New, state-of-the-art scoreboard at Verizon Arena not a priority

For the Southeastern Conference Women’s Basketball Tournament this year, SEC officials loaded up their own 12-by-20-foot LED television screen and hauled it to Verizon Arena in North Little Rock.

Michael Marion, Verizon Arena general manager, said the arena’s 1998 scoreboard, with its 10-by-10-foot screens, was too out of date for the SEC.

Verizon Arena — once the host of two professional sports teams in the late 1990s and early 2000s — has become primarily a music venue.

The switch means that seats are being reupholstered this year, but the 17-year-old scoreboard — a cube with four screens on each side and few spots for statistics — remains the same.

Each cube has a square LED screen and statistics for the basketball players. It lists those players’ numbers, fouls and points scored, in addition to the number of team timeouts left and the number of team fouls.

The arena is guaranteed to host only two sporting events all year, Marion said: a Razorback men’s basketball game and a Harlem Globetrotters basketball game.

The $650,000 price tag for a modern scoreboard with more room for advertising and sponsorships — down from $1 million a couple of years ago — isn’t a feasible price for only two games, Marion said.

Marion and Gretchen Hall, the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau president and chief executive officer, both said a new scoreboard would help the arena’s chances of securing more competitive sporting events, such as the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship’s first-weekend games.

But neither believe it would cement the arena’s chances.

“Yes, I think it is a factor,” Hall said. “Is it the only factor? Probably not.”

Pulaski County Justice of the Peace Phil Stowers, R-Maumelle, has talked to Verizon Arena officials for the past two years about buying a new scoreboard.

He said he agrees with Marion that reupholstering the seats is a higher priority, but he hopes a new scoreboard is the next investment to enhance the arena’s competitiveness when bidding for larger sporting events.

“You know, the arena was built in 1997-98-99,” he said. “The technology has dramatically advanced in that time period.

“When we are looking at trying to locate something like an SEC tournament or other large sporting events, something noticed is that we have a scoreboard that is antiquated as far as technology is concerned.”

The arena is partly run by the Pulaski County Multi-Purpose Civic Center Facilities Board. While it’s a county-commissioned board, the arena is supported by its own revenue and receives nothing from the county general fund.

Stowers said he would not support the use of county general fund money to buy a scoreboard, but he wondered whether a sponsorship for a new scoreboard could help offset the cost of one.

“They always want bigger and better,”said Wesley Holmes, assistant general manager of the arena, noting that sponsors want screens for advertisements.

The arena has hosted the SEC Women’s Basketball Tournament a few times in recent years and was a host site for the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship’s first weekend in 2008.

The arena doesn’t qualify for the SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament because of its below-requirement seating capacity of 18,000.

Hall said an older scoreboard could be a factor in the arena not winning a bid to host a first-weekend game in the NCAA men’s tournament, but she didn’t think that was the only reason.

“The NCAA won’t confirm specific reasons why a destination wasn’t selected,” she said.

Hall said some arenas have new scoreboards in addition to up-to-date technology in screens that run like ribbons between decks and in digital reader boards in the concourse.

A shots-on-goal marker remains from when Verizon Arena hosted hockey more than a decade ago.

The arena also doesn’t have the updated ribbon technology between decks, just spots for the score and some nonelectronic sponsorship logos.

“If we thought the scoreboard kept us from getting the NCAA, we would have [replaced it],” Marion said. “That’s not the impression we got.”

The NCAA factors hotel availability in its selection process, Hall said. She added that Little Rock’s hotels weren’t an issue in 2008 and that new ones have since been built downtown. Most are not full service, however.

In 2008, some teams stayed in west Little Rock to access full-service hotels. Full-service hotels are those with in-house restaurants and room service, which are required by the NCAA for housing teams.

Expected attendance and seating could factor into the NCAA’s decision on selecting host sites, too, Hall said.

The Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau and University of Arkansas at Little Rock submit the bids to host the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship’s first round and the SEC Women’s Basketball Tournament.

Hall said they don’t pursue any other major tournaments.

The economic effect of the SEC tournament this winter, held amid ice and snow, was $4,545,969 spent locally, Hall said. Attendance for the five-day, 14-team event was 25,821.

The economic effect of the NCAA men’s first weekend in 2008 was $3,843,233 spent locally. Attendance for the two-day, eight-team event was 48,984.

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