RUMFORD – Businesses, individuals or organizations who want to have a message board or advertisement at sports fields will be able to, selectmen decided Thursday.

Signs will soon go up around Hosmer football and baseball fields, the river fields across the road and the Virginia ball field.

Parks Commission Superintendent Tim Gallant said about 120 signs will eventually be sold, then leased, for the fences around the ball fields. They are expected to bring in about $30,000 annually.

The signs, made of metal with a blue background and white lettering, start at $285 for a 4-by-4-foot sign. Yearly rental would then be $250 a year. If a business wants a logo, the cost would rise.

For a 4-by-8-foot sign, the initial cost would be $395, then annual rental fees would be $275.

Erik Designs will create the signs.

Town Manager Jim Doar said the money received from signs will go to the general fund.

Gallant has lots of ideas on how to use the money, for instance holding a family fun day every year, enlarging the announcement booth, creating a kids park and building a skateboard park. He is expected to pitch his ideas to selectmen at a special workshop with the Parks Commission later in the year, and during the budget development process.

“I want to get away from just athletic fields to be more family oriented,” he said.

He said 10 individuals or businesses have already approached him about buying and renting a sign.

Those who participate will have a choice of signs and a choice of field in which to display them. The football field can accommodate 70 signs, the two river baseball fields can display 20, the Hosmer baseball field, 25, and the Virginia baseball field, five.