Mackey Arena Getting Facelift

Purdue Athletics is fixing one of my only qualms about going to a game in Mackey Arena. Purdue will be installing brand new video boards in the off-season to be ready for the 50th anniversary of our beloved Mackey Arena during the 2017-2018 season. The news was just made official with a tweet and press release.

For those who don’t want to click through to read the entire press release here are the highlights:

The center-hung display will feature four 20-feet wide by 13-feet tall six-millimeter LED video boards. The halo ring will measure 109-feet in circumference by three-feet tall with a 10-millimeter LED display.

The statistics boards will measure 20-feet wide by 11.5-feet tall each (10-millimeter LED), with their adjacent ribbon boards 50-feet wide by 3-feet tall each (also 10-millimeter LED).

Mackey’s current center-hung display has four video boards measuring 13.5-feet by 7.75-feet each with 12-millimeter display, while its three statistics boards are 19-feet by 5-feet each with 23-millimeter display. There are no halo ring or ribbon boards presently.

That’s quite a lot of new video board action coming to Mackey. This should make the game-day experience better for everyone. To make this even sweeter is that gifts will cover the entire $1.9 million project. That means none of the funds will need to come out of the general athletics fund.

The press release ends with the interesting tidbit that fundraising will continue in order to enhance the experience for Mackey’s 50th anniversary. No details were given on what these projects or promotions could be but it’s great to see Purdue making moves.