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SIERRA VISTA — If all goes according to schedule, Buena High School’s new state-of-the-art football scoreboard — as well as a scoreboard in Ensign Gymnasium — will be installed around the third week of September.

However, the scoreboard at Loveless Field will not be ready for Buena’s opening home game scheduled for Sept. 2 as school officials originally hoped, said Sierra Vista Unified School District Public Information Officer Valerie Weller.

Installation on the ultramodern outdoor scoreboard is expected to begin Sept. 19 and be completed by Sept. 23, said Weller.

“It won’t be operational for Buena’s Sept. 23 homecoming game (against Tucson Cholla High), but the scoreboard should be up by the end of that week,” she added.

Manufactured by Daktronics of Brookings, South Dakota, it should be an absolute showstopper.

It will have all the bells and whistles similar to college and professional LED scoreboards, complete with a digital play clock — something the current scoreboard was lacking — along with other displays showing starting lineups, upcoming events, school information and game prompts with Buena’s rotating logo.

Drilling for three 20-foot holes for 4-foot diameter steel poles that will mount the scoreboard will begin Sept. 7, said Weller. The poles, fabricated by M & M Industrial of Phoenix, will be installed between Sept 12-14, she added.

While the scoreboard is being erected at the stadium, Weller said another one will be installed inside Ensign Gymnasium between Sept. 12-20.

The price tag for both scoreboards — about $580,900 — is part of the district’s facelift for its aging signs and marquees totaling just more than $1 million. Funding for the project came from the district’s capital and maintenance and operations fund — primarily from the district’s sale of 25 acres formerly known as the Rothery Center Sports Complex — to the city of Sierra Vista two years ago for $981,000.

“We’ve needed new ones for a long time,” said Weller. “The ones we have now are pretty old — at least 20 or 25 years old. And since new regulations from the Arizona Interscholastic Association are calling for the necessity of both play and shot clocks now, these scoreboards will be able to provide those. The ones we have now don’t.”

Additionally, they’ll also serve as a revenue source for the school by displaying ads from community sponsors and local businesses, Sponsorships, which Weller primarily will be selling, start at around $10,000 per year.

Daktronics, one of the world’s largest suppliers of electronic displays, scoreboards and digital billboards, has designed ones used at both Winter and Summer Olympics, electronic signs and displays in Times Square along with scoreboards for the Kansas City Royals, Jacksonville Jaguars and a multi-million dollar system for the Kuwait stock exchange.

There’s also an academic spinoff for Buena students from the new scoreboard with its crisp, high-resolution displays: This year the high school will offer a sports marketing class in conjunction with its Marketing Management and Entrepreneurship course it currently offers, taught by William Conroy.

Among other things, Weller said the course will teach students interested in pursuing a sports management career how to operate the various displays on the scoreboard, as well as selling and placing advertisements. Weller also said some students possibly may sell some smaller ads for the scoreboard.

The course also will include a field trip to the Arizona Cardinals’ State Farm Stadium in Glendale to work hand-in-hand with the team that operates the team’s scoreboard.

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