When the Milwaukee Brewers take on the Cincinnati Reds at American Family Field this weekend, it won’t just be baseball player versus baseball player. The home team will also have an increasing amount of technology on hand that the club says is aimed at helping both fans and the nine Brewers on the diamond.
One of the main high-tech areas at the Milwaukee baseball stadium is up aways behind home plate, and just down the third base line from the press box.
“It's a high drive, way back into right, good-bye!” boomed a Brewers highlight video on one of 18 video screens and 20 computer monitors in the scoreboard control room. It's the sort of video that might play on the large, two year old scoreboards during a game.
The control room also takes feeds from six human-operated and six robotic cameras around the ballpark. A crew of 26 people is assigned to each game.
Deron Anderson is Senior Director of Scoreboard Operations for the Brewers. He says it’s a long way from things at the former ballpark, Milwaukee County Stadium.
“I believe their scoreboard crew was four for each game. Now, we’re at 26. So, it’s a little different," Anderson says.
Anderson says he and his team are trying to increase the fan experience.
“I will say that it really helps to encourage the energy. Just by all the sound that you hear, the lights and everything. And with the main boards and such and all the replays, it really gives you a complete game feel," Anderson says.
Anderson says besides feeding videos to the scoreboard, this is where the music is played as players approach the batters box—their walk-up music.
Anderson says the players are really into their song, “So, the louder the better for them, and that also encourages the fans to participate with the players. And so, it’s one big happy energy.”
Two of the cameras also help the baseball teams’ managers with evaluating the opposition. Scoreboard and AV Systems Director Mark Roberts says those cameras show who’s throwing in the other teams’ bullpen.
“I think because we play the bullpens inside the clubhouses or inside the dugouts, it lets them know who’s warming up for the opposing team. Maybe get to see that pitcher for a little bit. See what he’s throwing, see what he has," Roberts says.
Like other modern entertainment venues— WUWM Radio for example —there’s also a nearby room with racks of computer servers. The back of the house, you might call it.
We step inside that room with Brewers Information Technology Vice-President Derek Hyde, who says there was a major updates here after the end of the 2023 season.
“We gutted this room down to bare shelves, ripped all the cabling out, and brought in a brand system that runs all of the scoreboard and all of the replay systems and all of the video routing systems. We also have our amps in here that are for certain concourse speakers, and also the bowl audio system we hear in the bowl," Hyde says.
That’s the seating bowl, or where fans sit. The content goes to as many as 800 monitors around the stadium.
Hyde says this room also has cable that leads to where the television broadcast trucks are parked outside American Family Field.
All the increased technology does have costs. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported this week that when the scoreboard control room was expanded two winters ago, it took space where team organist Dean Rosko used to sit. Any organ music you now hear at the stadium has been pre-programmed.
The Brewers also acknowledge some problems with the big new centerfield scoreboard last year and that a new hi-tech parking payment system had to be fixed.
Still, outside the stadium Thursday evening, as tailgater Aidan Bushre fired up his grill and prepared hamburgers, he said he’s fine with all the replays and audio feeds for the fans.
“I think it's a good volume, and if it gets loud in there, I mean, it gets you going," Bushre says.
For a while this season, when the Brewers' record was 0-4, there were doubts that anything could improve the fan experience. But Bushre has faith in the home team.
“Rough start, but I think we can turn it around, get our momentum going," he says.
The Brewers rewarded that optimism Thursday night with their third win in a row.
