NJ Signarama Merges Banners, Baseball

As long as there have been baseball stadiums, there have been advertisements on the outfield walls. However, save for the unabashedly throwback Wrigley Field and its perpetual ivy coat, outfield brick walls provide an expansive tableau for branding opportunities. Better yet, they will be seen by a somewhat captive audience. At major-league stadiums, most outfield signs will tout large corporations; minor-league walls are more likely to tout local businesses with advertising signage that provides a heightened sense of ballyard community.

For 10 years, the Camden (NJ) RiverSharks, an Atlantic League, unaffiliated, minor-league baseball team, have enlisted Cherry Hill, NJ’s Signarama to create banners and other sign types for Campbell’s Field. The shop works directly with the advertisers; larger companies will normally supply vector art. For smaller customers, the franchise will develop custom graphics using SA Intl.’s FlexiSign 8.5 design software.

To produce the banners, proprietor Chuck Eldridge’s shop will print on Cooley CoolFlex® 12-oz., frontlit banner material on a Mutoh ValueJet 1324 solvent-ink printer. When a project requires printing greater than a 60-in. width, they will subcontract to Georgia Printco (Lakeland, GA), which prints on a VUTEk GS5000 roll-to-roll, superwide, UV-cure-ink printer. Eldridge provides a three-year warranty on all billboards and wall banners he supplies to the team.

They secure the RiverSharks’ fence banners to the surface with heavy-duty wire ties. Billboard and wall-banner media are fastened to ½-in.-diameter, fiberglass poles, and stretched and tensioned with ratchet straps.

“Minor-league teams, especially those that aren’t affiliates, don’t have the huge budgets and built-in legions of fans big-league clubs enjoy, so they have to be aggressive in both promoting themselves and finding revenue streams,” Eldridge said. “We’re proud to play a role in the team’s growth in popularity.”