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Wi-Fi News: Chiefs Announce New Wi-Fi Stadium Network and Mobile App; Enterasys Sold for $180M

September 12, 2013 by
Can they get another one? The Chiefs' trophy from Super Bowl IV is on display at Arrowhead Stadium. Credit: Paul Kapustka, MSR

Can they get another one? The Chiefs’ trophy from Super Bowl IV is on display at Arrowhead Stadium. Credit: Paul Kapustka, MSR

For the attendees of the SEAT Conference in Kansas City last month one of the highlights was an evening tour of Arrowhead Stadium, home of the NFL Chiefs. The Chiefs have a very cool history/museum area in one part of the stadium, with lots of gear, programs and assorted memorabilia from the old AFL days.

And now, the Chiefs and Arrowhead have one of the newest toys, a brand-new Wi-Fi network that will officially go live this weekend along with a new Chiefs mobile app. At the SEAT Conference one of the more outspoken proponents of Wi-Fi in stadiums was Mark Donovan, president of the Chiefs. The Chiefs, he said, were moving to Wi-Fi now because they wanted to upgrade the in-stadium fan experience sooner rather than later — “We’ve got to challenge the HD experience fans get at home,” Donovan said at SEAT. “We need to make the stadium experience better.”

With a mobile app from YinzCam, the supplier to most of the NFL teams who have apps, Chiefs fans using the stadium Wi-Fi network will have access to a lot of live video, including the NFL Network’s popular RedZone channel. For Donovan this is only the beginning of what he sees as a host of possibilities to bring the game closer to fans via technology.

One idea Donovan talked about at SEAT was the idea of making the coach-to-quarterback radio conferences available to fans, much like NASCAR makes its crew-to-driver conversations public. Though NFL coaches are probably unanimous in their opposition to such moves, Donovan said “those questions need to be asked” if the NFL wants to make the stadium a special place to visit.

“Two years ago, we put the official replay videos on our [stadium] replay boards, and the positive response to that was overwhelming,” Donovan said at SEAT. Using Wi-Fi to make available features like RedZone or updated fantasy app stats are just recognition that fans in the stands are not only Chiefs fans, but “fans of the game,” Donovan said. Cheers to the Chiefs, the newest addition to the wired world of stadiums.

Enterasys Sold for $180 Million

We had no idea that stadium Wi-Fi provider Enterasys was on the block, but then in this world everything is for sale, and it makes sense that there would be some consolidation on the equipment provider market. That happened today with the news that Enterasys was being acquired by Extreme Networks. We’ll dig some more to find out what this means for Enterasys’ stadium network business but in the meantime read this post by ZK Research’s Zeus Kerravala, which nails down the whys and hows of the purchase.

Filed Under: Apps, NFL, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Ever wonder how adept your NFL team is with social media?

September 11, 2013 by

The news from earlier this week that the aptly named AT&T Stadium that the Dallas Cowboys play in had a record amount of Wi-Fi traffic for the teams’ season opening game , 3x over last year, is no surprise to the people at social marketing firm W20 which has rated all of the NFL stadiums for their social media prowess and the Cowboys come in second.

Now this is not just a barometer of Wi-Fi traffic by any means and judges teams on a variety of metrics, but when it is all said and done you need the hardware and networking infrastructure to have a solid approach to social media and AT&T Stadium had 25,000 Wi-Fi connections using up 1.3 million Mbytes of data.

W20 has attempted to rate all 32 NFL teams on their ability to use social media to connect with their respective fans. It used use a proprietary algorithm that indexes social engagement scores from a wide variety of social media sites including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

Even with a spanking brand new stadium it had to be upgraded during the off season to meet expected demand. The interesting thing is that the 49ers, who play in an old, dilapidated stadium, are number one. However the 49ers, being adjacent to Silicon Valley are quite aware of the importance of social media and are in a place where all of the expertise needed to support it is near at hand.

The team’s new stadium, slated to open next season, is expected to be a state of the art wonder including its wireless infrastructure that it claims will be state of the art.

The interesting thing about the poll is how quickly teams drop in the ratings. The 49ers rate a perfect 100, yet the #5 team, the Washington Redskins, has only a 66.87 rating while the last place Cincinnati Bengals have a 26.91. I think my high school would rank higher!

The NFL is only now catching on that Wi-Fi and other associated social media apps are now a basic component in fans lives. They take pictures from tailgaters to post on Facebook and Instagram, check fantasy results, trash talk friends and a host of other activities.

However they do not just create social media data, they consume it. The teams have a captive audience that is obviously receptive to looking, reading and participating. An Instagram effort to get fans pictures posted, Facebook contests at stadiums, best Twitter commentary, all help to engage fans and are functions teams could be doing, but for the most part are not.

There are a number of other rating systems that have judged the same thing for the NFL, but as we reported earlier the league badly lags in developing and delivering the hardware, networking and apps needed to be at the forefront of the convergence of sports and media.

While the NFL is king of the hill in American sports , the league has been worried about the slow erosion in attendance. New stadiums often push old time fans to poorer seats, expensive parking, seats and food and beverages add on. A big screen at a friends house and NFL Red Zone each weekend might cost a fan just a six pack as the rice of admission. By providing access to social media and the greater world outside the NFL can in some ways make the stadium experience more enjoyable for fans and so help keep them in the parks.

Something to think about next time you are sitting at a game with 5 bars and no connection.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, AT&T, Cisco, DAS, Facebook, Google, Market Research, NFL, SAP, SEAT Conference, Sports Social Media, Sports Social Media Data, Twitter, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Wi-Fi News: Big Traffic Surge at AT&T Stadium, New Network in Philly, Cisco Video at Barclays

September 10, 2013 by

Jerry jonesStill think the Wi-Fi in stadiums thing is a fad that will pass with time? If so we’re not at the peak yet; according to the folks at AT&T, wireless traffic for the NFL season opener at their new namesake AT&T Stadium (aka Cowboys Stadium in Dallas) jumped considerably from last year, with three times the amount of Wi-Fi data used this year compared to last year’s opening game.

According to AT&T network statistics, fans at the Cowboys-Giants Sunday night game made more than 25,000 Wi-Fi connections, using up 1.3 million Mbytes of data in the process. Another 207,000 MBytes were used on the cellular and DAS networks in the building, 30,000 more MBytes than used during last year’s opener, according to AT&T. Good thing AT&T spent the offseason improving the networks inside the stadium, which were almost brand new. So even if your facility has Wi-Fi, it might already need an upgrade. Blame the device makers!

Enterasys Scores Network Win at Philly’s Linc

When Enterasys emerged as the network builder for the New England Patriots’ Gillette Stadium last year, there were questions throughout the industry wondering whether the company was a player in the big-stadium game, or whether it got the deal because of its local presence in New England. Now Enterasys can talk about its next big win, a network for the Philadelphia Eagles’ Lincoln Financial Field. Todd Weiss has a good story with all the details over at CITEWorld, one of our new favorite sites for enterprise IT information.

Cisco Video at Barclays

It’s not exactly news, but the video embedded below is a good explanation of how Barclays Center and its technology leader Chip Foley is making use of Cisco’s stadium video technology to be one of the few cutting-edge arenas that is really offering powerful applications to fans in the building. Look for an extended interview with Chip in our upcoming Fall Technology Review. We met Chip at the SEAT Conference last month, and can’t wait to share his enthusiasm and ideas for bringing a better experience to fans.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Cisco, DAS, NFL, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What We Learned at SEAT: Wi-Fi ROI is Elusive, Plan Big for DAS, Apps Not There Yet

September 8, 2013 by

Last month we had the great fortune to be invited to the SEAT Conference, which has to be the premier gathering of sports and entertainment facility technology professionals. Over two and a half days we heard many stories of early experiences with technologies like Wi-Fi, DAS, CRM and digital signage, and we left incredibly impressed with both the level of detail and honesty shared at the event.

Quite simply, if you are in the stadium technology business and want to learn what’s happening at the cutting edge, you should put SEAT on your agenda every year, just like all the reps from the biggest stadiums and arenas who make it a regular stop. (Follow this page to find out where and when SEAT 2014 will happen.)

While we are still working on putting together some of the detailed stories from SEAT participants for our Fall technology report, what we can share right now are some overall lessons learned from both the great panel discussions as well as via hallway chats and discussions during the evening events at SEAT. The top three takeaways I had were: stadium Wi-Fi ROI is elusive; you need to plan big for DAS deployment; and stadium apps are still a work in progress.

Apps: Still at the Starting Line

If I move backwards through that list, I can pretty confidently say that the reason many stadium apps are still at the starting line has mainly to do with a lack of deployed infrastructure. Even at facilities where Wi-Fi has been in place for several years, stadium apps both from teams and leagues are mainly just offering basic information and connectivity. The grand dreams of ordering concessions via mobile devices and having them delivered is still a future fantasy for all but a select few facilities now, mainly because most facilities are still just getting their hands around operating a public network.

Wi-Fi ROI: Elusive

And without apps that are tested in live networks, it’s hard to show any bottom-line ROI for Wi-Fi deployments. It’s a real chicken and egg problem, especially now that major cellular carriers are backing away from helping to finance Wi-Fi in favor of paying for DAS deployments. For the most part, stadiums are going to be on their own when it comes to paying for Wi-Fi deployments, since any benefits of putting in such a network will eventually go straight to the team. But that might not happen in a big way until more apps arrive. While pretty much everyone in attendance at SEAT was in agreement that Wi-Fi is going be as necessary and as basic as liquid plumbing, it’s largely a faith-based argument right now.

DAS: Plan for Space

That leads us to DAS, aka Distributed Antenna Systems, which are being deployed just about everywhere mainly because the large cellular carriers (AT&T and Verizon) are paying most of the bills. If there has been a strategic shift in the stadium business the past year it has been the wireless carriers’ change in emphasis from Wi-Fi offload (where Wi-Fi is used to supplement cellular coverage) to DAS, which brings true cellular connectivity to an array of small antennas spread throughout a facility.

There’s a lot of interesting technical and business nuances around DAS, including whether or not a neutral third party should build and host the network. We’ll be covering these issues in much greater detail going forward, because of their immediate and considerable bottom-line impact. But the biggest takeaway we had from DAS had to do with physical space — as in the space needed to host all the DAS equipment on site. Bottom line: You are going to need a lot of room for DAS. (AT&T antenna group guru Chad Townes showed us pictures of the DAS equipment room at the Dallas Cowboys stadium, and it looked like something out of the Matrix — a huge room completely filled with servers and telco gear.)

Why does DAS take up so much room? Basically for every carrier — think Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile — you need to install, on site, a separate cellular base station, with all the networking gear to handle call ideintification and authentication. Then there is more gear to simply manage the connections in all the antennas, plus gear to connect all that to the public networks. And lots and lots of power and air conditioning to keep everything cool.

So how much space do you need? Estimates ranged from 5,000 square feet (about the size of a hotel ballroom) to just a bit smaller. Some facilities said they were putting DAS in buildings nearby, using fiber to connect those buildings to the stadium. But the big takeaway seemed to be, whatever space you think you need for DAS, you probably need more.

Look for more info on these topics in our upcoming Fall technology report. Best way to know when that comes out? Sign up for our email list, via the button in the upper corner of the home page.

Filed Under: Apps, AT&T, DAS, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Wi-Fi in Stadiums — It’s Not About Missing the Game, it’s About Staying Connected

September 2, 2013 by

Matthew Casey does an excellent job of summarizing the current state of Wi-Fi in the NFL in his post over on CNN.com, with some comments from yours truly as part of the package. While I think Matthew did a great job on the article, I was struck by how many of the comments are still of the “I go to the games to watch football, not to watch my phone” tenor.

People: Nobody goes to the stadium just to use Wi-Fi. But nobody leaves the house without their cell phone either. Being connected is simply a part of our everyday lives now, including leisure time. Going somewhere for several hours where there is no connectivity at all — and paying for the privilege — is going to seem more stupid with each passing year. Since football games have something like an average of 20 minutes of action for the entire time a live game is played, there’s lots of dead time in between. So what do you do during that time? For many people today, no matter where they are — spare time means time to connect, digitally and wirelessly. And it’s not a bad thing. It’s just who we are, no matter where we are.

Yes, if you’re at a game you want to spend time being there with the friends and fans around you. But our worlds are bigger than that in 2013. We don’t just share with those around us, we share with connected friends and with wider audiences in our social networks. Raise your hand if you spend a lot of time during sporting events these days texting friends or friendly rivals as a game progresses. (Guilty.) Most people, I think, who go to a game might spend at most a few minutes each hour checking messages, or posting a photo to show those who aren’t there what they are missing. I doubt most fans would go to a game and spend the whole time there immersed in the Internet. But I also think that almost every fan, at some point during a game, is going to want to connect to others in some fashion, even if it’s just to let someone know when you’ll be home. And going forward, Wi-Fi is going to be the answer as to how that happens. Why Wi-Fi?

The first difference at a stadium is simply the crush of people, which overwhelms the standard cellular-phone infrastructure that works very well in other parts of the planet. For high-capacity crowd situations, Wi-Fi is going to be the ongoing answer when the question is how to stay connected. Cellular carriers are moving quickly to put in DAS (Distributed Antenna System) deployments, which are basically a number of small cellular antennas that work inside buildings or in localized outdoor environments. DAS is good, maybe great, at eliminating dead zones that occur when a stadium full of fans are all fighting for the attention of a few regional macro cell towers. But DAS isn’t going to bring video replays to everyone in attendance. Again, that is why I said that Wi-Fi will be like plumbing going forward. In 5 years you won’t believe a big place hasn’t put in Wi-Fi yet. Because by then we’ll be doing a lot more wirelessly, because Wi-Fi is getting faster and better. And at stadiums, it can even make economic sense.

The second difference at a stadium is that unlike a hotel or other public places, stadiums have a captive crowd that might reasonably be interested in using a wireless network to make their visit more profitable for the owner/operator. That’s why the ideas of video replays to your phone, fantasy football stats via a stadium app, or even simple ordering concessions online to be picked up at an express window make so much sense. With a reliable Wi-Fi network all these options and ones that haven’t been thought of yet become possible. So for sports teams or owners of entertainment venues Wi-Fi might conceivably be able to pay for itself or even become a profit center, somewhere down the road. And we haven’t even started to talk yet about using Wi-Fi for improved internal operations, like public safety, ticketing or luxury suites. There’s money to be made on Wi-Fi networks, but first you have to build them.

That’s why Wi-Fi is coming to the stadium. It’s not so people can ignore the game to get work done. It’s so they can stay connected as necessary, or to enhance the experience they are having, at the few moments they want to do that. It’s a connected world we live in now, and stadiums shouldn’t be missing from that equation. Otherwise — as many of the commenters also noted — it will just be easier to stay at home and watch the game in HD while you tweet or text friends from your couch. Which you do now. If the NFL and other sporting leagues don’t want empty stadiums on those broadcasts, they need to make sure that their paying customers have the basic essential needs of human beings in this century, especially those fortunate enough to have time and money to spend on live-game visits. You wouldn’t build a big stadium without a lot of bathrooms. And these days, you wouldn’t build one without Wi-Fi either.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, NFL, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

MSR Report: State of the Stadium Technology Survey

August 8, 2013 by

state_of_stadium_128What is the “state of the stadium” when it comes to technology deployment? That is what we here at Mobile Sports Report set out to discover when we launched our inaugural “State of the Stadium” Technology Survey, in conjunction with our partner the SEAT Consortium, hosts of the recent SEAT 2013 conference in Kansas City.

With more than 50 respondents representing arenas that host the top professional league teams, including the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NBA, the NHL, as well as top U.S. university facilities for basketball and football, European and U.S. professional soccer teams, professional golf and car-racing venues the State of the Stadium Technology Survey provides, we think, the first real statistical snapshot of how teams are deploying technology to both improve the fan experience while helping increase business opportunities. The survey covers deployment and planning decisions for several stadium technology categories, including Wi-Fi, DAS, Digital Signage, Sports Digital Marketing, Sports CRM, and Sports Social Media. You can download a copy of the survey for free, at this link.

What did we discover? Simply, all survey respondents and interviewees were in violent agreement that advanced technologies, especially those involving wireless communications, would be the key to an enhanced fan experience and a bigger roster of business opportunities for stadium owners and operators. Yet for most of the industry, it is still early in the game when it comes to actual stadium technology deployments, as rollout schedules are still paced by the reality of budgetary and situational constraints, a list that often spans from geographic and facility-construction concerns to complexities of partnerships and rights agreements. So the era of the connected stadium is well on its way, but not quite here just yet.

There is a general feeling of a need to move quickly to solve the most pressing problems, while taking time on longer-term and bigger-ticket deployments to ensure the correct choice of technology at the right price with the right return on investment. These findings were confirmed at this week’s SEAT Conference, which we were invited to attend, and we’ll be sharing more stories from SEAT speakers and thought leaders in the following weeks. The best place to start, though, is by downloading the report to get a level-set on what is happening at the biggest facilities out there today.

Free download of the report is made possible by our report sponsors, SOLiD Technologies and Xirrus. We would also like to thank Christine Stoffel and Chris Dill from SEAT, as well as the SEAT attendee organizations who participated in the survey.

Filed Under: About MSR, DAS, Major League Baseball, NBA, NCAA Football, NFL, NHL, SEAT Conference, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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