Report excerpt: SEC moving slowly on stadium Wi-Fi deployments

Jordan-Hare Stadium, Auburn University

Jordan-Hare Stadium, Auburn University

Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from our recent Stadium Tech Report series COLLEGE FOOTBALL ISSUE, a 40-page in-depth look at Wi-Fi and DAS deployment trends at U.S. collegiate football stadiums. You can download the full report for free, to get more stadium profiles as well as school-by-school technology deployment capsules for both the SEC and Pac-12 conferences.

When it comes to college football, the South- eastern Conference – usually just known as “the SEC” – is second to none when it comes to the product on the field.

But what about the product in the stands, namely the wireless technology deployments in SEC stadiums? With just two of 14 conference schools currently with fan-facing Wi-Fi in their main venues, the SEC isn’t pushing any technology envelopes as a whole. And according to one SEC athletic director, there probably won’t be a wholesale march by the conference to the technology forefront – simply because the SEC’s in-stadium fans have other priorities on what needs fixing first.

Scott Stricklin, the AD at SEC member Mississippi State, leads a conference-wide group that is taking a close look at the in- stadium fan experience, a concern for the SEC even as the conference enjoys NFL-like popularity for its teams and games.

“We are proud that we have a pretty special product in our stadiums, and we want to take steps to keep it that way,” said Stricklin in an interview with MSR. A recent conference-wide fan survey, he said, did highlight the fact that when it comes to wireless connectivity, “none of us from a performance standpoint scored very well.”

Wi-Fi not as important as parking, good food

But Stricklin also noted that the same fan survey didn’t place stadium connectivity at the top of the list of things to fix: Instead, it fell well down, trailing issues like parking, clean restrooms, stadium sound and good food. That lack of press- ing concern, combined with Stricklin’s still-common belief that fans should be cheering instead of texting while at the stadium, means that the SEC will probably take a measured approach to Wi-Fi deployments in stadiums, and continue to rely on carrier-funded DAS networks to carry the game-day wireless load.

Scott Stricklin, Mississippi State AD

Scott Stricklin, Mississippi State AD

“I take more of a Mark Cuban approach – I’d rather people in the stands not be watching video [on their phones],” Stricklin said. “It takes away from the shared experience.”

Stricklin also noted that the two schools that have installed Wi-Fi in their stadiums – Auburn and Ole Miss – haven’t had resounding success with their deployments.

“Some [SEC schools] have done [Wi-Fi], and they’re not completely happy with the results,” said Stricklin, saying the lack of success has reinforced the cautious approach to Wi-Fi, conference-wide. “Those are the issues all of us are facing and grappling with,” he added.

SEC fans setting DAS traffic records

Even as they trail on Wi-Fi deployments, that doesn’t mean SEC schools are putting in dial-up phone booths. Indeed, Stricklin noted the huge video boards that have been installed in most conference stadiums, and did say that the recent installations of carrier-funded DAS deploymentshave somewhat eased the no-signal crunch of the near past.

At his own school, Stricklin said his office got a lot of complaints about fans not being able to get a cellular signal before AT&T updated the stadium’s DAS in 2013.

“Last year, we got very few negative comments [about cellular service],” Stricklin said. “AT&T customers were even able to stream video.”

Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, Ole Miss

Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, Ole Miss

AT&T’s aggressive plan to install as many DAS networks as it can has helped bring the SEC to a 100 percent DAS coverage mark, and the fans seem to be enjoying the enhanced cellular connectivity. According to AT&T statistics, fans at SEC schools have regularly led the carrier’s weekly DAS traffic totals for most of the football season, especially at the “big games” between SEC schools like Alabama, Auburn, Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Georgia.

During Alabama’s 25-20 home victory over then-No. 1 Mississippi State, AT&T customers at Bryant-Denny Stadium used 849 gigabytes oftraffic, the second-highest total that weekend for stadiums where AT&T has a DAS. The next two highest data-usage marks that weekend came at games at Georgia (676 GB) and Arkansas (602 GB), highlighting that SEC games typically have huge crowds, and those crowds like to use their cellphones, no matter how good the game on the field is.

Would Wi-Fi help with some of the traffic crunches? Possibly, but only two schools in the conference – Ole Miss and Auburn – currently have fan-facing Wi-Fi in their stadiums. Texas A&M, which is in the middle of a $450 million renovation of Kyle Field, is leaping far ahead of its conference brethren with a fiber-based Wi-Fi and DAS network and IPTV installation that will be among the most advanced anywhere when it is completed this coming summer.

But most of the SEC schools, Stricklin said, will probably stay on the Wi-Fi sidelines, at least until there is some better way to justify the millions of dollars in costs needed to bring Wi-Fi to a facility that might not see much regular use.

“If you only have 6 home games a year, it’s hard to justify,” said Stricklin of the cost of a Wi-Fi stadium network.

Other sports may move before football

Stricklin, the man who wants fans to keep their phones in their pockets at football games, is no stranger to technology-enhanced experiences in stadiums. He claims to “love” the in-seat food delivery options at MSU baseball and basketball games, and notes that the conference athletic directors will have a meeting soon where the game-experience panel experts will walk the ADs through the facets of wireless technology deployments.

“They’re going to lay out what are the challenges, and what are the costs” of wireless deployments, Stricklin said. What Stricklin doesn’t want to see at MSU or at any SEC school is the return of the “no signal” days.

“When fans from other schools come here, we want them to have a good experience,” Stricklin said.

But he’d still prefer that experience is real, not virtual.

“I still just wonder, is anybody really doing this?” he asked. “Are you going to pay what you pay to come to our place, and then watch your phone? What I hope is that we produce such a great experience, you’re not going to want to reach for your phone.”

Big AT&T DAS weekend in Miami: 2.7 TB of traffic for two mid-November games

Screen Shot 2014-09-12 at 2.21.51 PMWe’re a couple weeks behind in catching up here, but it’s worth backtracking to look at a huge weekend of DAS traffic at Miami’s Sun Life Stadium that took place earlier this month. According to DAS traffic figures from AT&T, the two games held at Sun Life on Nov. 13 (Miami Dolphins vs. Buffalo Bills) and Nov. 15 (Florida State vs. Miami) generated a total of 2.735 terabytes of traffic on the AT&T-specific cellular DAS in the stadium — a pretty high mark for cellular-only traffic.

Since we know there’s also a high-capacity Wi-Fi network at Sun Life, it’s interesting to wonder how much total traffic there was for the two events. While we wait to see if the fine folks who run the stadium network will eventually provide us with the Wi-Fi details, we can drill down a bit more into the DAS numbers that AT&T is seeing across the largest stadiums this fall.

The two games in Miami that weekend were the tops for DAS traffic in both college and pro for AT&T networks, which according to AT&T is the first time one town has held the DAS crown for both spots. The FSU-Miami game, where the Hurricanes kept it close to the end, was the biggest single DAS traffic event of that weekend, college or pro, with 1,802 GB of data crossing the AT&T DAS network. What’s kind of stunning is to remember that these stats are for AT&T customer traffic only; full game traffic from the 76,530 in attendance at the FSU-Miami game was likely much higher but alas — we get no such comparable stats from other cellular providers.

Other big games between highly ranked teams also scored high in AT&T’s DAS rankings that particular weekend — Alabama’s home win over then No. 1 Mississippi State was second on the list with 849 GB of DAS traffic, while Georgia’s win over visiting Auburn that Saturday recorded 676 GB of DAS traffic.

On the pro side, the second-highest AT&T DAS traffic came interestingly from San Diego, where the Chargers eked out a 13-6 win over the Raiders. We’re wondering if the DAS mark from San Diego — 730 GB, which trailed only Miami’s Thursday night mark of 933 GB in its win over Buffalo — was higher because Qualcomm Stadium still doesn’t have Wi-Fi. And again, remember that traffic at some other stadiums might have been higher — these numbers reflect only AT&T stats from venues where AT&T has an operating DAS.

Stay tuned as the football seasons come to their conclusions — with any luck we’ll get some more DAS and Wi-Fi stats to get a more complete picture of stadium traffic this season, which — surprise! — seems to be continually growing. Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile… lend us your stats!

Big Online Crowds Expected for CBS Live Stream of LSU-Alabama Matchup

Live broadcast of College’s #1 vs #2 could change the market.

One of the biggest college football games of the year, regular season edition, is coming this weekend in the LSU-Auburn matchup, and in a sign of the growing importance of presenting sports in all mediums it will be available as streaming media from an online source.

In addition to presenting the game on regular broadcast television, CBS is pulling out all the stops by not just putting the game live online, but also by beefing up its social-media efforts, soliciting fan reactions both prior to and after the Saturday contest.

CBSSports.Com has said that it will be streaming the game that pits No. 1 LSU versus No. 2 Alabama, with the game being presented at CBSSports.com/SECLive. The live streaming video is also available via the Internet to iPhone and iPad users who have downloaded the free CBS Sports app available at cbssports.com/mobile.

Fans can comment online and send tweets while watching from a computer or an iOS device

The broadcast is the centerpiece of CBSSports’ aggressive weeklong coverage of the matchup. That included daily coverage at the Alabama/LSU Central page or the CBSSports.com’s Eye on College Football Blog.

CBSSports has streamed SEC games in the past as well as conference championships on both its website and to iOS devices, with an audience that hovers around six figures — but this is different. Jason Kint, senior vice president and general manager of CBSSports.Com told Fierceonlinevideo.com thats “It’s the biggest football game across all platforms,” and added that he sees this event as a breakthrough for streaming media.

While over the years many big matchups have been touted by the networks only to have them come up short, CBS is playing this one like it could be a preview of the BCS Championship game. The amped-up buildup, plus the stature of the SEC (and its five consecutive BCS championships) should make this online broadcast a far cry from the ho-hum acceptance that many streaming events have received in the past.

Second tier Olympics events, often broadcast at odd hours have garnered little attention and even smaller audiences and have in some ways turned people off to using mobile and handheld devices for watching sporting events, although MLB.com and the NFL have been aggressively pushing out into some segments of this market.

CBSSports will not stop its coverage with the game but will also have its usual postgame show, “5th Quarter with Gary Danielson” as an interactive afterparty. This site can be found at cbssports.com/gary.

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