By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
A new $150 million minor league ballpark in Downtown Summerlin will deliver everything from better sight lines, more comfortable chairs and elegant suites to a 360-degree concourse, a kids’ play area and a swimming pool complete with cabanas and a nearby bar.
And the re-branded Las Vegas Aviators have another ace up their sleeves — enhanced fan experiences thanks to a mammoth 31-by-126-foot scoreboard, a half-dozen camera locations, a high-powered audio system and a crowd emcee aided by a promo team called the “Flight Crew.”
LVSportsBiz.com met the Aviators’ director of game entertainment, Gary Arlitz, at the team’s Downtown Summerlin office Wednesday afternoon to find out the new game entertainment features that have become part of pro sports game experience these days.
Dan Bickmore, the former longtime public address announcer for the former 51s, is returning to replace Dick Calvert, who is known as the Voice of the UNLV Rebels. Bickmore’s nickname is “The Captain” — a moniker that will be a nice fit for a Triple A ballclub now called the Aviators, Arlitz said. Howard Hughes Corporation, Summerlin’s master developer and Aviators’ owner, re-named the baseball team in a way that promotes the Howard Hughes namesake brand. Howard Hughes was a well-known aviator.
Fans will also be treated to many more videos and images thanks to the giant scoreboard and more camera angles around the ballpark, which opens April 9 when the Sacramento River Cats visit Las Vegas Ballpark (the official venue name under an $80 million naming rights deal being paid for by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors, LVCVA, to Howard Hughes Corp.
“The biggest change will be the scoreboard. It’s 31 feet high by 126 feet long and it’s the biggest in the minors,” Arlitz said. “The sheer size gives us the opportunity to do so much more like replays. At Cashman, we were limited.”
The ballpark will have 130 TVs all around the venue, from the 22 suites to the concessions stands, Arlitz said. All have the capacity to show game replays. “We’re going to show replays from the field at snack bars. That’s a Big League experience,” Arlitz said.
The entertainment crew will even have control of the ballpark lights and can turn them on and off to the beat of a song being played on the sound system, he said.
Arlitz said he is still putting together his emcee and promo team crew and he has been chatting with the Vegas Golden Knights’ game presentation chief, Jonny Greco, who works right next door to the ballpark at City National Arena, the VGK training center and team headquarters. Greco’s Golden Knights’ game entertainment crew is credited with giving T-Mobile Arena one of the NHL’s premier game presentation experiences.
“They’re fans of baseball. We’re fans of hockey,” Arlitz said. “We’ll work together.”
Arlitz said he has talked with one of the Golden Knights’ game emcees, 95.5 FM The Bull radio personality Wayne Danielson, who is known as “Big D.” Danielson also worked as a game emcee for the WNBA Las Vegas Aces during their first season in Las Vegas last year. Arlitz noted he’s still putting his game entertainment team together, so the emcee is not finalized. He noted the emcee will have a more prominent presence at Aviators game than what you have seen at 51s games at Cashman Field.
The Aviators may have some new high-tech toys like the giant scoreboard, but they will keep baseball traditions like singing, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” and hold between inning fan games like spinning fans around a bat. The Aviators will have two minutes and 25 seconds to stage their promotions between innings and plan to keep to that deadline, Arlitz said.
At Cashman Field, cameras were used for only games that were scheduled for Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Arlitz said. “Guys were always looking at the board and I would say, ‘Sorry, it’s Tuesday. We don’t have cameras,’ ” Arlitz said.
At Cashman, there were three total cameras, while the new ballpark can have as many as six stationery cameras and two remote cameras for a total of eight. “We’re going to have angles we never could get at Cashman,” Arlitz said. He noted there will be cameras on the third based concourse, in the home team dugout, at a high point in the press box and from a spot from center field.
“We’ll show a nice replay of a homer from four different angles,” Arlitz said.
The Aviators will unveil a new mascot, but also keep the 51s’ mascot, Cosmo, around for the start of the new Pacific Coast League season, Arlitz said. “I don’t think Cosmo is going anywhere soon,” Arlitz said.
The Aviators will not have a full-time employee play the role of the mascot like the Golden Knights do with full-timer Clint McComb, who performs as “Chance,” the VGK gila monster mascot. But Arlitz noted he has eight people on staff who can perform the role of a mascot for games. And Arlitz said an Aviators mascot performer plans to go to a mascot boot camp run by David Raymond, who played the famed Phillie Phanatic, the Philadelphia Phillies’ mascot
He said the person playing the mascot will have a special mascot locker room at the ballpark, where a device called a “Rocket Locker” will dry the mascot costume and kill bacteria. “That will help the cleanliness all the way around,” Arlitz quipped. ”
And shower facilities will be nearby, too, for the person playing the mascot, he said. “That will be good for everyone.”
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