real education (or even a degree). Texas tax dollars have better needs.

And I don't buy the separate entity claim -- I don't see UT pretending that its athletic department is a separate entity when they win gamnes.

[Blacknimbus @ Aug 28th 2006 5:38PM]

Hey Will...don't try to compare Austin to the rest of the state. I'm sure you'd fit right in with the rest of the t-sips. That's assuming you have some scratch...our hippies are rich, you see....

[B-Sabre @ Aug 28th 2006 5:52PM]

Ha! A Jumbotron does not a football team make!

Gig 'em Aggies!

[jr1 @ Aug 28th 2006 5:54PM]

To nosportsfan:
The separate entity claim is just stating that it is finiancially independent from the University i.e. it does not take funds away from the University but definitely gives back to the University.
Finiancial can be found here:
http://www.texassports.com/index.php?s=&change_well_id=2&url_article_id=104

[AJerman @ Aug 28th 2006 5:56PM]

"Too bad they don't play the Red River Shootout there this year. Be nice to see Oklahoma beat them on the Godzillatron. Boomer Sooner!!"

Hell yeah, Texas Sucks, Go OU!

[Big Sam @ Aug 28th 2006 5:57PM]

I still think they are over-compensating for something...

[Adam @ Aug 28th 2006 6:31PM]

Yes, because Austin gets hit by sooo many hurricanes.....

I drove by the stadium on the upper decks of I-35 while they were testing it the other night - it's very, very bright. They were testing the blue LEDS, and the entire stadium was glowing blue.

I am curious how much of a distraction this will be to the players, and to the TV as it casts so much light onto the field.

[Brian @ Aug 28th 2006 8:19PM]

Yeah B-Sabre, but beating the Aggies 6 straight years and being the reigning national champs DO make a good football team. Try not to suck and then talk trash.

And nosportsfan, Texas made $8.2 million in just in merchandise royalties last year. And the football program made $38.7 million in PROFIT last year, before they even went on their national title run. That money funds the entire athletic department (sports such as softball and soccer, etc.) and is completely unrelated to UT academics in any way (though it probably attracts students to the university).

[spike22 @ Aug 28th 2006 9:37PM]

Will --> Do a little research before making a dick of yourself. Most UT students (and certainly almost all Austinites) hate GW Bush.
Also, UT Austin is one of the premier schools in the entire world with or without the football team, that's just entertainment. Don't get that mixed up with "[our] priorities".

[Evan @ Aug 28th 2006 9:55PM]

it looks neat, and it certainly is big............but does the university actually have the know-how on how to use it properly? Did an IFC certefied technician configure it correctly *rimshot*, but seriously, are the people behind the scenes actually making use of the High Definition format? Besides the ads as Aaron stated, has there actually been anything of high definition in a 16x9 format on that screen before? If they're not going to use it for HD, they could've a lot of money with just a regular jumbotron

[David @ Aug 28th 2006 11:03PM]

To nosportsfan:

The university already leads the nation in many academic and research departments. The Times of London ranked UT the 15h best school IN THE WORLD! M.D. Anderson is one of the top cancer centers in the world and is a UT run hospital. Also UT is now the leading college merch seller and has sold every single ticket as a season ticket. Not to mention the ads on the board will probably alone recoup the costs. Not to mention UT is one of the most affordable schools especially for someone in-state like me.

Regarding the article:

I don't believe the alum's paid for the board. I'm pretty sure it was the UT Athletics Department.

Also the Tokyo board is some rediculously wide aspect ratio and I believe will be used more like 3 (smaller) HDTV's side-by-side. It's not even as tall as the UT board despite it's length. Some basketball arenas use banner LED displays above the entire bottom level and I would imagine their diagonal length would be even longer than the Tokyo one.

[David @ Aug 28th 2006 11:04PM]

Evan: AFAIK the stadium isn't set up for HD *yet*... this is just phase 1 of improvements to be finished in 2008. Although it's been rumored that when the game is filmed in HD (say September 9th against Ohio State) it will be hooked up to the "Godzillatron".

[smd @ Aug 28th 2006 11:54PM]

I got to stand on the field tonight, underneath the glory of Godzillatron. It is amazingly awesome.

As far as the tokyo screen is concerned, it's just really freaking wide, which is rather pointless. You can just build 3 smaller screens right next to each other and get the same thing. Lame. Godzillatron has 55 feet of vertical display space with a more standard aspect ratio.

aggy's scoreboard (aka "thumbnail" or "ewetube") is nowhere near as big as ours and ou is just jealous because everything in Texas is better/bigger.

Also, the $8 million went to all of the audio/visual upgrades at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium. They include ribbon boards on the east and west sides, 4 other smaller screens, and a better audio system.

It's the athletic department's money, and they can do what they want with it.

[Brian @ Aug 29th 2006 12:01AM]

David, the scoreboard itself is high def the problem is the school doesn't have HD cameras yet to provide the video feed.

[Matt @ Aug 29th 2006 12:26AM]

i want one for my living room wait that wouldnt fit ill put it in my back yard still wont i guess ill have it in the neighbors yard

[David @ Aug 29th 2006 12:57AM]

Brian: Yeah, that's what I was saying. Obviously the screen is HD or it wouldn't be on Engadget, now would it. ;)

[lloyd @ Aug 29th 2006 10:15AM]

you know there's probably a frat house full of guys trying to figure out how to plug their xbox into that monster

[David Trevino @ Sep 4th 2007 9:32PM]

Evan quotes: However, as a wise man once said, "Being perfect is not about that scoreboard out there. It's not about winning. It's about you and your relationship with yourself, your family, and your friends." Good grief! You just don't get it. "School officials" don't care about being the biggest in the world or even in the United States. It just has to be bigger than OU's and A&M's. And, eventually, we may even see a BCS bowl being played there. HOOK'EM HORNS!!!!