The Evansville Thunderbolts’ 2024-25 opening game Oct. 18 doubled as the unveiling of the Ford Center’s new scoreboard. “Everyone likes a big, new electronic,” says Scott Schoenike, executive director of VenuWorks, which manages the Ford Center and Victory Theatre. “It gives you a better experience — bigger, brighter, clearer.”
The Ford Center, featured in November/ December 2011 Evansville Living when it opened in 2011, cost $127.5 million to design and build. More than a decade later, updates required an additional $9 million, including nearly $3 million for the new scoreboard.
Schoenike says challenges with replacement parts and outdated software prompted a new scoreboard, made by Brookings, South Dakota-based Daktronics. Its primary display is one 360-degree screen, 15 feet high and 97 feet around, with 5.9-millimeter pixel spacing. Schoenike says the new scoreboard has 500 extra square feet of screen compared to the previous model. Two more screens circle the new scoreboard: an upper ring display, 2.5 feet by 97 feet, and a lower ring display, 2 feet by 77 feet. The screens boast improved HD display, and Daktronics updated displays throughout the center to produce crisper, cleaner images.
“It competes with the big Division I schools,” says Schoenike, who hopes it will help recruit players to the University of Evansville’s men’s basketball team, which plays home games at the Ford Center. “There is nothing better than seeing your face 20 feet high.”
During the Thunderbolts’ first home game, fans witnessed a new feature — a race on the ice with a track projected by the scoreboard. Schoenike says the projections are customizable to a hockey rink or basketball court.
“You can do a million things with this one,” Schoenike says.
