Parking spots in ‘Garnet Way’ priced from $250 to $750
The highly anticipated addition of a much larger, high-definition video board is still set to be completed and ready to go by USC’s first home football game on Sept. 8.
Last year’s football game attendees watched replays on a video board that clocked in at 20 feet high and 29 feet long. That size left USC at the No. 10 spot out of the then-12 SEC schools for video board size. Now, with the increase to a high-definition 36-foot high, 124-foot wide board towering over the end zone, the university sits comfortably at No. 3 in the conference.
According to Wes Hickman, university spokesman, the new video board will cost $6.5 million, all from private donations.
USC President Harris Pastides saw the new video board recently when he visited the marching band at the stadium.
“I am so psyched ... I spoke to them, then I looked over my shoulder and there was the new scoreboard. It blew me away,” he said. “I think it’ll be great in the daytime, but a night game with the colors, I think the technology is the best. I’m excited about that.”
The renovations to the video board fall in line with the $200 million master plan of facilities that included a new baseball stadium and facility, the Dodie Anderson Academic Enrichment Center and the new Carolina Tennis Center.
“We have spent millions of dollars throughout our athletics venues to enhance our presentation in an effort to recruit the best and the brightest student-athletes, but this one is geared toward the fans,” Hickman wrote in an email response. “The in-stadium experience at Williams-Brice Stadium is going to be fantastic with the addition of the new video board.”
Pastides said he hopes for a boost in attendance from the completion of the board.
“I hope we’ll increase attendance,” he said. “Even though we have good attendance, I’d like it to be perfect attendance, so to speak.”
Outside of the stadium, in the space formerly occupied by the farmers market, a brand new $15.5 million tailgating area has also been built. It is funded by athletic revenue bonds and is also expected to be completed by the first home game.
“I’m excited about the farmers market, which will have a new name,” Pastides said. “I think it’s going to be called Carolina Park ... The whole thing is going to be a better experience. I always thought it was an A-plus experience, but if that was A-plus, then this will be A-double-plus.”
A USC spokesman confirmed that the “Carolina Park” name for the tailgating area is one of the names being considered, but has not officially been chosen.
The area will include approximately 3,000 parking spots — each with a 10-foot-by-10-foot “tent zone” — 368 of which will be “VIP” spots that will include power and cable television connections, according to Hickman.
Pricing for season passes for the spots ranges from $750 for the VIP section to $250 for a spot in the back of the lot. Hickman said Gamecock Club members have already purchased all of the approximately 2,000 reserved spaces.
“The excitement and demand for this new tailgating area has been extraordinary,” he wrote.
The area will also have four bathroom buildings, an amphitheater for the band and cheerleaders and a centrally located grassy promenade dubbed the “Garnet Way.”
The promenade will be lined with scarlet oaks, and it will be home to new traditions like the “Gamecock Walk,” a parade of football players, marching band members and cheerleaders on their way to the stadium.
Hickman said the area will also soon be used for an indoor practice facility and football practice fields, as well as an outdoor entertainment venue.
In addition, the video control rooms in Williams-Brice Stadium will be upgraded to include “appropriate air conditioning for rooms of this nature and acoustical measures in the ceilings and walls,” according to Hickman.
Before the recent renovations, the control rooms had not been updated in more than a decade.
Isabelle Khurshudyan contributed reporting to this story.