billso.com

Jerry Jones, owner of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, has encouraged his architects to make the new Texas Stadium a bigger, better facility.

The new facility still has the rectangular hole in the roof, although it can be covered by a set of sliding doors. The wind makes a fierce howl as it whips through the construction site. In this YouTube video, the howl is audible over the freeway noise.

Beneath the hole is a set of 4 HDTV monitors that are suspended 110 feet over the football field:

The board will run from the 20-yard line to the 20-yard line — measuring 180 feet in length and 50 feet in height - making it the largest video board installation in the world.

There’s more information in this article from the Dallas Morning News, including a graphic that compares the board to city buses (Stack 4 large city buses. Repeat 6 times!), as well as the stadium’s web site.

Image of the stadium construction site courtesy of Brandon Cripps through a Creative Commons license.

From the Associated Press via Sports Illustrated and Forbes: National Football League commissioner Roger Goddell has announced that the league will enact and enforce tougher regulations regarding technology and spying for the 2008 season. The NFL has allowed radios for offensive play-calling since 1994, but mobile computer and video technology have advanced far faster than the league’s regulations ever anticipated.

The three-time NFL champion New England Patriots have been the subject of intense scrutiny after a staff member was caught videotaping defensive coaching signals during the team’s 2007 season opener. The NFL and Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) are each investigating multiple allegations that the Patriots had been videotaping opposing teams since coach Bill Belichick was hired in 2000.

Former Patriots employee Matt Walsh recently sent 8 video tapes of Patriots opponents to the NFL office for analysis. According to Mike Fish of ESPN, at least one tape included offensive coaches from another team. Previously, it was believed that the Patriots only taped defensive coaches.

What about the FCC?

Most of the discussions I have read about the so-called Spygate scandal have missed an important legal point. The NFL depends upon large multi-billion dollar contracts from US television networks for a significant portion of the league’s revenue and market power. Every regular-season and post-season game is televised. The NFL also owns and operates its own television network, which carries 8 regular season games, many pre-season games, and a 24/7 stream of interviews, documentaries, replays and other NFL content. See this article from CBS Sports for more details.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has specific regulations on how sports may be broadcast in the United States. One key rule is that live televised sporting events must be “free of artifice”. In other words, games cannot be rigged or fixed in any way.

This is one reason that professional wrestling broadcasts use a great deal of taped and edited content. Pro wrestling is marketed as , not a sporting event.

“When we met with [the] commissioner, the discussion was how we proceed in an era when technology is expanding exponentially,” Indianapolis Colts president Bill Polian said. “The question is how do we keep on top of that. This is far less about what happened in the past and how we deal with it in the future.”

Sports: From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, A list of traitors and backstabbers:

I can almost see Mike Tranghese grabbing Frank Beamer at the next Big East coaches luncheon, planting a big wet one on his cheek and saying, ‘I knew it was you Frank. You broke my heart!’ Or, to paraphrase another Roman who was stabbed in the back, ‘Et tu, Hokie?’