New Report: Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium profile, Wrigley Wi-Fi and more!

September 24, 2018 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

MOBILE SPORTS REPORT is pleased to announce the Fall 2018 issue of our STADIUM TECH REPORT series, the ONLY in-depth publication created specifically for the stadium technology professional and the stadium technology marketplace.

Our string of historical in-depth profiles of successful stadium technology deployments continues with reports from large collegiate football stadiums, a new basketball arena, an old baseball stadium and a soccer stadium hosting NFL games! Download your FREE copy today!

Inside the report our editorial coverage includes:
— A full in-depth profile of the Wi-Fi network at the University of Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium, where network crews overcame challenges posed by historic architecture to bring connectivity to 90,000 fans;
— A ‘sneak peek’ inside Fiserv Forum, the new home of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks (and Marquette University);
Wrigley Field Wi-Fi: An in-person tour of the new Wi-Fi network being rolled out by Extreme Networks and the Cubs;
— StubHub Center DAS: An in-depth profile with in-person testing of the DAS at StubHub Center in Los Angeles, temporary home of the NFL’s LA Chargers.

Download your free copy today!

We’d like to take a quick moment to thank our sponsors, which for this issue include Mobilitie, JMA Wireless, Corning, Huber+Suhner, Cox Business, Boingo, Oberon, MatSing, and Neutral Connect Networks. Their generous sponsorship makes it possible for us to offer this content free of charge to our readers. We’d also like to welcome readers from the Inside Towers community, who may have found their way here via our ongoing partnership with the excellent publication Inside Towers. We’d also like to thank the SEAT community for your continued interest and support.

As always, we are here to hear what you have to say: Send me an email to kaps@mobilesportsreport.com and let us know what you think of our STADIUM TECH REPORT series.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Baseball, Basketball, Chicago Cubs, Cisco, DAS, Major League Baseball, MSR Guides, NBA, NCAA Football, NFL, StubHub, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, AT&T, Chicago Cubs, Cisco, DAS, Extreme Networks, Fiserv Forum, Lincoln, Memorial Stadium, Milwaukee Bucks, MLB, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, Nebraska, NFL, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, StubHub Center, University of Nebraska, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi, Wrigley Field

Notre Dame sees 6.1 TB of Wi-Fi for Michigan game

September 12, 2018 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Wi-Fi enclosure on a railing at Notre Dame Stadium. Credit: Paul Kapustka, MSR

Though it just missed making our all-time unofficial top 10 list, the Wi-Fi data total from Notre Dame’s home and season opener against Michigan still saw 6.1 terabytes of Wi-Fi data used, signifying perhaps that user demand for wireless bandwidth at big sporting events remains as strong as ever.

The Sept. 1 game at Notre Dame Stadium, a 24-17 Notre Dame victory, also saw 29,329 unique connections on the Wi-Fi network, according to statistics provided to MSR by Notre Dame. With an announced attendance of 77,622 at the game, that’s a take rate of almost 38 percent.

Notre Dame also said that it saw 22,568 peak concurrent clients on the Wi-Fi network, and had a peak throughput of 7.66 Gbps. The 6.1 TB total data use is the third-highest at Notre Dame Stadium since its AmpThink-designed Wi-Fi network (using Cisco gear) debuted last season, trailing a 6.2 TB mark recorded in a game against Georgia and a 7.0 TB mark for a game against USC.

Looking ahead, Notre Dame’s network has a possibility for big numbers when currently ranked Stanford comes to Notre Dame on Sept. 29, or when Florida State visits on Nov. 10. Anyone else with numbers to report for the new season? The list stands ready for new entrants!

THE MSR TOP 10 FOR WI-FI

1. Super Bowl 52, U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, Minn., Feb. 4, 2018: Wi-Fi: 16.31 TB
2. Super Bowl 51, NRG Stadium, Houston, Feb. 5, 2017: Wi-Fi: 11.8 TB
3. Super Bowl 50, Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, Calif., Feb. 7, 2016: Wi-Fi: 10.1 TB
4. Minnesota Vikings vs. Philadelphia Eagles, NFC Championship Game, Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, Pa., Jan. 21, 2018: Wi-Fi: 8.76 TB
5. Kansas City Chiefs vs. New England Patriots, Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Mass., Sept. 7, 2017: Wi-Fi: 8.08 TB
6. Green Bay Packers vs. Dallas Cowboys, Divisional Playoffs, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, Jan. 15, 2017: Wi-Fi: 7.25 TB
7. (tie) Southern California vs. Notre Dame, Notre Dame Stadium, South Bend, Ind., Oct. 21, 2017: 7.0 TB
Arkansas State vs. Nebraska, Memorial Stadium, Lincoln, Neb., Sept 2, 2017: Wi-Fi: 7.0 TB
8. WrestleMania 32, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, April 3, 2016: Wi-Fi: 6.77 TB
9. Wisconsin vs. Nebraska, Memorial Stadium, Lincoln, Neb., Oct. 7, 2017: Wi-Fi: 6.3 TB
10. Super Bowl 49, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., Feb. 1, 2015: Wi-Fi: 6.23 TB

Filed Under: AmpThink, Cisco, NCAA Football, Wi-Fi Tagged With: AmpThink, Cisco, Michigan, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, Notre Dame, Notre Dame Stadium, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi

Jared Miller leaves Falcons for Madison Square Garden

July 17, 2018 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Jared Miller, former chief digital officer for the Atlanta Falcons, has moved to a new job with Madison Square Garden. Credit: Paul Kapustka, MSR

In a personnel move that may have some technological impact on the upcoming year’s Super Bowl, former Atlanta Falcons chief digital officer Jared Miller is now executive vice president and chief operating officer at Madison Square Garden Ventures, according to Miller’s LinkedIn page.

We haven’t yet spoken to any of the principals involved, so more details will have to come at a later time (maybe at next week’s SEAT conference in Dallas, where the greater world of the sports technology marketplace regularly gathers). Miller, as those who read MSR know, was the point person for all technology deployments at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the new roost for the Falcons that opened last summer and is scheduled to host Super Bowl 53 in February, 2019.

If history is any guide, the networking teams at MBS are likely already busy preparing for the NFL’s big game — in the recent past, carriers have used the offseason before a Super Bowl date to update the DAS inside Super Bowl venues, a task likely already underway in Atlanta. What’s not known is how Miller’s departure may or may not affect technology strategy decisions, either on the DAS side or on the Wi-Fi side of things. After touring MBS during a press day last summer, MSR did not receive any network-performance updates during the 2017 football season, despite repeated requests to stadium representatives, including Miller.

Mercedes-Benz Stadium also hosted the College Football Playoff championship game this past season, but for the first time in years the stadium hosting the game did not provide Wi-Fi usage statistics.

Filed Under: Aruba, DAS, NCAA Football, NFL, SEAT Conference, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: Atlanta Falcons, DAS, Madison Square Garden, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, NFL, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi

Cranes, dust dominate Los Angeles venue sites

April 19, 2018 by Terry Sweeney Leave a Comment

Three Los Angeles-areas venues are under construction for soccer, football and the 2028 Summer Olympics.

Workers install turf at the Banc of California Stadium (click on any photo for a larger image)

Between the cranes, earthmovers and swarms of fluorescent vests, you’d be forgiven for mistaking the Los Angeles basin for a construction zone. Sporting-wise, there are three construction zones, including a new stadium for a Major League Soccer latest expansion franchise, the venerable Coliseum gets a much needed renovation, and a bling-y NFL stadium starts to emerge from the silt of the Angeles alluvial plain.

Construction or renovation plans for all the venues were underway before the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2028 Summer Games to Los Angeles last fall; all three venues are expected to host Olympic events in a decade.

Banc of California Stadium opening this April

Editor’s note: This profile is an excerpt from our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT issue for Spring 2018, which includes a look at Wi-Fi performance during the Final Four, a recap of wireless performance at Super Bowl 52, a profile of the Vegas Golden Knights’ T-Mobile Arena and more! DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COPY right now from our site!

Let’s take them in the order they’re expected to open. In its inaugural season, Major League Soccer’s newest franchise, Los Angeles Football Club, is moving with speed and efficiency to make sure the Banc of California Stadium is ready for LAFC’s first home game April 29.

The 22,000-seat venue features steep stands (35-degree angles), with no seat more than 135 feet from the playing field. IBM was tapped to handle the stadium’s technology requirements in October 2016; Ruckus supplied the access points for the new stadium, according to Christian Lau, LAFC’s VP of information technology. About 500 APs will blanket the stadium with Wi-Fi; Lau told Mobile Sports Report that number could “possibly trend higher.”

Construction at the LA Coliseum

Right next door (literally) is the Los Angeles Coliseum, where demolition began in January after the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams playoff loss to Atlanta. Located on the campus of the University of Southern California, the Coliseum is home field for both the Rams (at least til 2020… more on that in a second), and the USC Trojan football team. The Coliseum has already hosted opening ceremonies for two Olympiads and is poised to do the honors again.

Coliseum upgrade means fewer seats, more Wi-Fi

In the meantime, construction crews are working 16 hours a day, six days a week, according to Derek Thatcher, IT manager at the Coliseum and an employee of USC, which oversees and administers the venue for Los Angeles County. This is the eighth renovation of the 97-year old venue; in addition to making the bowl ADA-compliant, this latest upgrade will add more aisles and larger seats, reducing capacity from 93,607 to 77,500.

New Wi-Fi is also part of the renovation plan; no word yet on which vendor will supply gear, though Mobilitie donated Aruba APs last year for use in the student section and elsewhere in the bowl.

About half the Coliseum’s $270 million renovation will be done during this year’s football offseason; a new field and refurbished seats will be ready for the Rams and Trojans by late summer. Remaining construction and upgrades will be completed in the 2019 offseason, according to Coliseum officials.

Meanwhile, 9 miles southwest of USC in the LA suburb of Inglewood, the arcs of a bowl for the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment District at Hollywood Park
are taking shape. Construction crews broke ground in late 2016 to transform a 300-acre site into a gleaming new sporting destination. The $2.6 billion complex will be shared by the Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers starting in 2020; LA Stadium is scheduled host the Super Bowl in February 2022.

With a capacity of 70,000 (expandable to 100,000), the stadium’s indoor/outdoor design and a two-sided, 120-yard oculus video display are already generating buzz. Site managers haven’t mentioned any network technology or which vendors they’re considering for wireless and other IT requirements. LA’s Olympic planning committee also reserved the option to use the stadium and the Coliseum for dual-venue opening and closing ceremonies in 2028. Using the Coliseum satisfies the Olympic purists; mixing in LA Stadium would provide the glitzy spectacle global audiences have come to expect from Olympics hosts.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Aruba, DAS, MLS, NCAA Football, Olympics, Rose Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, Banc of California Stadium, DAS, LAFC, Los Angeles Chargers, Los Angeles Rams, Los Angeles Stadium, MLS, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Olympics, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, USC, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

Stadium- and team-app builder Hopscotch adds $5 M in Series B funding

November 29, 2017 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Screen shot of new Notre Dame app built by Hopscotch.

Hopscotch, one of the newer entrants in the team- and stadium-app development space, announced a $5 million Series B round of funding earlier this month, which the company said would be used to help support the rapid growth Hopscotch has seen over the past year.

Founded in 2014 after a project with Madison Square Garden led CEO Laurence Sotsky to build a business around team and stadium apps, Hopscotch had previously raised $12.5 million in Series A funding, according to the company. According to Sotsky, a beta customer relationship with the University of Mississippi in 2016 gave Hopscotch an entree to the large-college market, and since then the company has signed app deals with a who’s-who list of top universities with prominent athletic programs, including Notre Dame, Oregon, Ohio State, Auburn, UCLA, Washington, Baylor, Penn State, Michigan State and Arizona, among others. Hopscotch also signed a deal with T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

While the list of customers is impressive, there is a bit of a caveat to Hopscotch’s sudden rise. According to Sotsky, Hopscotch gained many of its new customers this summer by taking over app development deals previously held by CBS Interactive and IMG College. As the rights holder for many universities, CBS Interactive’s apps have historically been centered around media, including streaming video and other team content. According to Sotsky, Hopscotch is replacing code in those previous apps from the inside out, bringing the company’s “Fan Engagement Platform” to add services like ticket purchasing and advertising services. However, in many cases the apps are still identified by previous developers in places like the Apple App Store, a tactic Sotsky said was done deliberately so that previous users of the apps could just update to get the new app instead of having to install a new app.

Hopscotch CEO and founder Laurence Sotsky

Duplicate deals at schools?

But what Hopscotch doesn’t tell you is that some of these deals may not be exclusive, as in the case of Baylor University, which is listed under “customers” on both the Hopscotch website as well as the YinzCam website. YinzCam, which developed a game-day app for Baylor when the school built its new football stadium in 2014, remains the “official” app, according to Becky King, associate vice president for information technology services and interim CIO at the Waco, Texas, school.

However complete or incomplete they may be, Hopscotch’s college deals will at least give the company another fighting place to take on other providers in the team/stadium app marketplace like YinzCam, VenueNext, Venuetize and Built.io. With $17.5 million in total funding now, the El Segundo, Calif.-based Hopscotch may add to its current total of 40 employees, while building out its product roadmap to include more services for game days, like wait-time apps or traffic and parking services.

In a phone interview Sotsky said Hopscotch is already trying beta tests of interactive advertisements, like one last basketball season at Auburn where fans using the app would get a message good for a free breakfast sandwich at a nearby Hardee’s if the opposing team missed two consecutive free throws late in a game. Though most stadium and team apps have been challenged so far just to get fans to download and use the apps — never mind generating revenue — Sotsky is betting that Hopscotch will find a way to help venues, teams and advertisers work together to build something that benefits fans while also delivering some ROI.

“If you deliver the right kind of ads you can get great revenue traction,” said Sotsky.

Filed Under: Apps, CBS Sports, NCAA Football, VenueNext, YinzCam Tagged With: Apps, Baylor University, Built.io, Hopscotch, Mobile Sports Report, Notre Dame, Paul Kapustka, VenueNext, Venuetize, YinzCam

Notre Dame hits 7 TB Wi-Fi mark for USC game

November 1, 2017 by Paul Kapustka 9 Comments

A good look at the railing AP enclosures in the east stands of Notre Dame Stadium. Credit: Paul Kapustka, MSR

As we sort of expected, Notre Dame’s Oct. 21 home game versus the University of Southern California produced another new high-water mark for the new Wi-Fi network at Notre Dame Stadium, with 7 terabytes of Wi-Fi traffic seen during the event, according to Notre Dame network officials.

The new network, part of the Campus Crossing remodel of the classic on-campus venue, has been humming all season, starting with a 6.2 TB night on Sept. 9, when the Fighting Irish hosted Georgia. With historical rival USC in the house, however, Notre Dame fans set new records across the board for Wi-Fi use, including most unique clients (27,399), most concurrently connected clients (21,008) and most peak throughput, 5 Gbps. It probably didn’t hurt that Notre Dame crushed the Trojans that day by a 49-14 score, which probably made it into many selfies with the scoreboard in the background.

The 7.0 TB mark puts the Notre Dame-USC game into the No. 5 spot on our unofficial all-time list of single-day Wi-Fi data usage totals, behind just Super Bowls and some recent big-game NFL events. It also gives Notre Dame the No. 1 and No. 2 marks when it comes to collegiate events, at least for now (we’ll be on the lookout for the College Football Playoff championship game this season at Atlanta’s new Mercedes-Benz Stadium).

NOTRE DAME 2017 SEASON WI-FI NETWORK STATS

THE LATEST TOP 10 FOR WI-FI

1. Super Bowl 51, NRG Stadium, Houston, Feb. 5, 2017: Wi-Fi: 11.8 TB
2. Super Bowl 50, Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, Calif., Feb. 7, 2016: Wi-Fi: 10.1 TB
3. Kansas City Chiefs vs. New England Patriots, Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Mass., Sept. 7, 2017: Wi-Fi: 8.08 TB
4. Green Bay Packers vs. Dallas Cowboys, Divisional Playoffs, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, Jan. 15, 2017: Wi-Fi: 7.25 TB
5. Southern California vs. Notre Dame, Notre Dame Stadium, South Bend, Ind., Oct. 21, 2017: 7.0 TB
6. WrestleMania 32, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, April 3, 2016: Wi-Fi: 6.77 TB
7. Super Bowl 49, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., Feb. 1, 2015: Wi-Fi: 6.23 TB
8. Georgia vs. Notre Dame, Notre Dame Stadium, South Bend, Ind., Sept. 9, 2017: Wi-Fi: 6.2 TB
9. Alabama vs. Texas A&M, Kyle Field, College Station, Texas, Oct. 17, 2015: Wi-Fi: 5.7 TB
10. Pittsburgh Steelers vs. New England Patriots, AFC Championship Game, Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Mass., Jan. 22, 2017: Wi-Fi: 5.11 TB

Filed Under: Cisco, NCAA Football, Wi-Fi Tagged With: Cisco, Fighting Irish, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, Notre Dame, Notre Dame Stadium, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, University of Southern California, USC, Wi-Fi