New York's finest.
This tour was a bit of a departure for the New York section—instead of an evening meeting, about 20 members met at three in the afternoon at the stadium used by the Giants and Jets for a tour of the technical facilities of this huge new structure. Ken Hunold, Chair of the section, hosted and our guide was Kathy Mosolino, Chief Video Engineer for the stadium.
The original Meadowlands Stadium was built in the 1970's. While there was nothing wrong with that structure, it was torn down and the new stadium built adjacent to its site. Here's the Wikipedia entry for what is now called Met Life Stadium:
MetLife Stadium is a stadium in the New York City Metropolitan Area, part of the MetLife Sports Complex, in East Rutherford, New Jersey. It is the home of the New York Giants and New York Jets of the National Football League and is adjacent to the site of the former Giants Stadium, which was home to the Giants from 1976 until 2009 and the Jets from 1984 until 2010. Like its predecessor, the new stadium is the only NFL stadium shared by two teams. However, unlike Giants Stadium, in which the Jets were tenants of the Giants, the new stadium is a 50/50 partnership between both teams.
The stadium is owned by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority on paper. However, the two teams jointly built the stadium using private funds, and administer it jointly through the MetLife Stadium Company. The stadium opened as New Meadowlands Stadium on April 10, 2010, featuring the Big City Classic lacrosse event.[1] In 2011, MetLife, an insurance company based in New York City, acquired the naming rights to the stadium. At a construction cost of approximately $1.6 billion, it is the most expensive NFL stadium ever built, and is the largest stadium in the NFL in terms of permanent seating capacity (82,500).
Obviously, this stadium is a big deal, and it has audio and video facilities to match. For example, the main stadium bowl uses over 2,000 loudspeakers in a distributed public address system, controlled by computer, which enables adjustment and trouble shooting of the large number of amplifiers and speakers involved. If you include all loudspeakers on the site (public address in hallways, feeds to the press room etc.) there are over 5,000. Sound mixing is handled in a booth amidst the press facilities, high above the field, using a Venue digital mixer. The sound engineer can open his booth window to hear the field, but also has monitor speakers mounted behind his position, which corresponds to the sound heard by most people in the stands, as the public address speakers are mounted above and behind the areas they cover.
In-house video facilities are also impressive. To quote Wikipedia again:
Twenty giant high-definition-ready light emitting diode (LED) pylons designed, manufactured, and installed by Daktronics at the north and east entrances display videos of the team that is playing. The pylons measure approximately 54 feet (16 m) high by 20 feet (6.1 m) wide. Inside, four 30 feet (9.1 m) by 116 feet (35 m) video displays from Daktronics, which incorporate high definition video technology, hang from each corner of the upper deck.
Kathy Mosolino took us down to the video replay room, located in the basement of the facility. With something like a dozen control stations and a dedicated machine room for all the video needs of the facility, this room provides video replay for the stadium displays, for the game umpires and for the TV networks. Not far away is a loading dock that has patch panels providing audio and video links for TV and radio network trucks, which can be parked only a few yards away. Audio and video patch panels are also provided at various points around the playing field, for use by technical crews from the networks and the stadium staff.
For the finale of our tour, Kathy led us out onto the field, composed entirely of artificial turf, for a group photo. After doing a forward roll on the turf, I can report that it does not have very much give, which is probably due to the need for firm footing for the atheletes.
Our thanks to Ken Hunold for organizing the tour and to Kathy Mosolino and the stadium staff for their time and considerate hosting of the event.
