Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon wants the Wolverines to be the best in everything, from hockey to volleyball to the facilities the teams use. He never stops trying to make Michigan better, which is why it isn't all that surprising that he is already talking about the next Michigan Stadium renovation. The one that has been ongoing for the last few years is finally wrapping up, but it looks like work on the Big House may not be done yet.
"We are already looking at future expansion plans to Michigan Stadium," Brandon said. "I personally believe strongly that the next thing that needs attention are the scoreboards. They really look old now and they look undersized and there's new technology, so one of the things I really want to do is thoughtfully consider what we can do in incorporating new scoreboards into the architecture that's there.
"And if there's a way as part of that design to create a few more seats, well look at doing that."
Since Michigan will spend the next couple offseasons widening the aisles and seats in the bowl, the capacity will drop. That is likely part of why Brandon mentioned that new scoreboards could mean new seats as well, depending on how the design is.
New seats or not, there's no doubt that Michigan needs to replace the current scoreboards. They were added before the 1998 season and were a big upgrade at the time over the old scoreboards, which didn't even have video. Technology has changed quite a bit since then, however. Although some improvements were made to the scoreboards a few years ago when an LED strip was added to the bottom of both and bulbs were replaced with LED lights, Michigan needs to completely overhaul them.
In recent years, the video screens on the scoreboards have started to experience some problems and seem to be on their last legs. Even if they were working fine, it's time to move into the 21st century by upgrading the video part of the scoreboards to HD. Also, with the way technology is nowadays, Michigan could just put up two big LED screens and then customize them from there. They don't need to separate the video screens from the score/time/statistics portion, as that can be added to the LED screen quite easily.
As far as just how big these new scoreboards should be, it will depend on if Michigan incorporates new seating into these plans. I think it's safe to say they won't be monstrosities like the Godzillatron down in Texas, but I'm sure they will be larger than the ones currently in place.