With New IPTV Platform, Kansas City Royals Engage Fans on Every Display at The K' Latest renovation integrates centerfield videoboard with 450+ video displays By Karen Hogan Ketchum, Senior Editor
Thursday, January 18, 2018 - 12:05 pm
Print This Story
Story Highlights
Kauffman Stadium may be nearing the big 5-0, but you wouldn't know it, thanks to the Kansas City Royals' continuing efforts to breathe new life into their longtime home. In 2009, a top-to-bottom, $250 million renovation installed a new video-control room, the now iconic centerfield videoboard, and more than 450 video displays throughout the venue. Today, an overhaul of the IPTV system and integration of the videoboard with those displays are designed to better engage Royals fans on game day.
The VITEC IPTV platform powers more than 450 displays throughout Kauffman Stadium, including Konica Minolta Diamond Club.
In 2008-09, we moved from what looked like a 30-year-old stadium to what looked like a relatively brand-new stadium, and that included a complete redo of a lot of the footprint of the stadium plus the introduction of a lot of technology, including IPTV, says Brian Himstedt, senior director, information systems, Kansas City Royals. At that time, [it was] very early days of IPTV, and a lot of that technology didn't exist in the stadium prior to that. That's now eight or nine years ago. [We] needed to reconsider what we're doing with our IPTV platforms.
After experiencing some of the benefits of IPTV with the system installed in 2009, the Royals realized that they needed a system that could support low-latency, live in-venue streaming and enable them to create and update dynamic digital signage content. The team selected VITEC's EZ TV IPTV and digital-signage platform, which integrates IPTV distribution with digital-signage capabilities in one platform.
The quality of the product that we put out on a concourse or we put in our suites depends on the reliability of the video platform: no latency, no interruptions of service, well integrated with the rest of the venue, says Himstedt. VITEC hit a sweet spot for us just in terms of cost and performance.
In addition to an improvement in video quality and reliability, the Royals looked for a way to further integrate their fan-facing video elements, including the one-of-a-kind centerfield videoboard. Rather than maintain a separate IPTV system with a separate operator, the Royals tied the VITEC platform into a Daktronics DMP-8000 media digital-media player to integrate the IPTV system with the LED displays.
Now we can really make IPTV a part of the event presentation and give it the same look and feel as we have on the main scoreboard, says Steven Funke, director, event presentation and production, Kansas City Royals. It's another element we have to give out information or make it part of the show, as opposed to before, when it was a standalone system. That's been exciting to us, since we now have the capabilities to do pretty much anything we want on the IPTV system that we haven't done in the past.
The new workflow, which debuted prior to the 2016-17 season, has given the Royals' in-house production team added flexibility. The main game presentation can be encoded and delivered to the stadium's hundreds of TVs with minimal delay but still act like a TV channel; the Royals can easily change the channel to a sponsor ad, a team promotion, and more. Furthermore, the system gives the Royals the ability to change the channel only on specific displays or in specific zones.
With The K well into its fifth decade (the stadium will celebrate its 46th season this year), the Royals see the potential upgrades on the horizon to keep the in-venue video experience fresh, dynamic, and engaging. The team recently invested in two Ross Video XPressions graphics systems to enliven the layout of the centerfield videoboard and enhance the overall presentation. Additional changes may soon follow.
Our philosophy is to entertain the fans, obviously, but we want to be a secondary to the game itself, says Funke. We want to be able to complement it as much we can.
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
In a live broadcast from the Reagan National Defense Forum, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher Kubasik joined Morgan Brennan on CNBCs Closing Bell: Overtime. Ku...
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils the First Look for Land of Sin' - Premier...
05/12/2025
Introducing New Perks to Help You Get Even More from LinkedIn Premium Published on Dec 5, 2025 Categories: Company News, Product News
LinkedIn Corporate Co...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
With New IPTV Platform, Kansas City Royals Engage Fans on Every Display at The K' Latest renovation integrates centerfield videoboard with 450+ video displays By Karen Hogan Ketchum, Senior Editor 
