Enticing Your Future, NFL Style

Needing some inspiration to move forward with your passion?

Bookings, South Dakota. Population 22,056.

The closest NFL team in this area is a 4 hour drive and yet this town has a big stake in the super bowl because this is where the NFL goes up in lights.

South Dakota electronics company, Daktronics began the race to build the biggest and most vivid scoreboards in football.

If you’re surprised that something that big comes from a small place, the CEO says that is one of the real mental hurdles that they have to overcome. It doesn’t fit society’s normal scenario. 

It all started in 1968 on the campus of South Dakota University with 2 friendly engineering professors. They were looking for a way to help their students find local jobs but also enticing engineering students to attend their college. The graduates were leaving the state and they thought they should do something to keep their students in town.

The 2 professors started a company Daktronics and rented space in a tire repair shop just off Main Street.

They didn’t have a product when they started, every accomplishment they celebrated in those days.

They finally put their engineering minds together to build a scoreboard for wrestling matches. It was revolutionary and they never looked back since.

If someone was interested in building another scoreboard, they were willing to do that.

The turning point for their business was in 1980 they made a scoreboard for the winter Olympics in Lake Placid.

Today they hold the distinction of building the largest video displays in sports. 

Specifically, the one installed in the Jacksonville Jaguars. Two screens, each screen is bigger than the field they play in. 362 feet long and 6 stories high. 9 Million dollars apiece.

The NFL was counting on bigger being better. Getting a way to entice the fans off their comfy couch to buy tickets to see the spectacle in person. There are many great reasons to stay home watching your big television. They wanted to give fans another experience that they can find in a venue. This is 4 times better than you get at home.

The screens have millions of LCDs about the size of a small thumbtack, spaced about a half inch apart. Standing near them is impossible to view the whole picture. 

All your eyes cluster on is the colors but back away then the clusters miraculously blend together in a portrait in vivid detail.

In the early 80’s, only 22% of engineering graduates actually found work in Brookings, South Dakota. Today, there is a whopping 62% attending the Daktronics Engineering Hall.

Daktronics have just been awarded a contract to build the biggest scoreboard to date. It’s called a halo board; it will ring the top of the new Atlanta stadium. The only way this screen will become bigger is for the stadium itself to grow.

Could the screens get any bigger?

The 2 retired professors say it depends on how large the checkbook is.

What I have learned from this…

I don’t have to worry about how something is going to turn out. Trust the process by following my passion and surrendering the outcome.

When I am brave enough to follow this path, others will benefit as well.

You may not see the whole picture up close, just stand back and see it in vivid color.

CBS News Sunday Morning