Jacksonville High School parents, particularly of football players, and students and fans will be seeing a brand new scoreboard next season.
Apparently, and I’m sure many local parents and Crimsons fans know this by now, but the scoreboard is basically this year’s bleachers. Seriously, the functionality of the scoreboard is apparently no longer reliable, and the district has found clarity in that it has to be replaced.
During the District 117 Board of Education meeting last week, the Board discussed the different options they have for the new scoreboard. 117 Superintendent Steve Ptacek explains
“We have been exploring some possibilities of getting a new scoreboard for about the last year. That necessity became immediate in the last couple games of the football season, so we have to replace it. We could replace it with a very similar one for about 10 to 15 thousand dollars. We have explored two other possibilities in the past that would provide an elevated, wonderful scoreboard for our community. Either an outside company buys the scoreboard and they control the advertising and, in turn, the revenue earned from the sale of that advertising. Or, we could buy the scoreboard ourselves and we would control getting those sponsors and the revenues.”
Ptacek explains why the board decided not to pursue any district control of advertising.
“That last option, according to the reported belief of the board, will not work because they do not want to put that much stress or burden on any one member of our staff. The board decided to have me explore the opportunity of getting a really nice scoreboard and allow another entity make that purchase and control the advertising and revenues. The only other option is to get one like we got now for about $10,000 to $15,000.”
There is no word as to whether the district will purchase a new scoreboard similar to the one standing at Kraushaar-Rosenburger Field or an option that utilizes newer technology.