Terry Sweeney

Red Bull Arena grabs Wi-Fi by the horns

July 3, 2017 by Terry Sweeney 2 Comments

The New York Redbulls take on NYCFC at Red Bull Arena on Sunday night May 9, 2015 in Harrison, NJ.
Ben Solomon/NYRB

The New York Red Bulls have proven themselves very goal-oriented on the soccer pitch, so it was no surprise the team was equally methodical when they began a Wi-Fi upgrade in November 2016.

Teams and stadium owners like to say their technology improvements are intended to improve fan experience. The Red Bulls are no exception, but Peter Katic, senior director, IT and arena systems for the team, said there were other issues driving the Wi-Fi upgrade. Mostly, the team wanted technology that wouldn’t need to be supplemented or gotten rid of in a couple years. “We didn’t want to have to keep changing the cores or access points and doing site surveys,” Katic said. “We wanted something that would evolve with us, and after months of research we found the Cisco Meraki solution really fit the bill.”

Red Bull Arena is relatively new by sporting standards; it opened in 2010 on the banks of the Passaic River in New Jersey and seats 25,000. But the venue has never had fan-facing Wi-Fi. On the corporate side, the organization uses Aruba/Hewlett Packard for its wireless connectivity needs but keeps that network separate from fans.

A close-up look at a Wi-Fi antenna deployment, Credit: Red Bull Arena

In tandem with the new Wi-Fi installation, the Red Bulls bought Cisco switches for the entire venue’s networking requirements, and layered on the Meraki wireless gear. The new network, including 172 APs, went live this past March, Katic added.

The Red Bulls partnered with Safari Telecom for the heavy lifting part of the technology upgrade. “One of our biggest challenges was the I-beams and side beams on the sections of the lower bowl,” Katic said. Safari custom-built clamps and anchors for mounting the APs, since drilling through the beams wasn’t an option. “Safari did a great job working in subzero temperatures during the offseason, mounting this stuff and getting it activated for our first event,” an international mini-tournament, not a Red Bulls game, he said.

All the Meraki APs were mounted overhead, avoiding the extra cost of under-seat APs. “There wasn’t really a business need to mount APs underneath the seats to provide coverage to patrons, not to mention the additional resources and labor,” he explained, adding that Red Bull is a company that values aesthetics. “We’re a premium brand… even the color of the AP really fit into the stadium aesthetic.”

Red Bulls fans like iPhones

Editor’s note: This profile is an excerpt from our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT, our Summer 2017 issue that has in-depth profiles of network deployments at the Atlanta Braves’ new SunTrust Park, the Colorado Rockies’ Coors Field, and even a profile of a new Wi-Fi network for Westfield Century City Mall! DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COPY of the report today!

The Red Bulls are already taking advantage of the Wi-Fi system’s native applications – things like analytics; total data downloads and uploads; identification of device types used by patrons as well as the websites they visit.

Another Wi-Fi AP deployment

“Facebook seems to be the king here, but fans are also on YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter,” Katic said. More than two-thirds of fans — 68% — use iPhones. “That’s an interesting statistic, especially for the app, which will need to be optimized for the iPhone,” he added.

So far, the highest number of connected users for a single game has been 3,200, with a peak rate of 2,400 simultaneous users. The arena’s Wi-Fi system is engineered with a take rate of 40 percent, and fans are getting upload and download speeds ranging from 40 to 80 Mbps during events, according to Katic.

“We’re always tweaking it, but the Wi-Fi performance has been better than we expected,” he said. At a recent match, fans downloaded about 490 GB of data and uploaded approximately 145 GB, according to figures Katic pulled off the Meraki dashboard, which he judged easy to use. “You don’t need to be an IT guru to get into the dashboard or run the analytics.”

There’s also a free API in the Cisco Meraki solution that allows the Red Bulls to add features and capabilities as needed. Though the Red Bulls haven’t tapped the API just yet, they’ve got lots of plans. “We intend to use the API for our splash page, target marketing, wayfinding, in-venue engagement, and loyalty and revenue-driving campaigns,” Katic said. “In this way, we really provide the fans what they want.”

There’s no companion app at the moment, but that’s likely to change. “We’re looking at it, but MLS is going to be launching a league-wide app for all the teams,” Katic added. It’s another smart way to build and deepen connection with Red Bull fans.

A good look at Wi-Fi deployments in the Red Bull Arena upper seating.

Filed Under: Apps, Aruba, Cisco, MLS, Red Bull, Soccer, Wi-Fi Tagged With: Cisco, Meraki, MLS, New York Red Bulls, Red Bull Arena, Stadium Wi-Fi, Terry Sweeney, Wi-Fi

Utah Jazz overhaul DAS, Wi-Fi at Vivint Smart Home Arena

April 9, 2017 by Terry Sweeney Leave a Comment

Vivint Smart Home Arena, home of the Utah Jazz / Boingo. Credit all photos: Utah Jazz (click on any photo for a larger image)

A $130 million overhaul of Vivint Smart Home Arena provided the perfect opening to refresh its wireless infrastructure as well — so the venue installed new DAS and Wi-Fi to improve the game experience for fans of the NBA’s Utah Jazz.

“When we understood we’d be undertaking both a renovation and improving guest experience, we realized a severe lack in the Vivint bowl for guest wireless,” said BJ Vander Linden, CIO for Larry H. Miller Sports & Entertainment, which owns the downtown Salt Lake City venue as well the Jazz franchise. Wireless was an afterthought, if it was thought of at all, when Vivint was first built in 1991. “We knew we needed something more interactive for guests to watch, share and talk about the game and give them more opportunities to be involved,” Vander Linden told Mobile Sports Report.

Editor’s note: Come hear the Utah Jazz, Boingo and SOLiD talk about the new network inside Vivint Smart Home Arena during MSR’s first LIVE INTERVIEW WEBINAR on Tuesday, April 11! Register now for this event!

This wasn’t the first time that Miller Sports and the Jazz had considered Wi-Fi upgrades for Vivint, which had been using a lightweight Cisco switch and about 20 APs. “A few years ago, we looked at Extricom, Xirrus and Ruckus, but we weren’t willing to fund the project at the price points offered then,” said Aaron Cook, vice president of information technology for the Jazz.

Since then, Jazz officials talked with other NBA teams about their Wi-Fi experiences, which is when Cisco and Aruba (now part of HP Enterprise) emerged as frontrunners for Vivint’s upgrade. “We went up and looked at the Portland Trailblazers’ infrastructure and had both vendors talk about pricing and engineering designs,” Cook said. Aruba-HPE emerged as the winning supplier for Wi-Fi access points; Aruba’s engineering partner, M S Benbow & Associates, also helped tip the scales in Aruba’s favor, with Benbow’s particular expertise in sporting venues.

A DAS antenna in the arena’s ‘halo’

Surveying for wireless in the Vivint arena began in summer 2016, and installation began in November, owing to the demands on the arena’s schedule and non-Jazz bookings. The biggest engineering challenge was the halo ring for the arena’s center scoreboard, where the Jazz installed several APs. “We needed to get [the halo’s] wiring completed first and had some events that limited when it could be lowered,” Vander Linden said, since the arena needs to be empty to lower the halo. “We needed a few days or a week to leave it down so that Benbow and our local electricians could put things in place,” he added.

In addition, Vivint’s lines of sight meant the Jazz only needed overhead APs inside the arena’s bowl, avoiding the expense and additional engineering required with under-seat APs.

Most of the engineering was otherwise pretty straightforward, according to Josh Barney, director of technology and innovation for the Jazz. “We had to revisit our Level 6 plan, which is the top concourse with suites. There are corner boards and LED boards, so we had to revisit how we’d mount antennas,” he added. Benbow re-engineered the antennas so that they were inside the boards and then aimed back down toward the seats.

As of this writing, there are 108 active APs in the Vivint bowl; 32 of those hang from center halo. Ongoing demolition and construction in the concourses render those areas inaccessible til July when they’ll also be outfitted with Wi-Fi, Vander Linden said. That will give the Jazz a grand total of around 250 APs when the NBA season ramps up again in October. “We have a friends-and-family ‘beta test’ going on right now,” he noted, with an invitation to Jazz season ticket holders to test the new Wi-Fi and submit feedback.

New Cisco switches and an upgrade to Cat 6a cabling brought the Wi-Fi budget to about $1.2 million, Vander Linen confirmed.

DAS Infrastructure Gets a Boost

The Vivint renovation also allowed the Jazz organization to rework a DAS system installed in 2002. Working with Boingo and DAS gear provider Solid Inc., Boingo built two DAS networks, one for fans’ use, as well as a commercial public-safety DAS that’s part of the arena’s emergency preparedness strategy.

Solid gear in the data center racks

All four major cellular carriers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless) have capacity on the new 10-zone DAS system; 105 DAS antennas blanket the Vivint arena, according to Boingo, which is also managing the Jazz’s DAS infrastructure.

Vivint’s new scoreboard had a lot of “unfriendly RF characteristics,” according Doug Lodder, senior vice president for business development at Boingo. “As we were designing and installing the DAS, we had to be cautious and ensure our antenna setup and network would not be impacted by the scoreboard,” Lodder said. And bowl-based DAS often means there are fewer ideal areas to install the necessary wiring. To reduce the length of coax runs to the antennas, Boingo installed Solid’s new 2-watt remotes directly on the catwalks.

App Upgrade in the Wings

Vander Linden is also preparing to re-launch the venue’s mobile app. And given that the Jazz is the arena’s top tenant in the building, he said they’ll do one of two things: It will either be handled as a single app for just the Jazz, or it will be like the Sacramento Kings’ app that embraces both the arena and the team.

“The intent with the new app is to handle ticketing, food and beverage, merchandise, parking, and way-finding, along with in-game specific content,” Vander Linden explained. “We’ve spent time with other teams to see what’s been successful in the app world. We like a lot of what Orlando is doing.”

Yinzcam developed the Jazz’s existing app; it’s unclear if they’ll handle the upgrade, according to Vander Linden. (Orlando’s app, for instance, is developed by VenueNext.) Vander Linden wants to have the new app in place and ready to go by mid-September.

Vivint also has Bluetooth low-energy beaconing built into its wireless upgrade plan as well. “We’ll be putting up beacons over time as we can and testing and determining the right way to go,” Vander Linden said. He thinks wayfinding would be valuable for letting people know where things are around the arena, but he’s also appropriately circumspect with the fledgling technology. “We’re aware from talking to other arenas and providers that it’s a learning experience,” he laughed.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Aruba, AT&T, Basketball, Cisco, DAS, Hewlett-Packard, NBA, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, AT&T, Boingo, DAS, Mobile Sports Report, NBA, SOLiD, Stadium Wi-Fi, Terry Sweeney, Utah Jazz, Verizon Wireless, Vivint Smart Home Arena, Wi-Fi

Bills, Sabres owners embrace fans through unified ‘One Buffalo’ app feature

October 21, 2016 by Terry Sweeney 3 Comments

Screenshot of the MyOneBuffalo app.

If Pegula Sports and Entertainment, owners of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and the NHL’s Sabres franchises, had one message for fans, it might be “We’ve got you covered.”

With its recently launched MyOneBuffalo app, Pegula has integrated electronic tickets, venue information (parking, concessions, restrooms) and player data, as well as some video extras for the Bills’ version. But MyOneBuffalo also features a digital wallet along with a loyalty program access, where the points and features are automated – scanned or activated by proximity to in-venue iBeacons, rather than via input manually by fans. Inaudible tone technology in the app will be able to detect when fans are tuned in to a game on TV and credit them for watching (provided a fan has enabled location services for the app). MyOneBuffalo also has a “Find Friends” function that allows fans to connect with Facebook friends during games or other events.

Most of that is pretty standard fare for pro team apps. Where MyOneBuffalo distinguishes itself is on the backend. It’s integrated on Venuetize’s mobile platform, which hosts a variety of functionality from Authorize.net (PCI-compliant payment processing); Delaware North (hospitality, food service management); Experience (fan upgrade software); Micros (Oracle’s point-of-sale system); Radius Networks (iBeacons, geo-fences); Skidata (loyalty rewards portal); Ticketmaster and Tickets.com (ticketing systems); TruCa$h (physical gift cards); RetailPro (merchandise POS system); and YinzCam (mobile app development).

Higher expectations for fans

After traveling to lots of NFL and NHL games, owner Kim Pegula challenged her management staff to meet fans’ higher expectations of the venues, technology and their relationship to the team, according to John Durbin, director of marketing for Pegula Sports and Entertainment. “The impetus behind MyOneBuffalo was enhancing the fan experience,” he told Mobile Sports Report.

Bills and Sabres owner Kim Pegula. Credit: Bill Wippert

Venuetize is hosting three versions of MyOneBuffalo: One for the Bills, a second for the Sabres, and a standalone version, which can be used by either visitors to the HarborCenter entertainment district, fans at home, or supporters of the Buffalo Bandits, the city’s National Lacrosse League franchise (also owned by Pegula).

Like other owner-managers of professional sports teams, Pegula is looking to MyOneBuffalo to gain deeper insights about fans’ movement, behavior and spending.

“They [Pegula Sports and Entertainment] are trying to get the 360-degree view of the fan,” said Karri Zaremba, founder and chief operations officer of Venuetize. “They wanted a mobile app that would work seamlessly across all their properties and brands.”

Once fully deployed, MyOneBuffalo will provide more insights to attendance numbers, assess the impact of various campaigns and initiatives, and measure purchasing patterns, social activity and any correlations. This is fertile ground for the application of predictive analytics, a holy grail in business at the moment, not just in sports and entertainment, to allow organizations to anticipate better, save money and delight customers, or in this case, fans.

“When we started to align our business operations with the Bills, we had a lot of different data sources across our entities, so one challenge was that we had no way to connect dots between someone going to lots of Bills and Sabres games,” Durbin said. “So to have an analytics platform that collects all this data and know that it’s the same fan gives us data to make their experience more customized—and a better experience, quite honestly.”

Adding restaurants and retail to game-day experiences

Network upgrades have been recently completed at New Era Field (formerly Ralph Wilson Stadium) where the Bills play; KeyBank Center for the Sabres; and the adjacent HarborCenter, a hockey-themed, mixed-use development that includes a Marriott hotel, a two-story restaurant-bar with flatscreens everywhere, and lots of retail, that opened in 2014. “The trend that’s happening right now is these entertainment districts for teams with restaurants and retail,” Durbin explained. “We’re trying to create a seamless experience across these three venues. We wanted an app with similar features, regardless of which location you’re at.”

KeyBank Center, home of the Sabres. Credit: Bill Wippert

MyOneBuffalo taps six different location-based technologies: beacons; geo-fences; inaudible tones; Wi-Fi; image recognition; and wearables – MyOneBuffalo is integrated with FitBit.

Inaudible tones can be used in a couple different ways. They can be played through the public address system or the software developer’s kit can detect it so that it triggers something. Inaudible tones can be used for basic data collection or more interactive features, where a sponsor offers a premium. “We’re still working through ways to use the inaudible tone,” Durbin said. “We don’t have a clear timetable as to when that will be available.”

The Pegula organization is looking at other ways to tap MyOneBuffalo. At the top of that list is reducing wait times for gates or concessions and re-directing fans to ones that are less busy, Durbin said. They’re also looking at methods to pre-order concessions or merchandise so a fan doesn’t have to wait in line; they can walk up later, scan their receipt and walk away with their order. “We want to add features and create a robust experience for fans,” Durbin said.

Filed Under: Apps, Extreme Networks, NFL, NHL, Wi-Fi Tagged With: Apps, Buffalo Bills, Buffalo Sabres, Mobile Sports Report, New Era Field, Pegula Sports and Entertainment, Stadium Wi-Fi, Terry Sweeney, Venutize, Wi-Fi

Stadium Tech Report: Buffalo Bills bridge Wi-Fi gap with Extreme Networks

July 7, 2016 by Terry Sweeney Leave a Comment

Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo. Credit: AP Photo/Scott Boehm

When the Buffalo Bills undertook a $130 million renovation of Ralph Wilson Stadium in 2014, it was only natural to take took a look at the venue’s communications and networking infrastructure. They knew fans entering a newly modernized sports entertainment facility would have higher expectations about Internet access and connectivity. And there were some back-of-the-house challenges that needed resolution as well, according to Dave Wheat, chief administrative officer for the Buffalo, N.Y.-based National Football League franchise.

“Our own internal staff and the people we bring in — fire, emergency medical services, those groups — were having some real challenges communicating among themselves,” Wheat said. “The key for us was seeing the communications challenges throughout the stadium on game day.”

So a year later when the Buffalo Bills began examining their Wi-Fi infrastructure, they knew they wanted a system that gave fans lots of options – content where and when they wanted it, whether to access social media, the dedicated team app, email or simple web browsing, Wheat said.

“We watched a lot of our [NFL] peers installing Wi-Fi in their stadiums for the last 5 years and saw the investments that different clubs were making,” said Wheat, who added that the extra time gave the Bills the chance to watch the technology develop and evolve and become “more mainstream and reliable.”

The Wi-Fi backend consists of two ExtremeSwitching bonded S4 Chassis; yellow wires are single-mode fiber optic patch cables and the purple cables are for Wi-Fi infrastructure. Credit: Buffalo Bills / Extreme

They also got behind-the-scenes tours of competitors’ operations and networks during away games, which also helped shape the Bills’ requirements and buying decisions.

“We saw Gillette Stadium in Foxborough and used that to determine what we wanted and who we wanted to work with,” Wheat said. The Bills recognized the increasing demand for mobile connectivity, with some fans even attending with multiple capable devices. The Wi-Fi network needed to deliver services to these devices anywhere in the 70,000 seat capacity stadium.

The Bills looked at four different Wi-Fi vendors, narrowed it down to two, then chose Extreme Networks for its Wi-Fi and wired networks. “We worked pretty extensively with Extreme — their expertise in this space helped us understand our design better and plan for tremendous growth to cater to our fans,” Wheat said. They also worked with technology integrator Carousel Industries for its managed services expertise, especially at sports facilities.

Cutting through the concrete

Editor’s note: This profile is from our most recent STADIUM TECH REPORT, the Q2 issue which contains a feature story on Wi-Fi analytics, and a sneak peek of the Minnesota Vikings’ new US Bank Stadium. DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COPY today!

As with any venue as old as Ralph Wilson Stadium (built in 1973), there were some technical challenges to work through before installing the Wi-Fi. The stadium has an extremely limited overhang from the upper decks; there are also a limited number of railings from which to hang equipment, or conceal it. Individual sections in the bowl also tend to be wide and long, according to Wheat.

Under-seat Wi-Fi AP at Ralph WIlson Stadium

“The biggest design challenge was that the entire lower bowl is 40 feet below ground and sits on shale rock, so it was a real challenge to get APs there,” Wheat added. Extreme came up with the under-seat solution, spacing the antennas about every five to eight rows, and about 13 to 20 seats apart.

Installing 211 under-seat APs in the lower bowl was also the most labor-intensive part of the Wi-Fi upgrade. Seats had to be removed, then concrete was saw-cut to different depths, depending on the number of cables and APs to accommodate. There was more than 5,000 feet of concrete cuts when all was done, which took nearly six weeks –- “a big challenge,” Wheat said.

In other parts of the stadium, the Bills relied on flag poles and overhangs for AP installation; the public Wi-Fi at Ralph Wilson Stadium ended up with 850 APs total, with 211 under-seat APs in the lower bowl. Total cost: About $4 million, according to Wheat.

Social media and internal operations

Fans are required to authenticate with Social Sign In to access Bills’ Wi-Fi on game day. The service allows users to sign in with Facebook or by providing their email address.

“As the network remembers you, we can deliver more personalized content and learn customer likes and dislikes,” Wheat said, adding that they’re still testing different ways to measure customer behavior. “The challenge for us as an entertainment provider is we have 70,000 people who will come see our game live,” he said. “And we only know the names of 14,000 people who purchased those tickets, and that often changes between the original buyer and the actual attendee.”

As the Bills learn more, their intention is to serve up content that’s more and more personalized. For the moment, the online activities of Bills fans mirrors what happens at other NFL stadiums around the league, according to John Brams, director of sports and entertainment for Extreme. Roughly 60 percent is social media usage -– Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat; iPhones hitting iCloud, either to update apps or upload photos, also constitute a significant amount of data usage. A third tier of fans is using apps for fantasy sports or individual NFL teams, Brams added.

So far, the Bills have clocked game-day totals of 24,334 unique users on the network, with a peak concurrent usage rate of 20,067 fans. Peak game-day data volume topped out at 3.4 TB, according to figures from the team.

Internally, the Bills use wireless for ticketing and entry scanning, including secondary scanning at entrances to premium areas; a Bills retailer uses the Wi-Fi for some of its pop-up shops around the stadium. “Our guest services ambassadors have mini tablets to assist customers with questions or if they need to do incident logging or tracking,” Wheat said.

There’s no in-seat ordering via Wi-Fi at Ralph Wilson Stadium, but technology isn’t the issue. “Infrastructure in the back of house is the impediment to that,” Wheat laughed. The Bills also use the Wi-Fi in its fieldhouse practice facility across the parking lot from the stadium, but not in the parking lots themselves.

The Bills will continue to work on giving fans that personalized experience. “If you’ve never been to a game before and are parking a mile away in a satellite lot, we want to give you GPS directions to get you from your car to the gate to your seat,” Wheat said. “We want to be able to tell you where the shorter lines at the concession stands are, using the technology to make the customer experience better.”

Wheat and his group are also in the process of looking at and installing Bluetooth-based beacon technology for the upcoming season. They’re also reworking the Bills’ mobile app for game-day use, adding wayfinding and other features.

“We want fans to experience Buffalo Bills football the way they want to,” Wheat said.

Filed Under: Apps, Extreme Networks, NFL, Wi-Fi Tagged With: Buffalo Bills, Extreme Networks, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Ralph Wilson Stadium, Stadium Wi-Fi, Terry Sweeney, Wi-Fi

Miami Dolphins go long on multiple social-media platforms for Gase intro

April 11, 2016 by Terry Sweeney Leave a Comment

The team website was just one of the vehicles the Miami Dolphins used in their multi-platform social media campaign for the hiring of Adam Gase. All images: Miami Dolphins (click on any photo for a larger image)

Intelligent marketers of professional sports know they have to get their messaging to where the fans are – the stadium, their living rooms, and in today’s world, their smartphones. Small wonder, then, that the NFL’s Miami Dolphins chose multiple social media outlets in early January to introduce their new head coach, Adam Gase, in a multi-platform, social-cast event.

The Dolphins engineered a live Q&A session and broadcast the press conference with Gase that spanned Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Periscope, Meerkat and Snapchat. This multi-platform event, the first of its kind in professional sports according to the Dolphins, included video and text chat and was intended to reach online fans and encourage engagement, said the event’s planners, Jason Jenkins, senior vice president of communications and community affairs for the Dolphins, and Surf Melendez, managing director of content and creative services for the team.

Joined by his wife, Jennifer, and their three young children, Gase told fans that outside of football, he was most looking forward to the Miami weather. “It was 15 degrees when we left” Chicago, he said, where he’d been working as the Bears’ offensive coordinator. By the end of the press conference, the Dolphins’ Facebook video page registered more than 100,000 views, with a peak of approximately 11,700 simultaneous viewers, according to the Dolphins’ press office.

“The whole point of [of the social-cast] was to make sure that we were using our brand and all our platforms in an innovative way,” Melendez said. “Whenever we communicate or get the brand out there, we try to be innovative, this time with a live, social broadcast.” The team also streamed Gase’s introduction on its website and the Miami Dolphins official smartphone app; Melendez said the intention wasn’t to bypass the general media but to complement them.

“We have the luxury of experimenting and innovating because our owner, Stephen Ross, and CEO [Tom Garfinkel] are there supporting us,” Jenkins added. “This is a new place to be.”

Technical challenges for new approaches

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A new place, and a challenging one, at least technically. Melendez said the first requirement was making sure they had enough smartphones for all the different platforms. “We needed the right people and the right devices to make sure we got the right shot, that the audio was good, that someone was posting and someone else was monitoring the feed,” Melendez explained.

He and his department are constantly experimenting with these different technology to improve or fine-tune performance. “We had a dry run [for the Gase introduction]. But once it’s go-time, things happen, like Wi-Fi,” he laughed.

Live video was another of the Dolphins’ social-media tactics

Still, the approach seemed to be a hit with Dolphins’ fans. “As we were broadcasting live, the responses were, ‘Wow, this is tremendous, they’re getting me in there’ [the Dolphins’ offices],” Melendez said. “This is a new and fresh place to be.”

In addition to reach, impressions and views, the Dolphins are closely monitoring how social media grows the brand and creates new revenue. Like most businesses, the Dolphins conduct regular lead-generation campaigns; most have been telephone-based, according to Melendez, but that is quickly changing.

“We’ve done a couple dry runs on social media, where you can put out a call to action and target a specific audience for leads,” he said. “The response was 4-5 times as fruitful for good, qualified leads.”

As a new medium, social media requires continuous education with the Dolphins’ partners on how to use the platforms. “We then educate our sponsors that social does X, Y and Z and how that benefits them,” Melendez said.

But the door for social education swings both ways, according to Vince Pannozzo, social media manager for the Dolphins. “We work with the team and with Facebook and Twitter directly to talk about personal brands as well as best practices,” he said.

“Cheerleaders, too,” Jenkins hastened to add.

The next big test of the Dolphins social strategy will come when the NFL’s free agency begins in mid-March. “That’s going to be a fun time to tune into what we’re doing,” Melendez said. “Generally we’re taking a step back at the content we’re creating overall and how we’re broadcasting, quote unquote, because we’re looking at how to serve up things that we used to do on more traditional avenues. It will look different next season.”

Filed Under: Facebook, NFL, Social Media, Social Media Data, Sports Social Media, Sports Social Media Data Tagged With: Facebook, Miami Dolphins, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, SnapChat, Social Media, Terry Sweeney, Twitter

Stadium Tech Report: Los Angeles Dodgers hit it out of the park with Cisco, Aruba Wi-Fi

September 11, 2015 by Terry Sweeney 4 Comments

Dodgers Stadium, the SoCal baseball shrine. All photos: Terry Sweeney, MSR (click on any photo for a larger image)

Growing up in the Los Angeles suburb of Norwalk, Ralph Esquibel recalled playing outdoors while inside the Dodger game was on the radio. “I knew from the kinds of noises coming out of the house how the game was going,” he laughed. Esquibel, now vice president of IT for the Los Angeles Dodgers, may have wished for some similar indicators or guideposts as he began the wireless retrofitting of Major League Baseball’s third oldest stadium (after Boston’s Fenway Park and Chicago’s Wrigley Field) in early 2011.

Esquibel faced multiple challenges with Dodger Stadium. First, there was all that concrete to push signals through or around. There was the size of the Chavez Ravine venue and its far-flung parking lots, spanning more than 350 acres. The stadium also has few overhangs, a favorite place to attach Wi-Fi access points or distributed antenna system (DAS) gear. Then there’s Dodger Stadium’s capacity — 56,000 seats – the largest in the league and almost 30 percent larger than the average MLB stadium (42,790).

Esquibel’s biggest hurdle? ” Trying to achieve the network that we wanted but also maintain an appropriate budget for the solution,” he said. While Esquibel would not specify what the Dodgers spent, he did allow that it was “an 8-figure project.”

Coverage challenges in the best seats

Initially, the best seats in the house presented a coverage challenge; field and club level seats along the third- and first-base lines and the dugout lack any overhangs. So while phones in those sections could receive a short, directional beam sent from across the outfield, the upstream signal couldn’t get back to the AP across the field, said Esquibel.

Ralph Esquibel, VP of IT for the Dodgers, with the new Wi-Fi relief pitcher mobile.

“We wanted to guarantee a premium experience, regardless of the seat,” said Esquibel, who joined the Dodgers 6 years ago after working in IT at Toyota and Honda. So by using what he calls “a hybrid approach,” Wi-Fi APs and antennas are installed overhead where possible, but also under seats and in staircase handrails that divide the stadium’s steep aisles.

All told, nearly 1,000 APs from Cisco and Aruba Networks blanket Dodger stadium, its concession areas and parking lots. Horizon Communications helped the Dodgers with design and installation of the Wi-Fi and DAS.

The under-seat APs/Wi-Fi antennas on the club level are housed in NEMA enclosures about every 15 seats, set eight rows apart. Esquibel was concerned about losing real estate under those seats; he also didn’t want to create any potential trip hazard for fans. In addition, the Dodgers use Cat 6A cabling, whose thickness and rigidity couldn’t run up a stepped incline. Consequently, they drilled through concrete to snake the cabling through from the clubhouse underneath. “There’s no visible conduit leading into the enclosure,” Esquibel explained. The profile and footprint of the enclosure still leaves space for fans to place belongings.

Handrail Wi-Fi enclosure

It’s the same modus operandi for the enclosures housed in the stair rails, except there are two APs in larger enclosures at the top of each staircase on the reserve level and upper deck, then a single AP per enclosure as the stairways descend. Some 290 APs offer coverage on the reserve level, which by itself has a greater capacity than nearby Staples Center (18,118 seats), Esquibel told Mobile Sports Report. After 2 years of use, there have been no issues with the AP enclosures. “We power-wash the seats and stands after games and [the enclosures] are very resilient against the sun, water and wind,” Esquibel said.

He also acknowledged some early challenges with Wi-Fi. Part of the issue was working with Cisco’s CleanAir technology, which is supposed to minimize RF interference, if not eliminate it altogether. If an AP starts broadcasting over a frequency in use by another AP, for example, CleanAir helps it find another frequency. It took a few months to fully tune the network; some directional antennas needed a 10-degree adjustment, Esquibel said. Another challenge was having APs from more than one vendor. “If your network is 100 percent Cisco and all leveraging the same controllers, [CleanAir] will work perfectly,” Esquibel said. “If you have a mixed environment that pushes Wi-Fi in certain locations, it becomes a problem — there’s competition for frequencies.”

Coordinating the APs

A third-party leveraging a non-public frequency would switch channels, for example, causing the APs for public use to also switch channels. “What we had was a lot of bouncing back and forth,” Esquibel said, which affected performance. “So we assigned channels and frequencies for each AP, which still requires a lot of coordination.”

Under-seat Wi-Fi enclosure

Since 2013, the stadium has been carved into 24 DAS sectors. AT&T, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless are the carriers presently using the DAS; Ericsson makes the DAS antennas. Stubborn Sprint relies on a tower adjacent to the stadium.

Dodger fans average anywhere from 500-655 megabytes of data use per game, according to Esquibel. During a busy game, the wireless networking accommodates 16,000 concurrent users; a slower event clocks in at 4,000-8,000. To test upload speed, Esquibel will push a 50MB video to Facebook. When there’s lots of available bandwidth, he gets 60 Mbps performance; on the low end, it’s closer to 4 Mbps. Esquibel said users are mostly streaming and posting videos and photos to social media; Dodger Stadium is the second most Instagrammed site in southern California, after Disneyland, Esquibel added.

The Dodgers have their own version of Ballpark, the in-stadium MLB app, which offers video replay and highlights; in-seat ordering of food and drink in certain areas; and stadium mapping. Check-ins on Ballpark are handled through a network of 44 iBeacons, which takes advantage of Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE) technology. Between Ballpark and social media activity, Dodger fans have run up as much as 700 MB data usage during games — and the network is ready if more demand is needed.

“We don’t do any rate limiting, so if we consume all our bandwidth we get a free upgrade, thanks to a clause in our agreement with our ISP, AT&T,” Esquibel explained.

To ensure a family-friendly and wholesome environment, the Dodgers use Palo Alto Networks 5020 firewalls for content filtering. “As we developed our SLAs, it was one of the first issues to pop up — no sexual content, no malware/phishing, and no illegal drug sites,” he said.

What’s on his wish list for the future? “I’d like geo-fencing within the Wi-Fi network so if I see someone enter a club, I can say hi or welcome them, notify them of specials, or flag points of interest around the stadium,” Esquibel said, like the World Series trophy case or giveaway locations for promotional items. Alongside all the other applications, wireless can be used as guideposts for fans and visitors to Dodger Stadium.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Baseball, Cisco, DAS, Ericsson, Facebook, Los Angeles Dodgers, Major League Baseball, MSR Guides, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, Aruba Networks, AT&T, Cisco, DAS, Dodger Stadium, Horizon Communications, Los Angeles Dodgers, MLB, MLBAM, Mobile Sports Report, Stadium Wi-Fi, Terry Sweeney, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi