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Exclusive! Baseball’s Newest Gem Takes IP Video to the Ballgame
by Chris Reed

St. Louis is a city that bleeds red with baseball. The Cardinals are as much a treasure as the Gateway Arch that gives a halo to this city named after a saint.


The city’s Major League Baseball franchise has built itself a new $365 million palace and is protecting it with a virtual fortification — one of the most advanced network video security systems ever installed.


“It’s my favorite team from early childhood on, so to have the opportunity to do work on a project like this has been an honor and that’s the way we have approached it,” says Facility Control Systems Inc. President Ed Heisler, who served as the overall consultant for the Cardinals on the system installation. “We want to make sure we end up with the best systems, technology and services that we can provide these guys.”


The new Busch Stadium, sitting right next to where the previous one stood, is the fifth park the Cards have called home since they started play as the St. Louis Brown Stockings in 1882. It’s also the third to be named Busch Stadium. (See sidebar on right side of this page). The new Busch Stadium’s security system is a national-scale project with local contractors and consultants doing all the work.


“You don’t have a lot of big national companies in here,” says Curt Will, vice president of Will Electronics, one of the two main contractors for the installation. “You have a lot of local companies that do a lot of work.”
While the overall system installation by Will Electronics and Sachs Electric Co. included access control and a life-safety system, those served as utility players compared to what is one of the largest IP-based video security systems ever installed at a major sporting venue.


Cardinals Owners Put Premium on Protecting Players and Fans

The 46,861 fans that the new stadium holds will have such features at their disposal as seats closer to the action and cupholders. To protect them will take a technological leap.


“There have been a lot of new stadiums built over the last 10 to 15 years. Seeing what could be done in a lot of these new facilities, we saw a tremendous opportunity for us to really improve our security through surveillance,” says Joe Abernathy, vice president of Busch Stadium operations. “My manager was telling me that we want a significant increase in the security we can provide as we move into this new park, and this was all incorporated into the building from the first day.”


Whereas 14 cameras watched over the previous stadium — built in 1966 — the players and fans will now be protected by 114, including 22 megapixel cameras. The team offices and other restricted access areas of Busch Stadium III will be protected by card access control, while the only access control at the previous stadium were locks and keys.


But CCTV systems and access control will be the last things on the minds of the Cardinals and their fans on game day. Their biggest concerns will be whether Albert Pujols will drive in enough runs and Chris Carpenter can go the distance to bring the Redbirds another victory. Still, the video security system will help make sure that balls and strikes will be the only things they worry about.



Stadium’s Security System Goes Beyond the Box Score

On the surface, baseball is a simple game — a pitcher throws a ball and a batter tries to hit it. But any baseball fan knows the game is much more nuanced and layered than that.
In the same sense, a security system at a sporting venue has more purpose than just protecting the players and fans. In some cases, cameras will have the additional function of protecting a lead for the Cardinals.


In the process of installing the security cameras, installers also mounted a separate “coaching video system” of 10 cameras. It includes cameras in the bullpen to see if a warmed-up reliever is ready to come in, cameras in the batting cage below the seats so coaches can see if they have a hot bat ready to catch fire, and even cameras aimed at home plate so batters can see if the pitch they struck out on was actually a strike.


“There are going to be stations set up inside the clubhouse area where they can go and view what happened at their last at-bat,” says Kris Huels, senior project for the overall installation lead on the project, Sachs Electric Co.


Concessionaires — whether they’re selling hot dogs or foam “We’re Number One” foam fingers — are looking to video security to keep sellers and customers from pulling a fast one. Additionally, team lawyers want evidence to refute any fan trying to make the team liable for a slip and fall.


There’s also the difference between game day, where tens of thousands of people are occupying the building, and the few trolling the concourses when the team is out of town.


“You’ve got periods of time when the stadium is absolutely empty, so having camera surveillance to keep on eye on something is important for the same reason as when you’ve got 50,000 in your facility,” says Heisler. “Both warrant having the best possible video and surveillance available.”



Home Team at Root of Successful Security Installation

For a baseball team to be successful, it can’t have a weak link between batters one or nine, or a bad arm in the bullpen. Even if a team has a player with the home run prowess of Mark McGwire or the hitting ability of Stan Musial, it won’t be gunning for a pennant if all the players aren’t on the same page.


The team behind the security installation at Busch Stadium III was truly a home team, led by two St. Louis-based contractors with more than 130 years of experience between them. Aiding them was a local security consultant, a video security manufacturer and the Cardinals themselves. Their cohesiveness is the reason why such a complex CCTV system was ready before the first pitch at the new Busch.


Besides constant communication, the secret weapon for this team was that each player knew their role — in the same sense that a leadoff hitter knows how their job differs from the clean-up batter.


Serving as the overall electrical contractor was Sachs and its Sachs Systems subsidiary — fulfilling the same role it did when the second Busch Stadium was built four decades ago. Sachs performed most of the actual installation work, putting in the cabling, mounting the equipment and interconnecting it all to the rack rooms.


Will Electronics provided the video security equipment and acted as the direct liaison with the manufacturers, with a majority of the equipment coming from Panasonic Security Systems. Will also handled the integration and system software duties.


“All of us have been at this for a long time,” says Will. “There are a lot of Johnny-come-latelys in this business, but they selected a team with a lot of experience.”


Facility Control Systems served as the overall manager of the project and consultant for the Cardinals, trying to meet all the specified needs of Cardinals management and put the initial specifications together.


FCS’ Heisler says the installation team has proved to be a winning combination mainly because they stuck to a gameplan of making sure to communicate directly with each other daily.


“The logistics and the coordination and the phasing of the work from the installation perspective to material deployment has been a real challenging part of the stadium,” Heisler says. “It’s coordination with communication to make sure that everything was in there at the right point.”

New Ballpark for Cardinals Comes Together in Pieces

The construction of Busch Stadium III was all about challenges, and that didn’t just include the security system.


A decision was made to literally have part of Busch Stadium III built on the same site where Busch Stadium II sat. The decision was also made to play out the 2005 season in the previous park and move into the new park in 2006. While aimed in different directions, the outfields of the two parks sit in the same area. Cardinals center fielder Jim Edmonds will be catching fly balls in the new Busch Stadium not too far from where he caught them in the old one.


The Cardinals’ solution to this was a piecemeal construction of the new stadium. A large portion of the main grandstand was built between 2004 and 2005, but most of the north side of the stadium — including the leftfield seats and the security command center — couldn’t be built until the last of Busch Stadium was demolished.


That process didn’t begin until last Nov. 7, as a wrecking ball brought Busch Stadium II down. The last piece of the old park wasn’t carted away until Dec. 8.


“We knew pretty much what we were in for and that we were going to have to do this piecemeal,” says Joe Walsh, director of security and special services for the Cardinals. “I don’t think from a CCTV standpoint it’s going to be that big of a problem for us. We might be a couple cameras short when we open up the ballpark, but I think that overall we’ll be close to 100 percent.”


And the stadium builders will be cutting it close. The last row of green grass wasn’t laid down for the field until, appropriately, St. Patrick’s Day. As for the security installation, it was 60-percent complete by mid-March.


Even after Opening Day goes by on April 10, the stadium still will not be finished. Finishing touches on offices and some of the luxury suites won’t be completed until July and 6,100 seats won’t be ready for fans until then. The camera systems for those unfinished areas will also remain offline, but that won’t leave anyone unprotected.



Hybrid System Offers ‘the Best of Both Worlds’

As different as the new park is from the old, so are the security systems.


Built with 1960s technology, the Cardinals relied on 1980s equipment to secure Busch Stadium II in the form of 14 cameras connected to 14 VCRs. That’s a sharp contrast from the 114 cameras feeding into 10 network video recorders (NVRs), 10 expansion units and eight 16-channel DVRs at the new ballpark (see equipment list on page 42 of April issue).


While not having an exact figure, Abernathy says the equipment alone in the video security portion of the installation cost the team about $500,000. Early on, it was determined that a hybrid network/coax-cable solution was needed to meet the needs of the dozens of camera positions the Cardinals wanted to have in the system.


In the end, the best solution to meet many of the Cardinals’ needs proved to be an IP-based system that had never been tried on such a large scale. Panasonic Security design teams that worked with Will Electronics took their products places they hadn’t gone before.


“Initially, we were apprehensive about a total IP solution,” says Will. “By putting in this hybrid solution, it provided a solution that kind of gives you the best of both worlds with the flexibility of all of the connectivity that the IP solution gives you.”


Will says there is a distinct division in the system between the recording and live-viewing IP streams. The live streams are all MPEG-2 based to allow for robust refresh rates. The recording stream uses motion JPEG with an emphasis on getting a clear, high-quality image.




Ballpark’s Protectors Will Take Command From Center Field

While a batter’s vision is aimed toward the center-field backdrop, there will be human eyes behind that “batter’s eye” looking right back.


The video security system feeds into a sophisticated command center just below the “Coca-Cola” sign in center field that includes two plasma monitors with the capability of showing up to 16 camera views each. There are also other monitors commanded by dual joystick-based system controllers.


“It’s always helpful if you have an active visual of the ballpark you can actually see before you look in the camera because you get the big picture,” says the Cardinals’ Walsh.


The center-field base station will also serve as the focal point for the communication of all staff during game time, including requests from concessionaires and maintenance personnel. During the game, the team also plans to have a city fire marshal on site in the command center.


An extensive fire/life-safety system has been installed that includes advanced smoke detection and fire alarms that give the command center an instant read on the location of any incident.


In addition to the video system there is a Lenel-based card-access control system. About 40 doors will be monitored by the time all of the rooms of the stadium are opened up in July. “Anytime there’s someone entering the door, it will generate an alarm condition that a room has been entered,” Heisler says.



Installers Set Cabling and Installation Game Plan

While Major League Baseball has strict stipulations on the uniforms teams can wear, the types of bats players can use and the color of the foul pole, there aren’t any guidelines as far as a security system is concerned. An installer at a ballpark needs only worry about the same local and state standards they would deal with if they were just hooking up a small office.


“Major League Baseball has requirements on broadcast cabling, but there’s no issues like that for security cabling,” says Huels. He adds that despite the immense size of the facility, there’s little difference between performing the installation at Busch and other typical installations. However, the stadium project did present a challenge when it came to the number of closets (11) for which the installation was designed.


“One of the things in this job is there’s so many different IDF [Intermediate distribution frames] rooms. We had to lay out the cameras so that they were all within 90 meters so that they would be able to run on the digital network.”


For budgetary reasons, closets were consolidated and located on the service mezzanine and Sachs’ installers set up a game plan for where they were going to run cabling so that all of the conduits were reaching the mezzanine level. In some cases, Cat-5e cable for the analog network would be run from cameras as many as three floors down or up, depending on the camera position. Cabling for the IP-based cameras were simply run to the nearest closet.



Contractors Take Pride in Being Part of America’s Pastime

At the time this article was written, many areas of the new Busch Stadium were still dirt patches or filled with sawdust and drying concrete.


By the time this article is being read, the baseball season will be in full swing and Busch Stadium III will be full of fans rooting for their home team and buying their peanuts and Cracker Jacks.


Those involved in the security system installation at the Cardinals’ new home are also lifelong fans of the team. As they walk through the turnstiles, they may be some of the few that notice the WV-NW474S camera looking down on them or know just what is behind that green batter’s eye in center field — but they can take a pride in their work that few others can.


“We’re in our 51st year, so we’re a company that lives and dies on our reputation,” Will says. “This system will be a showplace and to say we were part of the team. It’s going to be huge for us.”