Vivint Smart Home Arena, one of the oldest NBA venues, now has one of the more advanced in-arena digital display systems, thanks to a recent deployment of 600-plus Samsung “system on a chip” screens, which don’t require a separate digital media player to operate.

Part of a recent remodel of the home of the Utah Jazz, the new display screens are mounted throughout the concourses, in club areas and suites, as well as in concession stands. Run on management software from RevelTV, the screens currently show a mix of live game action and an ever-changing program of advertisements, both from outside sponsors as well as inside marketing programs for Jazz tickets and tickets to other events like concerts.

The displays are also used for concessions menu boards, often mounted next to other displays showing live action so that fans waiting in concession lines don’t miss a single Rudy Gobert dunk or a Joe Ingles 3-pointer. Those fans also now see an increasingly growing number of messages, all pushed from a central location on a system that seems light years ahead of the stadium’s previous display technology.

Replacing static screens

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In a recent tour of the stadium before a home game against the Denver Nuggets, BJ Vander Linden, CIO for Larry H. Miller Sports & Entertainment (the Jazz owners), said many things inside Vivint Smart Home Arena were changed during a recent $125 million makeover. In addition to some physical and structural changes — mainly opening up walls and turning former office space into open-air club spaces — Vivint Smart Home Arena also got a big digital display upgrade.

“We wanted to make it more simple to put things on the walls,” said Vander Linden of one of the overarching signage strategies. The Jazz also wanted to move past the arena’s former display technology, which used digital media players (DMPs) on the backs of screens. According to Vander Linden, that system had fixed programs for each display, which couldn’t be easily changed.

“You would just sell them one time for the entire season,” Vander Linden said.

After dealing with Samsung’s Prismview division for its new center-hung video display and its in-bowl ribbon boards, the Jazz decided to buy in to Samsung’s so-called “system on a chip” (or SOC) Smart Signage display technology, where the DMPs are essentially embedded into the display itself.

Ed Stock, global account manager for sports and entertainment at Samsung, said the SOC displays not only cut deployment costs significantly by making the DMP costs go away, they are also easier to deploy and maintain since they only require a network connection and power, which can sometimes be deployed in a PoE (power over Ethernet) connection.

“If each DMP costs you $500 and you’re installing 600 screens, the costs can really add up,” Stock said. System-on-a-chip displays, he said, “can save you a ton of money.”

‘Like selling TV ads’

Also part of the display partnership was RevelTV (also known as Revel Media Group of Kaysville, Utah), which provides the content management system that runs the display programs, as well as templates and designs for screens and displays of all types and sizes, including concession menu boards and multi-screen display panels.

RevelTV president and CEO Brian Fitzpatrick said that RevelTV also has a game-day operator on hand to help the Jazz run their display show, as well as design teams who can help ensure that content looks like it should in the 12 different resolutions found in the mix of displays at Vivint Smart Home Arena.

Vander Linden said the Utah Jazz can now sell a wide range of display-based options, including messages timed to live events.

“It’s like selling TV ads,” Vander Linden said.

Currently in its inventory, the Jazz sell all-screen “takeovers” for game action like 3-point shots or a Rudy Gobert block or dunk. If the arena’s main competition really is the fan’s living room couch, Vander Linden said having a display system that can keep creating visual energy only helps to make the live event an even more entertaining place to be.

For now, Vander Linden likes that the new display systems are easier to maintain, and easier to expand to places where there previously were no displays. In the future, he foresees even more flexibility and opportunity with the new display system, perhaps adding elements like facial recognition (where the displays could sense how long people look at the screen) and machine learning to figure out better places to put displays or how long to run different pieces of content.

But right now, with live game action right next to sponsor messages as well as advertisements for upcoming events (like concerts) at Vivint Smart Home Arena, the concourse display system is already helping Vander Linden and the Jazz keep its fans entertained and informed, while improving its own bottom line — and keeping that couch empty.

BELOW: Take a quick look at one of the Vivint multi-panel screens in action: