Sac State’s new digital billboard overlooking Highway 50 is scheduled to go live today with a barrage of advertising to simultaneously distract and educate drivers, raise much needed funding and refresh the public debate about the new University branding, logo and tagline that “Leadership Begins Here”.

If you have not seen the sign, it looms 55 feet above the freeway and has a 48 by 14 foot digital face. This sucker is big. It makes me wonder if CSUS hired the same folks who design advertising for casinos. Not the ubertrendy manscaping and fake boob casinos, the ones on rural highways filled with old people. The good news is that it features new LED technology that allows the contrast to brighten or dim depending on changes in lighting conditions. Hopefully it will be less obnoxiously intrusive than the one bordering Cal Expo, which tends to lull and hypnotize me with giant images of Monica Woods and Dale Schornack.

As many as 8 ads will rotate every 64 seconds. It will also provide public information such as traffic updates, road conditions and amber alerts. Clear Channel owns and operates the sign, and has entered into a 25 year lease with University Enterprises with an initial $750,000 payment. President Gonzales has put aside almost half of that amount in an account dedicated to funding research and travel to academic conferences.

(Note: Clear Channel says that it will go live today as it did not go live yesterday.)