Jumbotron Stimulus Plan
5-11-10
by: Mark

I was curious about the sizes of jumbotrons in the SEC. I assumed that the 74 by 30 foot screen Auburn installed in 2007 was among the largest in the SEC. I was very wrong. Six SEC schools have installed new video scoreboards since 2007, and five schools have at least one screen larger than Auburn’s. However, Auburn and LSU are tied with the highest resolution screens. Given that, I don’t think Auburn has necessarily fallen behind in the jumbotron arms race – especially since most of the larger screens have insane aspect ratios which make over half the screen useless for anything other than advertising. The following is a chart I made comparing respective sizes of the screens in the SEC;


(Sources: gamecockarazzi.com and wikipedia)

This year, the federal government is spending approximately 9.7 billion dollars per day to operate. Auburn spent 2.9 million dollars on their 74x30’ jumbotron. If the senate voted to shut down the entire government for a single day, and divert the funds to a new jumbotron for Jordan-Hare; then, Auburn could purchase approximately 3,344 exact copies of their existing jumbotron, and use those to form two giant screens , one for each end-zone, each measuring in at 3.7 million square feet.

One of the two screens would look like this;



The small orange area at the bottom represents the size of the existing 74’ x 30’ jumbotron. The wide angle lens used in this photograph makes the size a little deceiving. Here’s a picture of the areas affected if the screens fell over.



Don’t get me wrong. These images aren’t meant to illustrate government waste. I just wanted an excuse to photoshop a gigantic jumbotron. If anything, I’m actually calling for more government spending since I think these jumbotrons would be a great idea*. Please write your senator today and tell them to increase next year’s budget by 1/365 (or 0.27%) in order to purchase these jumbotrons for Auburn. It will be a good thing since it will create new jobs. Any politician against this plan is anti-jobs.

*Another idea would be to use the 9.7 billion dollars to buy about 9.8 million 46” Samsung LCD HDTVs. You could tape those TVs together and form 2.8 square miles of jumbotron. But, a jumbotron of that size would be silly. Don’t embarrass yourself by asking some congressman to buy you a 2.8 square mile jumbotron, because I can already think of three or four pretty big logistical problems that would arise when taping together 9.8 million TVs. Stick with the original plan.


War Eagle!

E-mail Mark at mark@theauburner.com