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Big Hoss, The World’s Biggest HD TV Screen, Debuts At Texas Motor Speedway

Oh, those boys and their video toys.

Move over, Dallas Cowboys and AT&T Stadium: Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth says it has the bigger and better video screen. And it's way bigger than whatever fancy screen you have in your living room.

The speedway on Wednesday night unveiled its giant high-definition video board. TMS says it’s the world’s biggest HD screen at a sporting venue.

It’s called Big Hoss.

So how big is Big Hoss?

The new screen features nearly 21,000 square feet of 1080p high-definition goodness, topping the 16,000-square-foot board built at Charlotte Motor Speedway. (The Dallas Cowboys screen, which was once the world's biggest, is a mere 11,520 square feet.)

Big Hoss is 218 feet wide and 95 feet tall, while the Cowboys’ screen is 160 feet wide by 72 feet tall.

TMS says that Texas has seven of the world’s 50 largest HD video boards.

Construction on Big Hoss started last November. It includes a steel-beam skeleton, 4.8 million pixels and 281 trillion colors.

More than 8,000 fans showed up Wednesday night to watch Big Hoss make its big debut.

You won't miss a thing

Big Hoss is the “ultimate fan amenity,” said Eddie Gossage, Texas Motor Speedway president.

“Everybody is competing in sports with the ever improving-technology that we all put into our houses with home theater,” Gossage said. “This is a big place and you could be watching somebody race down into Turn 1 and 2 and something occurs up in Turn 3 and you completely missed it. You could miss a moment on pit road. Now with the big screen, you are not going to miss a thing.”

But the screen won't just show cars racing around. A&E’s “Duck Dynasty” was shown on Big Hoss Wednesday night. Earlier this year, TMS announced a sponsorship deal with Duck Commander, the company featured on “Duck Dynasty.” The April 6 NASCAR Sprint Cup race will be called the "Duck Commander 500."

Learn more about the big TV screen

Eric Aasen is KERA’s managing editor. He helps lead the station's news department, including radio and digital reporters, producers and newscasters. He also oversees keranews.org, the station’s news website, and manages the station's digital news projects. He reports and writes stories for the website and contributes pieces to KERA radio. He's discussed breaking news live on various public radio programs, including The Takeaway, Here & Now and Texas Standard, as well as radio and TV programs in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.