Minnesota United's Allianz Field Takes the Soccer-Specific Venue to New Heights Set to host its first MLS match on April 13, the 19,400-seat facility is the latest jewel of MLS expansion By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Friday, March 29, 2019 - 3:09 pm
Print This Story
Story Highlights
American soccer is in a golden age of stadium development. In just the past five years, six new venues have opened as homes for Major League Soccer clubs, and five of them are soccer-specific venues (the sixth is Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and Atlanta United fans have done an admirable job making that NFL facility feel like a soccer-specific stadium).
Allianz Field, the new home of MLS's Minnesota United FC, is set to host its first official match on April 13.
The latest venue is Allianz Field, rising near Interstate 94 in the Midway neighborhood of Saint Paul, MN, and shimmering in the night with its multicolored LED-lighting exterior. Of all the new stadiums cropping up across the country to host the beautiful game, the new home of Minnesota United FC may just be - depending on whom you ask - the sleekest one yet.
Opening for its first MLS match on April 13 (vs. NYCFC, 5 p.m. ET, ESPN2), Allianz Field is a 19,400-seat, open-air (yes, even in Minnesota) facility designed by the global firm Populus. It has garnered much praise nationwide both for its design and for becoming one of just four MLS venues to be built entirely with private funds. Its $250 million price tag is nothing to sniff at for a venue of its size, but, when that is compared with the more than $1 billion cost of building U.S. Bank Stadium in Downtown Minneapolis, this place is a bona fide bargain.
In-stadium fan experience is where Allianz Field promises to truly shine. Sure, it has fantastic sightlines and fun, accessible amenities like its Brew Hall (which features more than 90 unique taps and is open to the public year-round), but it's Minnesota United's in-house video-production and operations team that will be tasked with jacking up Loons' support.
The Supporters' Videoboard
The crown jewel of Allianz Field is its 116- x 22-ft (2304- x 456-pixels) Daktronics videoboard at the back of the stadium's south side. It looms over the 2,920-seat Supporters Section, where many of the crowd's rowdiest of fans will stand, cheer, and sing throughout the game.
Allianz Field's 2,304- x 456-ft. primary videoboard, designed by Daktronics, stretches across the top of the Supporters Section.
The main board, a 15mm screen, is accompanied by 13 LED displays (also from Daktronics) throughout the stadium, including two smaller boards embedded in the Supporters Section.
Having spent its first two MLS seasons handling home matches at TCF Stadium in Minneapolis (home of the University of Minnesota's football team), the Minnesota United video crew is thrilled by the prospect of having videoboards to call its own.
Having complete ownership of all of the displays and the day-to-day workflow is going to be so much better for us, says Daniel Claxton, senior director, production and match day presentation, Minnesota United FC, who joined the club fulltime about a year ago. Loading is easier, and we'll be able to come in and test content whenever we need to. We're spending much more time in here and taking the time to tweak to get this ready to go.
In addition to the video action inside the bowl, there's a Daktronics 2,800- x 675-pixels screen in the building's Stadium Club, which is reserved for Club Level season-ticket holders. The board can serve as a carbon copy of the primary video board, but Cole Mayer, production engineer, Minnesota United FC, expects it to be used as a quad box to display the broadcast of the game and other MLS match and advertising-related elements.
In the stadium's video rack room, a Daktronics VP-6000 video processor handles all signal-input and -refinement functions, such as video mixing and keying effects, for the two large Dak displays.
A Control Room for a New Era
Allianz Field's video-control room is a 1080p 59.94 HD facility that Claxton and the MNUFC video team built in collaboration with WJHW and Alpha Video, the popular facility integrator that also calls Minnesota home.
Allianz Field's various video displays are supported by a control room near the south side of the stadium built with a 1080p infrastructure.
The room is built around a Ross Carbonite Black (3M/E) sports-production switcher with a Ross Ultrix router as74 i0ts backbone. There are three channels of Ross Xpression for graphics, and an Evertz DreamCatcher DC-ONE (12 channels in, four out) replay system and a four-channel Evertz Clip Player support playback for the big screen. Comms have been entrusted to RTS and its Odin intercom matrix. The team also uses RTS Roameo, a wireless intercom system. There's Dante audio networking and the stadium's IPTV system and digital signage is supported by VITEC.
Going 1080p was a huge factor for Claxton, not only for its resolution quality but for helping streamline all of MNUFC's video-content production and operations. Now all video created by the team can be used anywhere: videoboards, broadcast, digital, or social.
That was a big thing that I wanted to do, says Claxton. From a postproduction standpoint, it helps us use the content outside of the control room day to day. TCF [Stadium] is 720, so we typically didn't use much of the footage that we got out of our [in-stadium] replay systems. We wanted to get more use out of that stuff.
To program the various screens, MNUFC deploys five Sony cameras (four operated on tripods, one a roaming wireless) throughout the stadium, shooting at 1080p from traditional angles. The cameras are fitted with Canon glass, including the KJ20x8.2B portable 20X HD lens with 2X zoom e
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Minnesota United's Allianz Field Takes the Soccer-Specific Venue to New Heights Set to host its first MLS match on April 13, the 19,400-seat facility is the latest jewel of MLS expansion By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
