Enjoy Yourself: Home Run Signage

The Cincinnati Reds opened Great American Ballpark in 2003 as a baseball-only, state-of-the-art facility that also celebrates the legacy of professional baseball’s oldest team. However, the ballpark’s signage demands didn’t disappear with its unveiling. Upgrades and additions frequently occur, and advertising signage requires frequent changeovers and updates.

The 2009 season required a rather tall order. Daktronics Inc. (Brookings, SD), which built the ballpark’s scoreboard, enlisted Dualite (Williamsburg, OH) to fabricate a Coca-Cola® sign, which weights 3 tons and measures 13 x 40 ft. (with 12-ft.-tall, capital “C”s), as an anchor on the scoreboard’s bank of advertisement signs.

To illuminate the sign, Dualite president Greg Schube said the project presented three channel-letter illumination options: exposed neon, acrylic-covered LEDs or letters covered with flexible-face material.

“We ruled out exposed neon because of repair and breakage challenges, and because LEDs offer lower power consumption,” he said. “And, flex-face material would weather heavy wind load better and provide easier service access.”

Dualite built the letters 0.063-in.-thick with 7.2-in.-deep aluminum returns and 0.125-in. backs, which they built with Computerized Cutters Inc. Accu-Bend channel-letter formers. They’re coated with Spraylat Mark 1 acrylic-polyurethane paint. To illuminate the sign, the shop used red GE Lumination Tetra® Max LED modules with a 12V Tetra Max power supply.

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Because of the stadium’s intense ambient light courtesy of the overhead lights that brighten the playing field, Dualite needed to amplify the Coca-Cola sign’s brightness. To better project the backlit illumination and diffuse the wind load, Dualite installed a perforated, white aluminum backboard. Dualite supplied the sign to the team in four sections and, on the field’s warning track, assisted with its final assembly.

“Normally, a job like this carries a six- or seven-week window,” Greg Hoffer, Dualite’s special-accounts manager, said. “In this case, we had four. Fortunately, we have a strong crew of workers and were able to meet the demand.”

The shop also replaced the “pennants” that denote the team’s championship years. The original versions, which comprised MDF, had sustained cracks from hard-hit baseballs and other collisions, and the paint had begun to peel. Using the shop’s MultiCam Inc. CNC router, Dualite fabricators fashioned the pennants from 20-lb. HDU and coated them with acrylic-polyurethane paint.

In addition to these projects, Dualite frequently updates other ballpark signs, such as inkjet-printed and tri-vision scoreboard signs, lightbox concourse signage, concession-stand signage and graphics and other projects as needed. Dualite even provided the tarp that covers the infield during inclement weather when electronics and appliances purveyor HH Gregg purchased an advertisement to be placed on it.

“The Reds are looking for revenue streams in a trying economy, and advertisers are looking for unique avenues to get cost-effective advertising,” Schube said. “So, ballpark signage provides a win-win-win situation for the team, advertisers and us.”

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The Reds and Dualite will enjoy additional exposure when the team hosts this season’s Civil Rights Game on June 20 against the Chicago White Sox. Pregame festivities will include giving the Beacon Award, which MLB bestows upon African-American trailblazers, to Muhammad Ali, Bill Cosby and Hank Aaron. In late April, Dualite installed a 45 ft 2 in. x 14 ft. 2 in. banner at the stadium’s main entrance to promote the event.