Tampa company creates some of the area’s most iconic stadium images

TAMPA, Fla. - From massive murals to the giant images of Tom Brady and Mike Evans hanging from Raymond James Stadium, one Bay Area branding company is responsible for printing all of it.

While many people may not be familiar with the name Outdoor America Images, chances are they’ve seen OAI’s work, which is prominently displayed at popular Bay Area venues.

"Most of the stuff you see around Tampa is done by OAI, especially around the Bucs stadium," shared Chris Barnes, grand format and dye sub-manager at OAI.

OAI mainly focuses on billboards, but they produce materials for a lot of sporting events as well. Many signs fans see at the Bucs, Lightning, Rowdies and Rays games are done by OAI.

"We do every part of the stadium," Barnes stated. "The big murals on the outside, those are each 85 feet by 83 and there's four of them."

OAI has three 16-foot grand format printers to produce the images.

"We just produce them every week, every month, whenever an event happens," Barnes said. "They print up to 16-feet wide and you print them in panels. We have a heat-sealing welder machine that welds these panels together and it creates a giant wall mural."

When the SEC Tournament was held at Amalie Arena in February, the exterior was decorated with OAI's work, which often requires flexibility and a quick turnover time.

"Two of our clients are the Bucs and USF, so we're flipping a stadium within 24 hours," explained Kristina Lausier, OAI sales account manager. "USF has a game on Saturday, and we're flipping that stadium for the Bucs on Sunday."

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While they are visually known for their many sports banners, OAI has also lined the Riverwalk with banners and signs. The company can wrap a vehicle with a logo, an ad or a sports message. It can also transform a personal indoor or outdoor home area with a total wall print without the need to bring in a professional painting team.

"We're getting hit from all angles, but we have a 40,000 square foot facility here, and we're able to make it work," shared Lausier.

"We're doing everything," she added. "I think that's the really cool part, to see a project come to fruition from the very start to the very end. Transforming stadiums you know from a Bucs stadium to a wrestling arena for Wrestlemania."

OAI’s work can be seen all over the nation and all around the Bay Area, from the street signs on every light pole downtown to Clearwater Marine Aquarium's "Legends of the Deep" display.

"We did the Super Bowl, which was huge" exclaimed Lausier. "In those scenarios too, where we were having to print multiple teams and then the championship winner, we pull out that banner at the end."

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For all of the visual majesty that their work brings to an arena, venue or stadium, there is a lot of work going on to make it look that way.

"Each job, each billboard, each banner, produces a different output, a different percentage of ink," shared Barnes. "You could go through so many liters of ink per job."

But there's a definite upside to the work.

"Each job is different," Barnes explained. "We love to see our final outcome of what we do, see it on TV or drive by and see it in person.  It's a blast!"

LINK: Learn more about OAI here.