The White Sox opened the home portion of the 2016 campaign on Friday, showing off the changes made to US Cellular Field over the winter, centered around the new scoreboards.

The main center field board, which had the smallest screen in the big leagues, has been replaced with a whole new video board.  The change allows the White Sox to show the actual score of the game and the team lineups on the main scoreboard for the first time in years.

The pinwheels at the top of the scoreboard are also video screens, enabling them to show game specific information, like when a White Sox player hits a home run, as viewed above.

The dot matrix board in left field has been replaced with a video board, which is being used to show the current pitcher’s information for the game, the current batter’s information for the game, Twitter and Instagram photos from fans, along with ads.  The batter’s information could use some improvement, with very minimal data provided along with the useless average for the day’s game.  Hopefully, as the season goes on, the presentation is refined.

The out of town scoreboard in right field has also been replaced with a new video board, which continues to show the other scores around the league along with some in-game information and a few ads.

Overall, the changes are a vast improvement over the outdated boards that were there before.  As the year goes on, I expect the use of the boards will continue to improve as the team tries out new things and sees what works and what doesn’t.