Marlins Park Immersing HR Derby, All-Star Game Fans in Cutting-Edge Statistics

Daktronics video boards to include exit velocity, other next-generation numbers for stat-conscious baseball fans during All-Star Game festivities.

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Here's a cool look at Marlins Park, home of the Miami Marlins and host of the 2017 Major League Baseball All-Star Game and Home Run Derby.

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When Major League Baseball’s best players and strongest sluggers gather in Miami for the 2017 All-Star Game festivities this week, they’ll be part of a history-making endeavor, thanks to Daktronics and its 21 LED displays around Marlins Park and in its concourses.

For the first time, the video boards will include so-called advanced statistics such as exit velocity for the many longballs expected to be launched in the Home Run Derby. Marlins Park has used the Track Man system that posts cameras throughout the park to measure things like how far a fielder runs to catch a ball, but the Home Run Derby will mark the debut of the advanced stats being shown to fans there.

“They’ll see a lot more data than in a typical game,” says Daktronics professional services manager Dustin Cullhane. “Baseball fans love stats, so we want to show them as many as we can.”

Daktronics staffers have worked with officials from MLB and the hosting Miami Marlins to develop the protocol for the All-Star Game festivities, he says, and installers put in a DMP 8000 control system in the offseason — a nice coincidence with the marquee events. Those include a celebrity softball game, a matchup between minor league rising stars, the Home Run Derby, and the All-Star Game itself.

At nearby MLB FanFest inside the Miami Beach Convention Center, Daktronics and MLB officials have set up what Cullhane calls “a hype video,” featuring some of the All-Stars on a Daktronics narrow pixel-pitch 1.9mm display.

Daktronics has displays in most Major League Baseball stadiums, says Cullhane, but showing off the narrow pixel-pitch display for 100,000 rabid baseball fans as they enter and leave FanFest represents “a great way to bring it to a high-profile event,” he says.

Cullhane grew up watching the Midsummer Classic and Home Run Derby, but this is the first chance he’ll have to see it in person, he says. He’s worked in the past at Super Bowls, college football championships, and other high-profile events, but never the MLB All-Star Game.

“The Home Run Derby has always been a bucket list item for me,” he says.

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