Heide Shipman, former GHS Booster Club president, is pursuing advertising sponsors for the rotating panels that will display 12 different advertisements.
The scoreboard acquisition could free funds to provide other enhancements to the stadium, Marion Waters, Principal at GHS, said. The scoreboard “would be a good thing for increasing revenues for our athletic programs,” Waters said.
Shipman played a role in designing the scoreboard, which is eight feet high, on steel beams, and 32 feet wide. A prime feature of the scoreboard is a message center, in the center, that can post the team’s starting lineups with photos of the players, cheers during the game and other information. The scoreboard will be digital, operated by radio control transmitters that are more reliable than a hard wired arrangement.
Two large spaces on either side of the message center are reserved for the major corporate sponsor.
Shipman envisions that the major sponsor will purchase the scoreboard up front with a $110,000 investment. The sponsor would be repaid over a five-year period with advertising revenues from the four rotating sponsor spaces at the bottom of the scoreboard.
She estimates that each of the 12 advertising spaces will generate $2,000 per year or $10,000 for the five-year period, “and this revenue will be sufficient to pay off the scoreboard debt.”
“My hope is to get this scoreboard up by the fall,” Shipman said, “I especially would like to see it for my son and all other senior players. It would be awesome even if we don’t get the stadium upgrades by then.”
Shipman will present the entire package to the school administration once she has the major sponsor in place. “We already are having interest in the advertising spaces, so those will be sold first come first served.”
The Greenville County School District has completed a revision of the Dooley Field upgrade plans with estimates that the project will cost $1.9 million. Only $1.5 million has been budgeted for the renovation, “and we hope that the school board will approve the increase,” Waters said.
The redesign does not increase seating capacity beyond 5,000 spectators, despite the fact that Yellow Jackets games have attracted up to twice that many people in the past.
“Although we would get only 980 more seats on the home side, the planners did take into consideration the safety recommendations that we made,” Waters said. These include paving the upper parking lot and adding a circular drive that will help separate vehicles from lines of people waiting to buy tickets.
The plans call for upgrading ticket booths, a home side restroom addition, storage and ventilation for both concession sands. The stadium would get a new press box, twice the size of the original, “to eliminate very cramped conditions,” Waters said.
Another feature will be a ground-level field house at the south end of the stadium. “Additional fencing there would help to maintain separation of the players and fans from competing schools,” he said.
“They also are committed to installing a new sound system.”
Shipman said the sound system could easily be fitted in the new scoreboard “which is being done at most schools.”
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