New basketball scoreboard will be one of a kind

GREENSBORO – Phase II of Georgia’s vast improvement project for Stegeman Coliseum is set to get underway and this one will be impossible for fans to miss walking into the 60-year-old facility.

A new video board – estimated to be at 6,000 square feet – will cover the entire expanse on the Eastern end of the Coliseum.

“There are so many ways people are doing this now, but it just felt natural with the great wall space that we had to put that to use,” athletic director Josh Brooks said. “We just felt it was a natural fit for that space.”

The new board will be more than two times bigger than the next-biggest basketball scoreboard, a 2,000-square-foot board currently in use by San Jose State.

The total cost of the project has not been finalized. The project's estimated start date is March 2025, with an estimated completion of Fall 2025.

Other Phases II improvements include a new sound system.

“We would have liked to have started it earlier, but the video board is going to require some HVAC components for cooling, so we had to take a little more time to plan it,” Brooks said. "But the construction will begin next spring.”

The new video board is just the latest improvement made to Stegeman Coliseum since the facility closed for several months starting in March of 2023 after small pieces of the ceiling fell to the floor.

Since repairs have been made, other improvements to Stegeman have included a new basketball weight room in the lower level and painting the ceiling black.

Brooks was asked what the new scoreboard can do for the 60-year-old facility.

“I love Stegeman. I think it’s got a lot of good parts to it. The cost of building a new arena would be astronomical, it wouldn’t be a good use of money,” Brooks said. “I talk to other coaches, other athletic directors who come here and they say this place looks amazing. I think this new evolution with the lights and the sounds is going to make it one of the premiere facilities in the country.”