How Custom Graphics Can Improve Your Football Stadium

As a football team manager, you are always looking for ways to improve, whether that be through acquiring new players, coming up with new plays or practicing every chance you get. In the same way, you should want to be consistently improving your football stadium to give your players, staff and fans the most positive experience possible.

To achieve this goal of giving everyone who uses your stadium a memorable time, you can start by making the stadium visually appealing through the use of custom graphics and images. The best football teams know the value of making their stadium a destination and integral part of their city, and they accomplish this through stunning graphics.

Why You Should Include Custom Graphics in Your Stadium

If you’re thinking about updating your stadium’s appearance, you should seriously consider adding graphics that will bring your team’s personality, history and values to life as soon as fans arrive to watch a game. These kinds of graphics will bring several benefits to your organization, like reinforcing your team’s identity and helping fans enjoy the game more fully. To help you decide if you want to add graphics to your stadium, see the benefits below:

Craft a team identity: The graphics that you choose to include throughout your stadium will send a message about the personality of your team and their professionalism. Sloppy or boring graphics send a message to fans and players that the organization does not care much about their success. In contrast, high-quality, stylish graphics that catch the eye will establish a team identity that is focused on success and takes pride in playing for the organization.
Become a destination: Striking designs won’t be ignored. On top of the sheer size of a football stadium, quality graphics will grab the attention of those who pass by the stadium, whether or not they are a football fan. As you generate awareness for your football team through the quality of your team’s graphics, you will build a reputation as an iconic attraction in your city. As an attraction, you will bring in more people to watch your games and increase your brand’s presence.
Give fans directions: As stadiums can be hard to navigate, it’s essential to have graphics to help fans find their way. You don’t want fans confused about how to find their seats or locate the bathroom. Instead, you want them focused on having a great time at the game and watching your team play. Graphics that provide directions to your fans will help them find their way through the stadium as seamlessly as possible.
Advertise and market your team: With stylish graphics implemented throughout your stadium, sponsors will want to be associated with your team. An infrastructure of graphics will give you plenty of ad space to work with and allow advertisers to display their messages. This can increase your revenue from sponsors, and you can market your newest merchandise and ticket packages.

Three Forms of Stadium Graphics

Convinced that you need to add new graphics, but don’t know where to start? You’re in luck, as we have all the information you need to bring state of the art graphics to your stadium, broken down into three easy-to-reference categories. Our experience working with football teams and athletic organizations has given us a unique perspective on how to make your stadium as visually appealing as possible.

1. Exterior Graphics

Since football stadiums are often located in downtown or other highly trafficked areas, you will want to use the exterior of your stadium to brand your team and display your message.

Football Stadium Signs

One of the most versatile ways that you can display graphics outside of the stadium is through custom signs. Football stadium signage can be placed along fencing, over the box office, on top of the entryway to the stadium and even along the sidewalk. Typically, they will display information like the team’s name and logo along with other relevant information about the team.

Teams generally use these exterior signs to generate interest in the organization, make the exterior more visually appealing and communicate important messages. These signs can be mounted on the side of your building to catch the eye of anyone near the stadium instantly and will likely be vinyl to hold up against the elements. If you want to add an extra pop to a sign, backlight signs will ensure that your message stands out throughout the day and even at night.

On top of signs mounted directly onto the stadium, you can include signs that stand independently outside of the stadium and signs that are portable. For instance, a-frame sidewalk signs can be easily placed around the stadium to advertise the newest promotional deals, such as a price drop in season tickets, and get fans excited for the rest of season.

Along with signage that assists the team’s marketing efforts, exterior signage can often be functional. They could, for example, show how fans can get from the parking lot to the stadium. Even more importantly, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant signage is required throughout the stadium, including its exterior, such as accessible parking spot signs. These signs will help you meet regulations and make sure that all of your fans have the best time possible at the game.

Banners

You’re probably familiar with NFL team banners if you’ve ever attended a game or even watched it on television. They hang from the front and sides of stadiums displaying the team’s logo or showing off a sponsor’s advertisement. While the team is playing the game, you will often see them in the background, hung down from the highest points of the stadium to celebrate past accomplishments.

More than anything, a banner is meant to put a message at the center of the viewer’s mind. Even a banner with just the name of the team in its trademark colors will accomplish that goal, as it places the team at the forefront of fans’ thoughts. Banners that boast about previous players, championships or other team accomplishments tie fans and players to the past, giving the organization a unique history that people will want to continue to help be a part of making.

By designing custom football banners, you will separate your team from the competition with visually striking design and add to your stadium’s unique appearance.

Even more so than signs, banners are incredibly versatile. They can be hung from rafters, installed onto the side of walls, strung across fences and attached to street lamps. They look great outside your stadium, but you can also include them inside as well. Due to their versatility and attractive appearance, banners come with a variety of benefits:

Eye-catching: Football banners will increase the amount of publicity you can get between and during games. A custom banner that hangs over the entrance to the stadium will draw attention to the team. Additionally, banners hung from the sides of the stadium will lead to brand recall for anyone passing by the stadium.
Pride: Commemorative banners hung from the side of the stadium’s rafters facing the field or outside the stadium on lamp posts, for example, will create feelings of pride in your fans and players. Banners give fans the chance to see the storied history of the team as soon as they take their seats or as they draw close to the arena.
Choice: One of the best features of banners is the amount of choice that they offer to teams looking to craft graphics unique to them. Banners can be found in a variety of sizes, shapes, laminates, colors, designs and stands, letting you easily customize them for the needs of your team.
Brand consistency: With color-matching technology like the kind that SpeedPro uses, banners can mirror the tone and shades of your team’s colors precisely. This sort of consistency will enhance your brand, further associating certain colors and graphics to your team in fans’ minds.
Long-lasting: As organizations often keep banners outside, we only recommend banners that will brave the harshest elements and stand up to the test of time. Our most recommended football stadium banners come with base vinyl fabricated to ensure toughness. Along with the fabricated vinyl, these banners can use a laminate finish to guard against fading, water and weather. Wherever you place the banners, they will last for a long time.

2. Interior Graphics

Inside the stadium, there are plenty of opportunities to brand the space and be visually appealing.

Wall Murals

You should not neglect the large concourse walls of a stadium as they can be used for stunning wall murals that celebrate aspects of your team like star players, past legends, shots of your team in action or other creative illustrations that line up with the rest of the stadium’s look. The murals are sure to be unique and show fans that you are committed to excellence.

Digital Signs

For more modern looking, technology-centered signage, you should go with a digital sign that can be easily customized to fit your needs. As you can edit digital signage very quickly, it’s a good choice for messages that will need to change as the season progresses. A digital sign could display your team’s record or celebrate a recent win. Additionally, they are great for sponsor messages as they can quickly implement new advertisements without any additional cost.

Wayfinding Signs

Wayfinding signage can come in digital or more traditional forms and help fans find their way around the stadium. Whenever a fan comes to a game, you want them to focus on cheering for your team and having fun. You don’t want them lost in the parking lot or the stadium’s hallways looking for their seat. With wayfinding signs, you can direct them around the stadium and reduce any chances of their enjoyment being interrupted.

Locker Room Graphics

Graphics for football locker rooms draw from many of the previously mentioned graphics to craft a pleasing environment for players and staff. To design a locker room that feels like home to your players and provides practical value to them on a day-to-day basis, you’ll want to draw from the graphics used in the rest of your stadium.

See below for some of the most used graphics in locker rooms:

Signs: One of the most popular uses of signs in a locker room is on the lockers themselves. Players can each get their own sign with their name, position they play, picture and other biographical details installed on the front of their locker. Also, you can use signs for wayfinding purposes like marking areas of the locker room facilities such as showers, film room and exercise room.
Wall murals: Bring the history of your team’s accomplishments and celebrate their current season with wall murals in the locker room. These graphics will give the locker room a more personalized feel and instill pride for the organization in your players. These wall murals also help to set the tone for new players who are still getting used to the culture of the team, giving them clear expectations. Additionally, a wall mural shows players that you are invested in their success, as you’ve taken the time to personalize their locker room.
Decals: If you’re looking for something that’s both attractive and affordable, decals are the perfect way to add visual appeal to your locker room while staying on a budget. You can quickly place decals onto any surface, such as a wall, locker, floor, window or door to add some flare. Decals are especially useful if you know that you will be rebranding soon, as they can be removed easily to make room for updated graphics that reflect your team in its most recent form.

3. Football Field Graphics

On the field, you’ll want to have only the very best graphics present. As fans will be watching the game with their eyes glued on the field for the majority of it, you will want to have attractive graphics on the field itself.

To ensure that fans can keep up with the game and stay occupied between plays, you can hang giant monitors from the ceiling or place them at the ends of the stadium to show the score, replays and promotional material, to name only a few uses.

For a less obvious place for graphics on the field, you can use vinyl pad wraps at the base of the goal post. These pad wraps will help reduce injury from players accidentally running into them and can display relevant team imagery.

Ready to Add Custom Graphics to Your Football Stadium?

If you want to take the next step and make your stadium a local attraction with custom graphics, SpeedPro is here to help. As a nationwide network of studios specializing in large-format graphics, SpeedPro takes great pride in creating long-term relationships with clients and delivering satisfying results no matter the job.

With our network of more than 120 studios, we’re sure that you can find a studio that will help. At all of our studios, you will find only the highest quality prints and excellent customer service, all delivered on time. Contact your local studio today.