AT&T Stadium

The AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, is home to the famous Dallas Cowboys of the NFL. Renowned for its retractable roof and ramped up rivalry matches, the stadium has recently been embracing the benefits of its new ChyronHego based arena graphics system, as well as an expansion of its audio system from Electro-Voice.

With the stadium holding events including the Superbowl, and also the most valuable team in the NFL, the new video and audio upgrade now has the ability to enhance even the smallest games.

Headlining the video project was Click Effects PRIME, ChyronHego’s integrated graphics toolset for delivering live arena and stadium based audiovisual presentations to any canvas size, with any number of outputs, in any resolution. Click Effects PRIME – together with the latest versions of ChyronHego’s Paint, and Virtual 1st – is ushering in a new era of 4K production on the LiveFX Endzone board at AT&T Stadium.

“We have one of the most complex shows in in-arena sports, so we don’t have one machine that fits all of our needs, we look for different specialists. We link remotes all throughout our Click Effects systems to create those immersive moments in games,” said Jake Kelso, Manager of Events Presentation for the Dallas Cowboys. “The paint telestration tool, especially, has brought a new dynamic that we can use for sponsorship, highlights and live playback, and that versatility is huge.”

The Cowboys’ first LED to display 4K content, and the team’s first Click Effects PRIME installation is the largest LiveFX Endzone board. Used primarily for game support graphics such as replay videos and fan entertainment during breaks, the board went live with 4K video clips and graphics driven by Click Effects PRIME.

“ChyronHego systems have been our mainstay since day one. Personally, I’ve been using its products for the better part of my 40-year career, which gives me a keen perspective on how well these technologies have improved and evolved,” said Dwin Towell, Director of Broadcast Engineering for the Dallas Cowboys. “Our migration to 4K will eventually require replacement of every screen and system in this stadium, but we’ve never questioned whether ChyronHego was the right graphics provider in this huge undertaking. With Click Effects PRIME being the perfect example, these solutions are mature, dependable, and very well-supported. Also, since ChyronHego is an industry-standard for graphics production, it’s easy to find technicians who are well-versed in the systems.”

When the Dallas Cowboys opened AT&T Stadium in 2009, it boasted the world’s largest Electro-Voice sound system in a permanent installation, including over 240 line-array loudspeakers from the X-Line family. Gary French, Audio Engineer in charge of the Dallas Cowboys, explained how the AT&T Stadium wanted to ‘improve coverage, loudspeaker delay management and evaluate the performance possibilities inside the venue’ with the recently updated audio system.

The design team, spearheaded by Kevin Day of WJHW, selected Electro-Voice systems for their audio quality, reliability and depth of control provided by the IRIS-Net processing and monitoring platform. After enthusiastic approval from team owner Jerry Jones, Pro Media Audio Video was enlisted to help coordinate the challenging installation.

Fast-forward to 2019, noting that the many touring concert acts coming through the world’s largest domed stadium simply do not carry enough PA to provide adequate coverage for the upper seating areas, the audio team decided to take advantage of Electro-Voice’s scalability to address the challenge.

“We’re always working to improve the fan experience for all events, not just on game days,” said Gary. “Most concert tours augment their traveling systems with our Electro-Voice arrays as the delay system for the upper levels. We decided a little extra coverage would be a big upgrade for those events.”

The Cowboys’ audio team worked with System Programmer, Richard Bratcher, along with original design and installation partners including Kevin Day of WJHW, Head Engineer, Demetrius Palavos, and COO, Ted Leamy of Pro Media Audio Video, as well as the Electro-Voice engineering team. Together, they determined that the 14 XLCi127DVX compact three-way delay systems covering the upper level could be scaled up to produce smoother coverage with improved intelligibility.