Oswego SD308 Board hears proposal for new OEHS football stadium scoreboard

This is the proposed design for a new football stadium scoreboard at Oswego East High School. The blank spaces at the lower left and right corners of the display would be used for advertising. (Image provided by SD308)

OSWEGO – Oswego SD308 is considering an innovative plan to install a new football stadium scoreboard at Oswego East High School.

Dan Arntzen, the district’s director of high school instruction and K-12 assessments, and with Communications Director Theresa Komitas detailed a plan March 20 ,which is designed to produce advertising revenue for the district.

The district would partner with PowerAd, described by Arntzen and Komitas in a memo as “a professional booster company, fundraising on behalf of the district to fund the cost of sports signage and scoreboards.”

Under the deal, PowerAd would provide OEHS with a digital scoreboard for the stadium, paid for by the sale of ads that the company solicits.

“At this time the priority is the stadium scoreboard at Oswego East, as that sign is 18 years old, the parts are not available and are being shared between that sign and another,” according to the presentation by the two administrators.

Once PowerAd recoups the cost of the scoreboard, the contract allows for the company to continue selling advertising space, splitting the revenue 50-50 with the school district. The district would have approval rights to all advertising appearing on the scoreboard prior to display.

The scoreboard would include two static ad spaces flanking a rotating digital space that would be “fully branded to the school,” Komitas and Arntzen wrote.

The proposal is expected to come back to the School Board on April 11 for a vote.