VENUE SPOTLIGHT > LOWER.COM FIELD
Columbus Crew’s Lower.com Field Caps Off Busy Year for New MLS Venues
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ne of the more decorated clubs in Major League Soccer, the Columbus Crew closed out their last full season at Historic Crew Stadium in 2020 with an MLS Cup celebration. Fast forward to this past July, and the organization welcomed supporters to the new Lower.com Field. As the third of three soccer-specific that were slated to open this year (joining Austin FC and FC Cinncinati), the building is suited for one of the founding members of the league. “This stadium is a huge accomplishment for the fans, the city, and our staff,” said Kyle Millen, director, scoreboard operations, Haslam Sports Group. “Our game-day staff was in awe the first time they came because they now have a state-of-the-art control room with all the resources they need to put on the show that we want.” When the club broke ground on their new $314 million home in October 2019, the franchise was on the hunt for a reliable group of partners. Assigned to the hefty responsibility of putting together the brick-andmortar structure and the technological backbone of the control room, the club tapped the services of WJHW and BeckTV. On the tech side, Beck TV
had lengthy discussions with Millen and his colleagues to develop a strategy that would accomplish the production goals of the crew. “We were involved from Day 1, so we were able to say what we wanted the show to have and how we wanted the atmosphere to be,” he said. “Then, we reverse engineered [our plan] to make sure we included everything into the project.” On any of these large-scale projects, there could be a possibility of not being on the same page as the systems integrator, but in this case, BeckTV had a lot of familiarity with the production personnel at the Crew when they were brought onto the project last spring. As an added plus, the company has history with the club’s ownership, Haslam Sports Group, after revamping the efforts of the Cleveland Browns at FirstEnergy Stadium in 2014. “I’ve known Kyle throughout my entire career, and Haslam Sports Group likes to push the envelope on their show,” said Brock Raum, project engineer, BeckTV. “This is one of the best rooms in the MLS and it’s run by one of the best crews in the MLS. When you put those two things together, that’s what makes jobs like this a lot of fun.” With a sound relationship with the systems integrator, Millen and the club moved forward on bringing other key players into the fold. To differentiate them-
A view from the pitch of one of the two videoboards inside Lower.com Field. 68
SPORTSTECHJOURNAL / FALL 2021
