New Report: FC Cincinnati’s West End Stadium using technology to support safer, easier fan experience

Stadium Tech Report is pleased to announce our Spring 2021 issue, with a profile of the technology being deployed at FC Cincinnati’s new West End Stadium. With an eye toward making the fan experience better and safer, the Atomic Data-led deployment of Wi-Fi, entry and concessions technologies provides a robust technology infrastructure. Read our lead profile for all the details!

Our latest issue also has some forward-thinking analysis, including Bill Anderson’s essay on why Frequency Neutral Networks are the “magic” that will provide the kind of wireless connectivity users are seeking. Paul Kapustka weighs in on why concessions are going all-digital and cashless, and why that’s a good thing for everyone involved.

We are also featuring our second interview in our “Design Vision” series, this time with Kevin Devore of ME Engineers. We also have a recap of the wireless usage from Super Bowl LV in Tampa, where the reduced-size crowd still consumed data at a rate equal to past “big games.”

If you are reading on a desktop or tablet, you can view all the stories in our web magazine format.

We’d like to take a quick moment to thank our sponsors, which for this issue include Corning, Boingo, MatSing, Cox Business/Hospitality Network, American Tower, CommScope, AmpThink, ExteNet Systems and Belden. 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.

New Report: Inside the technology at SoFi Stadium and Allegiant Stadium

Stadium Tech Report is pleased to announce our FALL 2020 issue, with profiles of two of the most innovative new venues to open – SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles and Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas! While neither venue will host fans this NFL season, our profiles will dig in-depth to tell you about the technologies in place to make these stadiums the most advanced when it comes to the game-day experience. We also have a substantive news analysis story about how venues and product and service suppliers are planning to tackle two of the biggest venue issues when it comes to hosting fans during a pandemic – venue entry and concessions operations.

We’d like to take a quick moment to thank our sponsors, which for this issue include Corning, Boingo, MatSing, Cox Business/Hospitality Network, Comcast Business, American Tower, CommScope, AmpThink and ExteNet Systems. 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.

We would like to take a moment here and give some special thanks to the people at SoFi Stadium and at Allegiant Stadium, and to all the other subjects we interviewed for this issue, for their extra help when it came to providing interview time and especially photos to help bring our publications to life. We quite literally couldn’t have done this without your help, and we look forward to visiting venues again in the near future!

MSR Behind the profiles: 2019 Final Four, part 2

On the press bus to the stadium for the semifinals. Credit all photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any picture for a larger image)

Over the course of the last year, I’ve had several requests from readers to shed more light on what goes on “behind the scenes” on my various stadium visits. Here’s the first in a planned series I’m calling “Behind the profiles,” giving you some flavor of the fun and interesting things and people I experience on my trips to check out stadium technology deployments. In honor of the basketball tournaments we are all now missing, here is my “trip diary” from my visit last year to Minneapolis to see how U.S. Bank Stadium’s Wi-Fi networks held up under the big-game stress — along with some other interesting side trips! Please let me know if you find these interesting or fun to read and I will write some more… 2019 was a true banner year for MSR visits!

(If you need to catch up, here is part 1 of this missive)

Sunday, April 7: Geeking out on Wi-Fi 6

If Saturday had been all about walking around, my Final Four Sunday was all about staying in. But the day of relative inaction on the basketball court played right into my strategy for the weekend, which was: Find a way to maximize my four days in Minneapolis to get the most work done possible.

Sunday, that meant I was all in with the AmpThink team, basically on two levels. One, I wanted to get a real in-depth look at the temporary Wi-Fi network the company had installed at U.S. Bank Stadium to cover the seats that weren’t part of the stadium’s usual football configuration. For the Final Four, that mean extra seats along the courtside “sidelines” that actually were erected over the lower-bowl football seats and then extended out to the edge of the hardwood floor, as well as all the temporary seats in each end zone that stretched the same way out to the basketball court.

An AmpThink under-seat Wi-Fi enclosure at the Final Four.

After a “team breakfast” at a great breakfast-diner kind of place the AmpThink team and I got inside the arena in a break between practices (you are not allowed near the court when practices are going on) and I got an up-close look at how AmpThink stretched the network from the football configuration out to the temporary Final Four floor. Though AmpThink covered most of the bowl seating at U.S. Bank Stadium with innovative railing-mounted antenna enclosures (which Verizon copied when it added DAS capacity ahead of Super Bowl 52, which was held in the stadium the year before), for the temporary seating AmpThink went with an under-seat design, with AP boxes located under the folding chairs and switches located underneath the risers.

The temporary network, as it turned out, worked very well, but the funniest story to come out of the deployment was one of theft — after Saturday’s games the network analysis showed one of the APs offline. Further exploration by the AmpThink team found that the AP itself was no longer around — some net-head fan had apparently discovered that the under-seat enclosures were not secured, and for some reason thought that a Cisco Wi-Fi AP would make for a fine Final Four gift to take home. My guess is that future temporary networks might see some zip-ties used to lock things down.

After a cool tour underneath the temporary stands to see how AmpThink wired things, we spent the better part of the afternoon hanging out and talking about Wi-Fi 6, a topic the AmpThink brain trust was well wired on. Eventually that day of brainstorming, interviewing and collaboration led to the joint AmpThink/MSR Wi-Fi 6 Research Report, which of course you may download for free.

It was the best use possible I could think of for the “day off” Sunday, where if you are involved with the Final Four you are basically waiting around until Monday night. And since the AmpThink team is rarely ever in one place together for a full day — later that year, for example, AmpThink would be busy deploying new networks at Ohio State, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Dickies Arena — it was an extremely cool opportunity to be able to spend time tapping the knowledge of AmpThink president Bill Anderson and his top lieutenants.

Still feeling the physical effects of my Saturday — and knowing Monday would be even more taxing — I headed back to the hotel in the late afternoon, catching the end of the women’s Final Four at the second of the two local brewpubs next to the Marriott. Though the championship game wouldn’t take place until Monday evening, I had an early start ahead to a long day of again, maximizing those stories.

Monday, April 8: Allianz Field, the Mall of America, and the championship game

Every quarter, Mobile Sports Report tries to find a good mix of profiles to educate its readership. Typically we try to keep the profiles in season, for relevance and timing. But other times, you just go get a good story because it’s interesting. Or, if you can, you do multiple stories on one plane ticket, something that speaks to the bottom line of being an entrepreneurial startup that has to keep an eye on the budget.

So while other “media” at the Final Four may have been taking late breakfasts or hitting the gym Monday morning, I was in an Uber out to Allianz Field, the new home of the MLS Minnesota United. Though it wasn’t scheduled to open until later in April, the folks behind the networking technology — a local company called Atomic Data — had agreed to give MSR a look-around at the Wi-Fi deployment, a great opportunity we couldn’t pass up.

An under-seat Wi-Fi enclosure at Allianz Field.

Yagya Mahadevan, enterprise project manager for Atomic Data and sort of the live-in maestro for the network at Allianz Field, met us at the entry gate and gave us the full stadium walk-around, which was great to have, bad hip issues be damned. I really liked the tour and being able to write the story about how Atomic Data got its feet in the door at a major professional venue, and hope the company can do the same for other venues in the future. I’m also hoping to get back to Allianz Field for a live game when such things start happening again, because the place just looks sharp and I am kind of all in on the way MLS teams are tapping into the fan experience without charging hundreds of dollars a seat like some other pro leagues in the U.S.

After an hour or so of touring Allianz Field it was back in another Uber to the Mall of America, where I had scheduled an interview with Janette Smrcka, then the information technology director for the Mall. (Janette is now part of the technology team at SoFi Stadium, and we hope to have more talks with her soon!) Janette, who I had gotten to know while reporting on the Wi-Fi deployment at the Mall of America, had told me about a cool new project involving wayfinding directories at the Mall, a story which fit perfectly with the new Venue Display Report series we were launching last year.

After sitting down with Janette to get the specifics on the display gear I went into the Mall itself and wandered around for a while (OK, I also did stop to get a chocolate shake at the Shake Shack) watching people use the directories. My unscientific survey showed that people used them quite a bit, with all the design elements Janette and her team coming into play, like deducing that people would be more willing to use smaller-sized displays since they could shield them with their bodies, making the interaction more private. Little things do matter in technology, and it’s not always the technology that matters.

In the mall you couldn’t forget what was going on that weekend — as if the fans wandering around in their school gear would let you. I jumped back on the light rail to get back to the hotel and had my media-celebrity moment heading up to my room, when John Feinstein himself held the door to the elevator so I could get there in time.

Wi-Fi, hoops and a brat and a beer

As soon as I got to the stadium on the press bus I skipped the whole press working-room thing and headed up to the football press box to secure a spot. Turns out I didn’t need to worry as most of the media still either wanted to be closer to the court or closer to the workroom to get their stories done on deadline. Fine for all us. By now I had completely learned all the elevator and escalator pathways I needed to know to get around the stadium in record time. I took Wi-Fi speedtests, I took DAS speedtests, I watched the crowd get into the excitement of being at the “big game.”

Some Final Four fans using directories at the Mall of America.

For sure, part of the fun of attending bucket-list events these days is tied to the mobile device. A big part of the fun. I watched many, many people take pictures of themselves and their companions, take pictures or videos of the action on the court, or just (in some cases) walk around with their phones on video broadcast, relaying the live scene to an audience of who knows who. To me that’s one of the main points of these networks our industry sets up and runs — enabling those who are lucky enough to be there live to be able to share that experience, somewhat instantly, with those closest to them (or their imagined wider audiences).

Though these stadium visits can sometimes be lonely and somewhat strange — I mean, who’s there to cheer for the Wi-Fi? — at the Final Four I considered myself part of the general audience, a witness to the fun and excitement of “being there.” And by halftime I had already done all the “work” I needed to do — the Wi-Fi was strong, as was the DAS — so I camped out in the press box and waited for the second half to begin, so I could go out and get the bratwurst and beer I felt I’d earned.

It took a little bit of walking around to find the stands I wanted to hit — I wanted a beverage that was local, not national, and a brat done right — and I found both somewhat fortunately close to the press box. I took my bounty to a stand-up counter space located just off the main upper concourse and for the time of my meal I was just another hoops fan, enjoying the close contest between Virginia and Texas Tech. Then it was back to the press box and more just-fan watching, an exciting finish and then trying to capture the perfect “confetti burst” photo for the cover of our upcoming issue.

After goodbyes to David and his crew and the AmpThink team, since I didn’t have any stories to write I was on the first press bus back to the hotel, where I quickly crashed ahead of my flight back home Tuesday morning. It was a long weekend in Minneapolis and my hip hurt, but I had done what I needed to do, notebook full of stories that I could write while I recovered from the upcoming surgery.


It’s hard to take a photo showing how a Final Four feels in a football stadium, but this isn’t bad

Showtime for the championship game


Any questions that Minneapolis knows how to do brats right?

The big football displays couldn’t be used while game action was in play, but during timeouts they were on, sometimes showing cool social media posts

The well-deserved Final Four MSR approved dinner

Small company delivers big Wi-Fi for Minnesota United at Allianz Field

The standing section at Allianz Field for the opening game this spring. Credit: Minnesota United (click on any picture for a larger image)

Fans at the new Allianz Field in St. Paul are the beneficiaries of a big project done by a small company to bring solid fan-facing Wi-Fi to the new 19,400-seat home arena for the Minnesota United FC MLS team.

The striking new $250 million facility, opened in April just off the highway that connects Minneapolis to St. Paul, is a looker from first sight, especially at night if the multi-colored lights in its cursive outside shell are lit. Inside, the clean sight lines and close-to-the-pitch seating that seems a hallmark of every new soccer-specific facility are accompanied by something that’s not as easy to detect: A solid fan-facing Wi-Fi network with approximately 480 Cisco access points, in a professional deployment that wouldn’t seem out of place at any larger facility, like an NFL stadium.

Actually, the Wi-Fi network inside Allianz Field is somewhat more conspicuous than many other deployments, mainly because instead of hiding or camouflaging the APs, most have very visible branding, letting visitors know that the Wi-Fi is “powered by” Atomic Data.

Who is Atomic Data? Though perhaps better known for their data center and enterprise business managed-services prowess, the 215-person Minneapolis-based firm also has a developing track record in stadium technology deployments, including a role as part of the IT support team for the launch of U.S. Bank Stadium two years ago. In what is undeniably a unique arrangement, Atomic Data paid for and owns the network infrastructure at Allianz Field, providing fan-facing Wi-Fi as well as back-of-house connectivity as a managed service to the team as well as to internal venue vendors like concessionaires.

LOCAL PARTNER EARNS TEAM’S TRUST

Editor’s note: This report is from our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT, an in-depth look at successful deployments of stadium technology. Included with this report is a profile of the new Wi-Fi network at Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City, and an in-depth research report on the new Wi-Fi 6 standard! DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COPY now!

While most new stadium builds often look for network and technology firms with a bigger name or longer history, Atomic Data was well known to the Minnesota team, having been a sponsor even before the club moved up to MLS.

One of the Cisco Wi-Fi APs installed by Atomic Data inside the new Allianz Field in Minneapolis. Credit: Paul Kapustka, MSR

Chris Wright, CEO of the MNUFC, credited a longtime relationship with Atomic CEO Jim Wolford, a company Wright had known from his days with the NBA Timberwolves and WNBA’s Lynx.

“They [Atomic Data] are a very strong local company and we knew of their work, including at U.S. Bank Stadium,” Wright said. “Jim has also been a huge advocate of the [soccer] club, even before they moved to MLS. Their history is solid, and they [Atomic Data] have an incredible reputation.”

As the team prepared to move into its under-construction home, Wright said that originally having a high-definition wireless network wasn’t in the cards.

“The original plan was not to have a robust Wi-Fi network,” Wright said, citing overall budget concerns as part of the issue. But when he was brought in as CEO he was looking for a way to change the direction and have a more digital-focused fan experience – and he said by increasing Atomic Data’s partnership, the company and the team found a way to make it happen.

As described by both Wright and Atomic Data, the deal includes having Atomic Data pay for and own the Wi-Fi network components, and also to act as the complete IT outsourcer for the team, providing wired and wireless connectivity as a managed service.

“When you look at the demographic of our fans, they’re mostly millenials and we wanted to have robust connectivity to connect with them,” Wright said. “Over time we were able to negotiate a deal [with Atomic Data] to build what I think is the most capable Wi-Fi network ever for a soccer-specific venue. I think we’ve turned some heads.”

UNDER SEAT AND OUTSIDE THE DOORS

Just before the stadium hosted its first league game, Mobile Sports Report got a tour of the facility from Yagya Mahadevan, enterprise project manager for Atomic Data and sort of the live-in maestro for the network at Allianz Field. Mahadevan, who worked on the U.S. Bank Stadium network deployment before joining Atomic Data full-time, was clearly proud of the company’s deployment work, which fit in well with the sleek designs of the new facility.

An under-seat AP deployment at Allianz Field. Credit: Paul Kapustka, MSR

For the 250 APs in the main seating bowl, Atomic Data used a good amount of under-seat AP deployments, since many of the seats have no overhang. A mix of overhead APs covers the seating areas that do have structures overhead, and more APs – which are clearly noticable, including some APs painted white to pop out against black walls and vice versa – are mounted along concourse walkways as well as on the outside of the main entry gates. Since MNUFC is a paperless ticketing facility, Mahadevan said Atomic Data paid special attention to entry gates to make sure fans could connect to Wi-Fi to access their digital tickets.

Wright, who called Atomic Data’s devotion to service “second to none,” noted that before the first three games at the new stadium, Atomic Data had staff positioned in a ring around the outside of the field, making sure fans knew how to access their tickets via the team app and the Wi-Fi network.

“The lines to get in were really minimized, and that level of desire to deliver a high-end experience is just the way they think,” Wright said of Atomic Data.

According to Atomic Data the network is backed by two redundant 10-Gbps backbone pipes (from CenturyLink and Consolidated Communications) and is set up to also provide secure Wi-Fi connectivity to the wide number of independent retail and concession partners. Mahadevan also said that the network has a number of redundant cable drops already built in, in case more APs need to be added in the future. The stadium also has a cellular distributed antenna system (DAS) built by Mobilitie, but as of early this spring none of the carriers had yet been able to deploy gear.

Even the chilly temperatures at the team’s April 13 home opener didn’t keep fans from trying out the new network, as Atomic Data said it saw 85 gigabytes of Wi-Fi data used that day, with 6,968 unique Wi-Fi device connections, a 35 percent take rate from the sellout 19,796 fans on hand. According to the Atomic Data figures, the stadium’s Wi-Fi network saw peak Wi-Fi bandwidth usage of 1.9 Gbps on that opening day; of the 85 GB Wi-Fi data total, download traffic was 38.7 GB and upload traffic was 46.3 GB.

According to Wright, the stadium has already had several visits from representatives from other clubs, who are all interested in the networking technology. Wright’s advice to other clubs who are in the process of thinking about or building new stadiums: You should get on the horn with Atomic Data.

“I tell them if you’re from Austin or New England, you should be talking to Atomic,” Wright said. “They should try to replicate the relationship we have with them.”

New Report: Wi-Fi 6 research report, record Wi-Fi at the Final Four, and more!

MOBILE SPORTS REPORT is pleased to announce the Summer 2019 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 latest issue contains a research report on the new Wi-Fi 6 standard and what it means to stadium networks, as well as three separate profiles of Wi-Fi network deployments, including a look at how a temporary network helped fans use record data totals at the Final Four! Download your FREE copy today!

Inside the report our editorial coverage includes:

— A Wi-Fi 6 research report that looks into the new standard’s technology improvements that make it a great bet for in-venue networks;
— An in-person report from the NCAA Men’s 2019 Final Four at U.S. Bank Stadium, where the weekend saw a record 31+ terabytes of Wi-Fi data used;
— How Minnesota United’s new home, Allianz Field, got a big Wi-Fi network from a small company, Atomic Data;
— A look at the new Wi-Fi network at Chesapeake Energy Arena, home of the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder.

Download your free copy today!

We’d like to take a moment to thank our sponsors, which for this issue include Mobilitie, JMA Wireless, Corning, Boingo, MatSing, Cox Business/Hospitality Network, ExteNet, Neutral Connect Networks, Atomic Data, Oberon, and America Tower. 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.

Paying for beer with a fingerprint gets thumbs-up at Seattle’s CenturyLink Field

A fan at a Seattle Seahawks game pays for concessions using his fingerprint, via the Clear system. Credit all photos: David Kapustka, MSR (click on any picture for a larger image)

Seattle football and soccer fans are giving a big thumbs-up to a new concessions system at CenturyLink Field that lets them buy a beer or other items simply by tapping their fingerprint at payment time.

Clear, the same firm that gives travelers a way to pay for access to faster security lines at airports, is now moving into sports venues with a free version of its plan to let fans enter stadiums via special “Clear” lines. In Seattle, Clear and the Seahawks and Sounders are also testing a point-of-sale system where registered Clear users can pay for concessions and be age-verified by simply tapping their finger on a special concession-stand device. Currently, the system is only in use at four concession stands at CenturyLink but Seattle network executives said there are plans to expand the offering as the seasons progress. The system was also used earlier this season at the Seattle Mariners’ home, Safeco Field.

With more than 1,500 football and soccer fans having signed up for Clear at the stadium through the first week of October, Clear and CenturyLink are now seeing an average of around 1,000 fans using Clear to enter the stadium per football game and 200-plus similar verifications at Seattle Sounders games, according to statistics provided to MSR by Chip Suttles, vice president of technology for the Seahawks. The stadium started offering the service this preseason for both the NFL and MLS events. Fans who had previously signed up for Clear either at airports or online can use that same membership to enter the stadium.

The workings of the concession system are pretty simple: Once a user signs up for Clear — which requires personal data including age and a valid credit card — the user orders food and drink at the concession stand window, then completes the transaction with a fingertip tap in a special counter device. The biometrics confirm both that a user is old enough to purchase alcohol, and has a valid credit card to bill, eliminating the need for personal eyewitness verification of I.D. and the time needed to transact via credit card or cash.

At the Seahawks’ Oct. 7 home game against the Los Angeles Rams, another 199 fans enrolled for the Clear system on-site, and 911 fans used Clear to get into the venue, according to Suttles. The Clear system was used for 239 concession transactions at the game.

Speeding up the concessions lines

Fans could sign up for Clear inside and outside CenturyLink Field.


While the numbers may seem small right now, the promise of using technology to produce much faster concessions transactions are a welcome beginning to an area of stadium operations that in many places seems stuck in the far past, with cash transactions and counter staffers who take orders, fulfill them and then take payments.

“We are always looking for new, innovative ways to enhance the fan experience,” said Suttles, who said feedback so far from Seahawks and Sounders fans has been overwhelmingly positive. David Kapustka, Seattle Bureau Chief for Mobile Sports Report, attended the Seahawks’ Sept. 23 home game against the Dallas Cowboys and did an on-site test of the Clear system, and not just for the free beer Clear was offering as a sign-up promotion.

Once signed up for the system, Kapustka reported that the concession-stand finger-scan interaction “took less than a minute,” though there was some waiting beforehand to order since the Clear payment lanes share space with regular ordering and payment lanes at the two stands where the Clear service was offered that day.

The only drawbacks Kapustka saw for the Clear operation had mainly to do with its popularity, as a long line of fans queued up before the game to sign up at a Clear kiosk, ironically causing some delay for fans getting into the stadium. Once inside, one request Kapustka heard from fans was to have more Clear-enabled lines, feedback that Clear and the network folks are probably glad to hear. (More photos from our visit below)

Like many venues, CenturyLink Field has long lines for entry security measures

The Clear sign-up kiosk outside the stadium

A long line before the game started to sign up for Clear

One of the Clear-enabled concession stands at CenturyLink Field. Note the non-existent line at the Clear lane

Another fan taps a fingertip to pay

Good promotion

There’s good Wi-Fi at CenturyLink too

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