"Angell covered baseball for this magazine for many years, in addition to editing fiction, and although he was ostensibly there to scout the Astros-the team had finished thirty-two games behind the National League-pennant-winning Dodgers the year before-he was distracted from his scorecard by the orange spacesuits and white helmets worn by the groundskeepers, the rainbow-colored tiers of seats, and the billiard-table green of the first synthetic field in pro sports, made of a brand-new Monsanto product called AstroTurf."
"Most intrusive of all was the scoreboard-four stories high and lit by more than forty thousand bulbs-the first to offer hype videos and animated ads. "By the middle innings," he wrote, "I found that I was giving the game only half my attention; along with everyone else, I kept lifting my eyes to that immense, waiting presence above the players.""
The Astrodome introduced climate-controlled, indoor baseball with synthetic turf, vivid seating, and massive illuminated displays. Those technological and design choices prioritized spectacle, advertising, and comfort over traditional viewing. Spectators found their attention repeatedly drawn to giant scoreboards, animated ads, and other visual novelties, reducing continuous focus on gameplay. Public funding and high construction costs enabled new scale and amenities. The convergence of entertainment technology, commercial messaging, and architectural ambition reoriented how venues present sports and how fans experience events, foregrounding immersive attractions as much as—if not more than—the athletic contest itself.
Read at The New Yorker
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