The 2022 baseball season is underway and there have been some changes at Guaranteed Rate Field.  Three years ago, the right field stands behind what at the time was the Bullpen Sports Bar was renovated to align with a new beer sponsor, Goose Island.

This offseason, Miller replaced Budweiser as the beer vendor of choice, so the goose is gone and the area has been rebranded as the Miller Lite Landing.  The CTA car remains, but has been rebranded from a Green Line, which was one of Goose Island’s brands, to a Red Line, which serves the ballpark.

A division title in 2021 seems to be responsible for the next change, where the large banners attached to the outfield light supports which detailed the team’s division championships, league championships, and World Series championships, have been removed.  They look to have been replaced by much smaller notations painted onto the brick columns underneath the Kids Zone.

Now, if you are asking yourself “who the hell could possible read that?”, well, you are not alone.

The final big change is to the graphics profile used on the scoreboards and ribbon boards throughout the park.  Gone is the format that had been in place since the scoreboard was upgraded in 2016 and, in its place, is a gray and black format with fewer ads and additional defensive information.

Overall, the new format is very clean, but, ironically, the fewer ads has hurt the overall product, as it has pushed down the line score to where it is being blocked by the brick stack on the Fan Deck.  From where I sat yesterday, it blocked to totals, but I could still see each individual inning and could figure out the score.  I worry more of it will be blocked once I get to my normal seats further down the first base line.