TEMPE, AZ — Inside Blue Media’s Tempe Headquarters, the clock is ticking.
“The fact that we’re about to start our ninth Super Bowl is something we never really dreamed would be possible,” said Executive Vice President R.J. Orr.
Today, Orr is giving us a behind-the-scenes tour of how the multimillion-dollar large format graphics company will soon transform State Farm Stadium into the home of Super Bowl 57. For the past eight years, Blue Media has been tapped to create stadium graphics, massive building and vehicle wraps, banners and much more for the NFL’s biggest day. They help immerse entire cities into the biggest event of the year.
“We’re producing the static graphics that are up in the stadium, we’re producing the banners that are on the side of buildings,” said Orr as he walked ABC15 around their 150,000-square-foot facility.
Everywhere you look, huge printers are churning out miles of signage. Specialized crews cut and stitch the final products together. The company takes color schemes chosen by the NFL and works its magic. The scale of the job is hard to believe.
“We talked about the 10 miles jersey mesh fence fabric with NFL branding that we ended up producing for Los Angeles last year — this is the room it gets done in,” said Orr pointing, out a specialized printing that binds fabric and ink through a unique process.
When your creations are seen by tens of millions of people across the country on TV and in person, it’s gonna take more than your average HD printer.
“You could be upwards of a quarter-million dollars for a machine like this,” said Orr.
They’ve got 12 of them going nonstop. Right now, crews are not only working on the Super Bowl but banners and graphics for the upcoming NFL game in Mexico City later in November. Orr tells us much of the credit goes to the countless workers like Tommy Mann putting in long hours to bring perfection to reality.
“By kick-off on Sunday, most of us are exhausted, there is no Super Bowl party, we just want to get horizontal on the couch,” said Print Production Director Tommy Mann.
Until then, the company continues to innovate with new immersive displays using drones, digital domes, and sky projection technology. They're hoping to deliver the ultimate Sunday to raved football fans everywhere.
