Scoreboards and a new sound system are bringing a new level of energy to Seeman Stadium.
Omaha Public Schools bought scoreboards for all district high school athletic facilities, including at Omaha Central, during the Nov. 4, 2023, school board meeting. The scoreboards cost $1,374,210.00 and were bought through the company Digital Scoreboards.
Central is not just going to use it as a scoreboard though. “We don’t just want to do score, touchdowns, and boring ads, we want to engage the crowd too,” OC Broadcasting coordinator Benjamin Boeckman said.
The goal is to show Central “as we know who we are, but so that everyone can else can know us,” he said.
OC Broadcasting is a sports-video journalism program at Central that livestreams on-campus events, and Boeckman said the group was excited to introduce instant replay to the football watching experience.
Currently, replays are already being done by the OC Broadcasting team, but one challenge of getting the replay on the board is simple communication. “We want to make sure the people that are running the board are doing the ones and twos, the start/ stops, and the touchdowns are comfortable, before we radio them to switch the system over from Score Vision,” Boeckman said, referring to the scoreboard app they use.
The broadcasting team will have the ability to compile all its camera angles to make what Boeckman called “awesome replays and videos, to really experience being at the event.” Eventually, the goal is to get direct fan involvement. “Between quarters we could do a fan cam, for example we have a graphic for ‘Show your Eagle,’” Boeckman said.
Overall, the scoreboard will show Central’s fan environment for everyone at the games, both now and once again during the winter sports season with the indoor scoreboards.
Last spring the speaker system on the football field went bad, with a staticky, inconsistent sound.
“These speakers were original equipment, making it date back to fall of 2005,” Assistant Principal and Athletic Director Rob Locken said.
Currently at Central’s home football game, there is a makeshift set up of large rolled-in speakers with bulky wiring, as the speaker system will not come in until early October. “The problem we run into is that pre-pandemic, (TMS Production Integration) had everything on the shelf, now the manufacturers do not produce the speakers until they get an order in,” Locken said.
While the speakers breaking is upsetting to many, Locken said it made sense, as the speakers were quite old. Locken is impressed and happy with the volume and clarity in the temporary system.
Once everything at Seeman is put together, not only will the environment be better, but “Central will be showcased, and our story will be shared to all who come into our house,” Boeckman said.
