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Stadium Tech Report: Wi-Fi, DAS and live video get good reception at Barclays Center

January 22, 2014 by

Concessions feature of Barclays Stadium app. Credit: Barclays Center

Concessions feature of Barclays Stadium app. Credit: Barclays Center

Sometimes, the best surprise is no surprise. That’s the case when it comes to technology deployments at the still-new Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where the Wi-Fi, DAS and live video on both fixed and mobile platforms are all performing pretty much as expected.

According to Chip Foley, vice president of building technology for Forest City Ratner Companies (the developer of Barclays Center), perhaps the only mild surprise so far at the just-over-a-year-old Barclays is that the biggest Wi-Fi usage came not during a sporting event, but instead at the MTV Video Music Awards ceremony this past August.

“We had 7,000 people using the Wi-Fi network at the VMAs, and I was a little surprised at that,” said Foley. At Brooklyn Nets games, Foley said, the average Wi-Fi load in the 17,500-seat arena is somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 users per game. In a recent phone interview, Foley recapped the performance of the stadium’s cutting-edge technology, which also includes one of the first deployments of Cisco’s StadiumVision Mobile, which brings live video feeds to fans using the stadium app. There’s also Cisco-powered digital displays throughout the arena, and a robust DAS deployment to make sure regular cellular connections don’t fail.

HD Wi-Fi attracts 20 percent of attendees

Barclays Center, which opened in September of 2012, had the benefit that few NBA stadiums have in that it was built from the ground up with networking as a key component. If Foley has any regrets about the Cisco Connected Stadium Wi-Fi deployment, it’s that it hasn’t really been fully tested yet. Even during the VMAs, Foley said he was using the in-building Wi-Fi to watch 10 different streaming video views on his laptop, from the red carpet cameras to the behind-the-scenes views of stars getting their awards.

Chip Foley

Chip Foley

“Our goal was to build as robust a network as possible, so that we can handle big needs of one-off events [like the VMAs] as well as the 41+ Nets games every season,” Foley said. With two 1-gigabit backbone lines providing Internet access, Foley said the Barclays network is meeting its goal of being “as fast as your fiber connection at home.”

The only drawback so far seems to be getting more fans to try out the network connection when they are at the games or events. According to Foley, despite advertising and promotions, Nets crowds almost always hit a figure of between 20 percent and 25 percent of them being online, a “Groundhog Day” situation that has Foley wondering whether it’s a natural limit.

“That may just be the number of fans who want to use it [the network]” at a game, Foley said.

The Barclays Center DAS, deployed by ExteNet Systems using gear in part from TE Connectivity, is another non-surprise center for Foley.

“The DAS is great, we never get complaints [about cellular connectivity],” Foley said. “You dread hearing that people can’t send texts. That just hasn’t happened.”

Digital displays, both mobile and fixed

One of the more compelling features of the Barclays tech experience is the implementation of Cisco’s StadiumVision Mobile technology, which brings several live “channels” of video to any fan using the Wi-Fi connection and the stadium app, which was built by WillowTree. With views from the benches, behind the basket and quick replays, Barclays can bring an up-close and personal view to even those far away from the court.

StadiumVision Mobile app being used in Barclays Center. Credit: Barclays Center

StadiumVision Mobile app being used in Barclays Center. Credit: Barclays Center

“StadiumVision Mobile is great for the upper pavilion seats, you can now get a view from a different perspective, and get replays,” Foley said. According to Foley, Cisco engineers tested the technology’s performance to ensure that it worked at every seat in the house.

Fixed digital displays are also a key technology at Barclays, starting with the unique Oculus display built into the striking exterior of the building, and continuing to the hundreds of digital displays inside. Using the Cisco Stadium Vision digital display technology, Barclays Center is able to change and update information on single screens or on all screens on the fly, allowing for greater flexibility in terms of messaging and information like concession-stand prices. Barclays also uses its displays to show train schedules, giving fans better information to plan their departures from events.

“The Stadium Vision displays have been nothing but great for us — we sold a lot of advertising on them even before launch,” Foley said. “It’s fun for our content group to build out content for the L-boards [displays where an L-shaped advertisement brackets other information on the screen], and keep it changing. Restaurant operators can use an iPad to change prices [on their screens] right before an event. They don’t have to talk to us. Overall, it’s a lot less maintenance than I expected or anticipated.”

If Foley had one chance to do anything over again with displays, it would be to add more of them to the original mix. His lesson to future stadium display builders is: If you’re in doubt, put up more.

“We must have had 30-plus meetings regarding [internal] TV locations, with 3D modeling and fly-throughs,” Foley said. “For the most part, I’m happy. But if I could, I would have more clusters [of screens]. Wherever there is one screen now, I wish I had three. People always look at a cluster.”

Adding new screens after the fact, Foley said, isn’t as simple as going to Best Buy to pick up a discount TV.

“You might be able to buy a TV for a couple hundred bucks on Black Friday, but no one tells you that to put that in a venue, once you get past union costs, connectivity and everything else, it’s about $5,000,” Foley said. “It’s way more money to add them now.”

What’s next: iBeacon, Google Glass and more analytics

What’s in the future for Barclays technology? For starters, Foley will oversee deployment of Wi-Fi services for the outside spaces surrounding the arena.

“It’d be nice to have Wi-Fi for ticket scanning outside the venue,” said Foley. “That’s one of those things that you don’t understand the need for it until you open the stadium and see what happens.”

Barclays is also looking into testing the Apple iBeacon technology, which can send text messages to devices in very close proximity. Technologies like iBeacon and even digital signage must also cross internal administrative hurdles, such as simply training sales forces and alerting advertisers to the opportunities.

“For some of the streams, there’s the question of ‘how do we sell this’ — the team has never done this and sponsors may not be aware,” Foley said. “You also have to figure out things like how many notifications and emails should we send out. You don’t want to send out too many, because that turns people off.”

Foley said the Barclays social media team is also at the start of a process of mining statistics from places like Twitter, Facebook and other social media streams, to get a better handle on what fans are using the technology for and how the experience might be improved. One possible way is through a Google Glass application, something Foley agreed might not be for everyone.

“I’m fascinated by the possibility of something like an XML stats feed [in Google Glass] where you’d still be able to watch the game,” Foley said. “We’re getting closer! It’s not for everybody, but some portion of the population is probably thinking that way.”

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, Apps, Cisco, DAS, Facebook, iPad, Live Sports Video Consumption, MSR Guides, NBA, Twitter, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Video Streaming Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Stadium Tech Report: DAS, Wi-Fi puts end to no-signal problem at Denver’s Sports Authority Field

January 10, 2014 by

PeytonThese days, Denver’s Sports Authority Field at Mile High is the new home of the NFL’s most prolific signal-caller. With a record season for passing yards and passing touchdowns, Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning is recognizable for his animated pointing, shouting and line-of-scrimmage audibles, the ultimate practicioner of last-second communication.

Not too long ago, the fans at Mile High might have had to resort to the same tactics to communicate, using hand waving or shouting, since getting a cell signal was next to impossible. “Forget making a phone call, you couldn’t even send a text,” said Rick Seifert, communications manager for the Broncos’ stadium management company. “And it wasn’t just the fans. We [the staff] couldn’t make calls in the stadium to do our jobs.”

But in 2012, the Broncos changed all that with the installation of a full-featured distributed antenna system (DAS) deployed by TE Connectivity, and a fan-facing Wi-Fi network installed by Verizon Wireless.

Russ Trainor

Russ Trainor

The Broncos also put in a huge new digital scoreboard and robust back-end connectivity provided by Comcast as part of their blitz of networking improvements, and this past fall, AT&T joined in by upgrading its connection to the stadium’s DAS. By next year the Broncos hope to add AT&T and Sprint to its roster of Wi-Fi service providers, reflecting what vice president of information technology Russ Trainor sees as a “never ending growth” of wireless in-stadium consumption.

All carriers on board, slowly

One of the biggest problems with DAS deployments in stadiums is convincing major cellular carriers to work together. Since each carrier wants to deploy systems to do the best job for its customers, there is often a difference in opinion on strategy and operations, which is often followed by similar snags in contract negotiations. Trainor said that the stadium, built in 2001, presented unique RF challenges to wireless with its primarily exposed-steel construction. Verizon and Sprint were the first carriers to sign up for the neutral DAS, followed by AT&T this fall.

DAS equipment at Sports Authority Field. Credit: Denver Broncos

DAS equipment at Sports Authority Field. Credit: Denver Broncos

“It was tough to get them [all the major carriers] to agree on DAS, but we have good engineers on the back end and we came up with a nice solution for everybody,” said Trainor. While the antennas and stadium network are neutral, each carrier provides its own back-end gear, much of which at Mile High had to be placed in a building built outside the facility specifically to house telecom gear. In many stadium DAS deployments, the telecom gear can take up thousands of square feet, which can be challenging to find in facilities built before such needs were known.

“There’s no room inside for all the space they [the carriers] wanted,” Seifert said.

The Wi-Fi network, deployed by Verizon, uses Cisco equipment and is also a neutral host infrastructure, meaning that other carriers could use it to provide Wi-Fi connectivity to their clients if they so choose. According to Seifert, AT&T and Sprint will offer Wi-Fi services to customers next season, in part to answer the consistently growing demand. Like in other stadiums, fans at Sports Authority Field know what to do when they finally find bandwidth: Use more.

Steady growth in wireless use

When Sports Authority Field is at its listed capacity of 76,125 on game days, it becomes the 14th-largest city in Colorado, Trainor said. The team has already seen 525,000 downloads of its mobile application, which provides such in-stadium features as four different video replay angles, a connection to the NFL Network’s RedZone channel, and a direct link to the radio feed from hometown sports station KOA. The application is geo-fenced to ensure that the video rights are only used inside the stadium, and to give fans there a unique game-day experience.

Wi-Fi antennas on stadium overhang. Credit: Denver Broncos

Wi-Fi antennas on stadium overhang. Credit: Denver Broncos

According to Trainor, the team usually sees an average of 4,000 simultaneous connections on the Verizon Wi-Fi network on game days, though on colder days when fans need to wear gloves that number can drop in half. Trainor said the Cisco infrastructure is designed to accomodate 25,000 concurrent connections, a number the team hasn’t yet reached. However, the team did have to double the back-end capacity already for the Wi-Fi network, which is being used more as more fans find it.

“Word of mouth really gets [usage] going,” said Trainor, who noted that at a Kenny Chesney concert last year, the stadium crew saw data uploads outpace data downloads for the first time — a sure sign that fans in attendance were using the network to do things like share pictures and videos with their social-network connections.

“We haven’t seen any true bottlenecks yet, but usage is consistently rising, game after game, for concerts, soccer and football,” Trainor said.

Rick Seifert

Rick Seifert

A good sign from the Wi-Fi networking statistics is a shift in usage from the often crowded 2.4 GHz bands to the 5 GHz bands, which Trainor said is likely due to fans using the latest 5 series iPhones, which support the 5 GHz Wi-Fi frequency. And no matter what happens to the Broncos in the playoffs, Trainor and Seifert know what they will be doing this summer: Upgrading the network components, in the never-ending battle to provide bandwidth.

“Verizon and Sprint have already made significant upgrades to their DAS deployments because of demand and changes in technology, like LTE,” said Seifert. “And next year we’ll probably see AT&T circle back again. It’s very dynamic.”

“As smart phones get smarter it’s a never-ending challenge” to provide connectivity, Trainor said. “It’s a job that’s never finished.”

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, Apps, AT&T, Cisco, Comcast, DAS, Denver Broncos, Denver Broncos, MSR Guides, NFL, NFL Network, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

‘Big Four’ wireless carriers sign on to use DAS at Niners’ Levi’s Stadium

January 7, 2014 by

Levi's StadiumWhenever you are putting a neutral DAS in a stadium, one of the biggest challenges is convincing the major cellular carriers to participate in your deployment. Even before their new arena has opened, the San Francisco 49ers have scored a victory of sorts with the news that the four biggest U.S. cellular carriers — AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile — have all agreed to use the neutral-hosted DAS at Levi’s Stadium.

According to DAS Group Professionals, who are behind the DAS deployment at Levi’s, the system of small cellular antennas will also be synchronized with the stadium’s Wi-Fi coverage to produce “seamless” coverage for fans. Though we are historically wary of promises made before networks go live, the fact that the big players in U.S. cellular all agreed to use the neutral DAS shows at least in some way that the folks putting together the technology at Levi’s have a convincing story.

We’ll have more from DGP and the Levi’s DAS deployment at some point in the future, so stay tuned for the stadium launch that has everyone in the stadium tech marketplace watching and waiting.

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

Stadium Tech Report: Boingo, AT&T answer call for more DAS bandwidth at Chicago’s Soldier Field

December 26, 2013 by

Soldier FieldWhether or not the Chicago Bears will beat the Green Bay Packers this Sunday is a question still answerable only by higher deities. But if those powers that be decide to unleash weather conditions of biblical proportions again, at the very least the Soldier Field folks can be confident that their in-stadium network will stand up to the challenge.

Earlier this year, tornado weather hit Soldier Field and caused an unusual 2-hour delay during the Nov. 17 Bears-Ravens game. While the deluge was too dangerous for football, for Doug Lodder and Luca Serra, it was a big test to see if the stadium wireless network upgrades they’d recently helped install could stand up to a huge, unexpected traffic surge.

“We thought we’d probably see some good [network] usage with the weather delay and tornados,” said Lodder, vice president of business development at Boingo Wireless, which recently concluded a big network upgrade at the home of the NFL’s Chicago Bears.

“We saw double the usual traffic from both AT&T and Verizon customers during the 2-hour delay,” said Serra, director of sponsorship and media for SMG, the outside entity that manages Soldier Field for its owners, the Chicago Park District. “During that break, we didn’t hear a single complaint [about the wireless network] from the media or the fans. It was a great test — not a desired one in any way, shape or form, but a great test.”

Upgrades needed at ‘oldest’ big stadium Wi-Fi network

Luca Serra, SMG

Luca Serra, SMG

Even though you can’t really plan or design for surges that might happen during extreme situations, Serra and Lodder and others running the Soldier Field network knew last year that an overall upgrade was needed. Home of one of the earliest (if not the first) big-stadium DAS and Wi-Fi networks, Soldier Field was showing 80 percent year-over-year traffic growth on the Wi-Fi network, Lodder said in a recent joint phone interview with Serra.

Along with DAS partner AT&T, SMG and Boingo spent last year adding more DAS capacity so that Solider Field now has 250 DAS antennas to go along an undisclosed number of new Wi-Fi APs. Though AT&T did some specific upgrades to its DAS presence at Soldier Field (including adding support for its new 4G LTE network), all the major wireless carriers are represented in the DAS via the neutral hosting of Boingo.

Why did the firms decide Soldier Field needed an upgrade? While Lodder said its DAS, which first started operating in 2011, was “pretty cutting edge at the time,” during the past couple years, data usage at Soldier Field has skyrocketed.

“Everyone has a device, and there’s a lot more social engagement and sharing,” Lodder said. “We’ve seen a huge increase in data use.”

“With this large increase in use, we said ‘let’s address the issue’ and not let it get to a point where it’s a problem,” Serra said.

Moving fast and finding space

DAS gear at Soldier Field. Credit: Boingo Wireless

DAS gear at Soldier Field. Credit: SMG/Soldier Field

Both Serra’s and Lodder’s teams were familiar with the need to balance performance and aesthetics at the venerable stadium perched on the edge of Lake Michigan. Since the network was put in after Soldier Field’s extensive renovation was finished in 2003, special attention needed to be paid to placements of Wi-Fi and DAS antennas.

“It wasn’t just bolting APs on,” Serra said. “We had to be very protective of the aesthetics of the building.”

For Lodder, that sometimes means that the best placement isn’t always available.

“There’s always challenges with architecture at stadiums,” Lodder said. “In a perfect world, there might be a certain place you want to put an antenna. In the real world, you can almost always count on changing that 20 percent of the time.”

Doug Lodder, Boingo

Doug Lodder, Boingo

A bigger construction concern of late is where to put the extensive amount of back-end telco gear needed to support the DAS infrastructure and upgrades. “Carrier base stations need several thousand square feet of space, and those need to be rooms with connectivity and power,” Lodder said. At Solider Field, Serra said some unfinished space north of the stadium proper was converted into a DAS equipment room, since there wasn’t enough available space in the main building. Lodder said for the recent upgrade, additional power upgrades were installed as well.

Still, even with all the challenges the Boingo, AT&T and SMG teams were able to go from design to finished construction of the recent upgrade in 45 days this past summer, in part thanks to some interesting work schedules.

“After one preseason [football] game we had scaffolding going up at night, with three 24-hour shifts,” Lodder said. “It was a pretty accelerated build.”

There is no such thing as free Wi-Fi

One other interesting twist to the Boingo Wi-Fi network at Soldier Field is its cost — the company charges a $1.99 per day fee for Wi-Fi use, or you can purchase a regular Boingo monthly plan for $7.95 which will also provide access at Soldier Field.

Wi-Fi antennas hidden under stands at Soldier Field. Credit: SMG/Soldier Field

Wi-Fi antennas hidden under stands at Soldier Field. Credit: SMG/Soldier Field

While many if not most professional teams are making Wi-Fi services free to paying ticketholders, Serra and Lodder said that the Bears aren’t.

“The Bears are a tenant of the Park District, and no one [from the team] has ever said ‘we’re going to pay to turn it [Wi-Fi] on for free,’ ” Serra said. Lodder noted that in the end, someone somehow has to pay the cost of connectivity.

“Someone’s always got to pay for it — Wi-Fi isn’t free,” Lodder said. “Some teams may feel they’ve made enough on the tickets to offer [Wi-Fi] free, while in other cases users pay either with money or with eyeballs, by viewing some ads.”

While the NFL itself is still somewhat vague on its league-wide plans for in-stadium Wi-Fi — other than saying that teams should provide it — Serra and Lodder are confident that Soldier Field will be at the top of the chart when it comes to network performance.

“If and when they [the NFL] roll out standards for network performance, we’re going to exceed them,” Lodder said.

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

Stadium Tech Report: Partners the key to fast Wi-Fi deployment at Staples Center

December 6, 2013 by

Staples centerDuring the 2012 NHL playoffs, no other team could stop the Los Angeles Kings. But as the Kings’ fans were celebrating their team’s run to the Stanley Cup, their cheers from Staples Center stayed inside the walls. Without a Wi-Fi network or good cellular connectivity in the venue, fans there were shut off from sharing their joy with the outside world — a frustration they let team officials know about, in no uncertain terms.

“Not having Wi-Fi was really impacting the fan experience, especially during that championship run,” said Denise Taylor, chief information officer for arena owner AEG. “Our fans went through a lot of pain. And we heard them.”

Fast-forward to the 2013 playoffs, and while the LA Kings weren’t as successful on the ice, at least the fans were able to stay fully connected while at the games thanks to a new HD Wi-Fi network and a neutral DAS deployment at Staples Center. With some impressive help from infrastructure partners Cisco and Verizon, AEG was able to get Wi-Fi and a full DAS deployment installed in both Staples and the adjoining LA Live center in just two and a half months, despite nearly constant activity in the venue that never sleeps.

With its network now in place, AEG and Staples are keeping all the Los Angeles teams’ fans connected while busily looking for more opportunities to not only further enrich the fan experience, but to also add to the teams’ and facilities’ bottom lines. And AEG is already learning lessons about how to better deploy Wi-Fi at its arenas and venues worldwide, including the knowledge that fan network use is showing no signs of slowing down.

Building a network in a building that never sleeps

According to Taylor, deciding that Staples Center needed a Wi-Fi network was the easy part “It was a must-have,” she said. “We knew had to get it in immediately.”

The LA Kings celebrating the 2012 Stanley Cup win at Staples Center

The LA Kings celebrating the 2012 Stanley Cup win at Staples Center

The hard part? Building that network into a building that hosts not one but two NBA teams, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers, as well as the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings and the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks, plus is host to numerous concerts special events and the Grammy Awards. When the business plan was put in place in late 2012 to deploy the networks, Taylor said there were only four “dark” nights during the two and a half months of construction.

“That’s when it pays to have really great partners,” she said. Though there was heavy lifting necessary to retrofit the 20,000-seat venue, including opening up walls to install conduit and access points, Taylor said AEG’s partners worked around the busy Staples event schedule, with most work taking place between the hours of 2 a.m. and 2 p.m. When the dust settled, Cisco had installed a total of 463 APs in both Staples Center and L.A. Live, meaning that fans could stay connected inside the stadium and outside at the adjoining cluster of stores, restaurants, movie theaters and other facilities.

Almost instantly, fans were talking about events, sharing pictures and messages on social media networks. “It was a great feeling to see people talking about the games,” Taylor said. “Our partners really delivered.”

Future Advice: Don’t make any small network plans

LA Kings fans, who previously couldn’t even use the team’s app while at Staples, are now the biggest network users. According to Taylor, an average of 3,000 fans are connected to Wi-Fi during LA Kings games at Staples Center, just ahead of the facility’s average NBA game network user number of 2,410. Even at this early stage of the game, Taylor is seeing that her team’s predictions for network usage might have been low.

“We had originally designed [the network] for use by 25 to 30 percent of a capacity crowd,” Taylor said. But during a recent concert run of four sold-out shows by the band One Direction, Taylor said 35 percent of attendees were using the network during those shows.

“Use of mobile phones in venues is just going to grow and grow,” she predicted. “We’re seeing more and more penetration every day.”

And while pure connectivity is great, Taylor and AEG are now moving forward to enhance the fan experience in multiple ways, including implementation of mobile ticketing apps and apps for ordering food and concessions from your phone.

“We’re in the early stages, but all of that — concessions, ticketing, team apps — is in the works,” Taylor said. “Having a real HD Wi-Fi network creates so many business opportunities, for teams, venues and owner groups. There’s the whole area of captive analytics, which has tremendous potential upside. It’s just a question of how you monetize this big digital asset you have in your hands.”

More lessons: Don’t skimp on 2.4 GHz, and pick good partners

When it comes to Wi-Fi technology, the future is devices that work in the 5 GHz unlicensed spectrum band, which has tons of available bandwidth. Many newer devices, like Apple’s iPhone 5 series, include radios for connecting to 5 GHz Wi-Fi. But Taylor said venue owners and operators need to make sure they don’t skimp on building in support for the 2.4 GHz band, where a large legacy of devices still operate.

“Designers may prefer the 5 GHz range but if you only support that band the truth is you would eliminate a good portion of consumers,” Taylor said. “There are also back of house management applications that still require 2.4 GHz support. So you still have to build for the lowest common denominator of devices to make sure you are engaging every fan who comes in, even those with older phones.”

And since most networks built now are going to be put into arenas that already exist — meaning retrofits — there will probably be a Staples Center-like challenge of doing deployment work around events. That means, Taylor said, that owners and operators need to find partners who are “willing to work hours that aren’t always 8 to 5.”

As AEG develops overall plans for site operations at its numerous international locations, Taylor said that wireless networks are no longer seen as a luxury.

“The two most important things are having HD Wi-Fi and a robust DAS,” she said. “You give the fan what they want, and take advantage of all the opportunities to monetize the network. It’s just not an option anymore.”

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, Cisco, DAS, MSR Guides, NHL, Stanley Cup, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Team stadium apps vs. Twitter: Which one will win?

November 11, 2013 by

Screen shot of the home page for the Niners' Gameday Live app

Screen shot of the home page for the Niners’ Gameday Live app

Will team stadium apps be able to hold off the challenge from independent apps like Twitter? This matchup came to mind Sunday when the Mobile Sports Report team convened for a get-together at Candlestick Park, the on-the-way-out home of the San Francisco 49ers.

Since Candlestick is going to be all blowed up after this season, it’s probably not fair to single out the Niners’ app and network for poor performance this year. I mean, why build a Wi-Fi network in a place that’s going to be torn down? I will say that the new DAS seems to be working well, since I had no problems getting a cell signal all day. But when I tried to watch live video via the Niners app, it told me I had to be on stadium Wi-Fi to watch video.

But the Wi-Fi network wouldn’t connect. After long minutes and several attempts. Finally I gave up. I tried my Verizon NFLMobile app, which lets me watch RedZone on Sundays. But no! Verizon NFLMobile, which monitors your location via GPS, won’t let you watch live video or RedZone while in an NFL stadium. The only person around us with live video of anything NFL on his phone was a guy who gets the Sunday Ticket service from DirecTV. Tell me, if you’re a fan, you’re not frustrated with the idiotic hurdles the NFL puts in front of its best content to satisfy its rights deals. Guys, you’ve had several years to figure this out. It’s the biggest C’mon Man I can think of. LET US WATCH LIVE VIDEO! MAKE IT EASY!

Again to be clear: This isn’t an app review, or a formal survey. But just looking at all the phone use in the stands, I didn’t see anyone else on the Niners team app. I saw a lot of people on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter. Or just sending picture and text messages. What is the common thread for those apps? They are simple to use, they are fast, they have great and easy interfaces on a mobile phone. They are already filled with the people who I want to follow or communicate with. With any one of those apps, you are doing something within one or two clicks.

Fan Zone page of Niners stadium app.

Fan Zone page of Niners stadium app.

With the team apps, that’s just not the case. The Niners app — which looks like a lot of other team apps, since it’s built by stadium app market leader YinzCam — is incredibly dense, with lots of very small type. Which, while it looks OK in a screenshot like the ones here, is almost impossible to see in the harsh outdoor light of a stadium. Opening it up for the first time at the Niners game, I was underwhelmed by the overload of information and choices available. And then when the live video didn’t work… I mean, really, what else is there in the team app that could be different, or make me want to go there?

Stats? Yardages? That stuff isn’t crucial to people sitting in the stands. Where the team app could really make a difference is if it gave detailed information on what just happened in front of my eyes — you know, the kind of stuff that is instantly delivered to people at home watching games on their couch. Someone is hurt? Injured? You’re up there in the stands, you have no idea of what happened or why there are people standing around on the field. I couldn’t find an audio feed of the TV broadcast on the team app — why not have that available? Or at least the radio simulcast? What about that last play? Was it a fumble? How did Vernon Davis get a concussion? In the stands, you have one chance to see what happens. And in many cases, no way of knowing what the outcome was, especially since most teams (Niners included) only show replays of “positive” events for the home team. Again: treating fans like idiots or children is no way to make the stadium a better experience.

My simple thought, as I switched back to Twitter — where, by following some of the beat writers who cover the Niners, I was able to get almost-instant info from their press box tweets — is that the team apps seem designed to be sold to the teams and the leagues, and not with the fan in mind. I have no desire to go to the Niners’ app to find other people on Twitter to interact with or follow. If public sports websites are any guide, anything open to the public is already overrun by ignorant trolls. I’ll stick with my own Twitter feed, thanks. And now that Twitter is adding in NFL highlights, I probably have a better chance of seeing live video there than via the team apps. How are team apps, with their rights restrictions, clunky design and team-sanitized information, going to keep up with fast-moving folks like Twitter, especially now with tools like Vine or Instagram video? Anyone want to bet that we start seeing more fan replay videos on Twitter before we get good, easy to get official team replays?

Maybe these apps are working better in other stadiums, where the networks are better. My guess is, even at those places there is slow uptake. If teams really want to use technology to make the stadium a better experience than the couch, they’ve got to do more to make connecting easier. The network hookup needs to be drop dead simple. If I don’t have Wi-Fi turned on, the app should figure out how to do that itself. (Or ask when it’s first opened up, not after I’ve gone three clicks in to find the “live video” button.) Activities should be one or two clicks, not a laundry list of choices and treed menus. Though there is a lot of down time at games, it’s not that long. Apps should work faster than a play clock… if you can’t get there in 45 seconds, it’s a fail.

Safe to say, we are going to cover app development AND uptake as part of our stadium technology focus. I think right now it is the weak link in the whole connected stadium equation. One scene on the way out of the Niners game made me realize just how far behind the apps are; instead of staying in their seats to watch the crucial possible last-minute drive, many San Francisco fans were outside on the concourse… watching the TV coverage on the high-def screens above the concession stands. Because on TV, they know, they will get multiple replay angles and explanations. These fans weren’t bad fans for leaving their seats. They were, actually, just trying to find the best game-viewing experience. They should be the people interviewed next about what should be in a team app. Because what’s there now obviously isn’t reaching them. Or keeping them in their seats.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, NFL, NFL Mobile, Twitter, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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