Cuban: Fans shouldn’t look at phones ‘while the ball is in the air’

Mark Cuban during CES panel. All photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR

Mark Cuban during CES panel. All photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR

LAS VEGAS, CES 2016 — On the subject of wireless technology inside stadiums, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is historically painted as an anti-tech crusader, based on an old story that has become more myth than truth, especially in the stadium-tech marketplace. Thursday at CES, Cuban clarified his thinking on wireless technology use during sports events, with a very clear nuance that shows the deep thinking that makes him a popular analyzer on numerous topics.

Cuban, maybe known better now outside the sports world for his reality/investment TV show Shark Tank, clarified his thinking on in-stadium wireless use during a panel discussion that was part of a special sports/tech series here hosted by Turner Sports. Since his team’s stadium has a robust Wi-Fi network, Cuban clearly isn’t against good connectivity anymore, and said Thursday that during breaks in game action, wireless technology should help fans do as much as possible to ease the game-day experience.

But when the “ball is in the air,” Cuban said, he still thinks fans should put phones back in their pockets or purses.

“Anytime I see someone looking at a phone [during play] I feel like we lose a little bit of them,” Cuban said. “Technology can work against you in an arena. You have to be very careful that you don’t do anything that will take the game away.”

Shaq greets fans after panel

Shaq greets fans after panel

Using tech to take away pain points

To be sure, wireless technology is only going to increase in NBA arenas, especially when the Sacramento Kings’ new Golden 1 Center opens this fall with one of the most-dense Wi-Fi deployments in any arena. Fellow panelist Shaquille O’Neal waxed eloquently about the Kings’ planned use of wireless technology to support wireless ticketing and marketing integration, all for the benefit of the fan experience.

In an earlier panel, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said league teams “have done a great job” making sure the connectivity inside arenas is a similar experience to “what people get at home.” But even with enough bandwidth to watch the game live at courtside on a phone, almost all of the panelists Thursday were in agreement that the live game experience would still remain wildly popular, even as technologies like virtual reality and on-player cameras make the TV experience that much better.

“People still crave the ability to be around other people,” said Silver, who called sports stadiums “the modern town hall” while noting that NBA season ticket sales were currently at all-time highs. Vivek Ranadive, owner of the Sacramento Kings, said during another panel that live streaming video and other over-the-top Internet experiences only serve to make the live game attendance that much more attractive.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver

NBA commissioner Adam Silver

“Only 18,000 people can come to the stadium,” said Ranadive, noting the capacity of the Golden 1 Center, slated to open for the 2016-17 season. The streaming video and social media outreach by the team, he said, “drives demand for the in-stadium experience.”

And that’s an experience, Cuban said, that simply can’t be duplicated at home, no matter how big a screen or how comfortable a couch.

“When the outcome of a game is hanging on a shot, if you’re there you’re holding your breath while the ball is in the air,” Cuban said. One fan told Cuban that he “did a big tree hug” on a total stranger after a recent last-second win by the Mavericks. “You’re not going to do that with some stranger in your living room,” Cuban said. “The energy you feel [in the stadium] is the most valuable part of the product we own.”

Stadium Tech Report: Aruba, AT&T team up to bring Wi-Fi to American Airlines Center

Inside the bowl at American Airlines Center

Inside the bowl at American Airlines Center

After famously voicing his opinion that it just wasn’t needed, Mark Cuban, the outspoken owner of the Dallas Mavericks, at least now grudingly agrees that stadium Wi-Fi is a must-have amenity for NBA arenas.

Last week his team’s home facility, the American Airlines Center in Dallas, formally took the wraps off a powerful new Wi-Fi network. Built by AT&T using 315 access points from wireless gear provider Aruba Networks, the new American Airlines Center network should be at the top of league-arena networks, even if the Mavs’ owner won’t be using it that much. But as he said (in the wake of a SXSW panel last week that was talking about Wi-Fi in stadiums), Cuban isn’t against Wi-Fi anymore. He just thinks you should do more on the floor so that fans aren’t watching their phones.

While Cuban’s points about wanting to keep fans engaged with the game instead of looking down at their phones are well-taken, the reality of an always-connected world is that good connectivity is always in demand, especially at sporting events where fans may seek to use breaks to stay in touch with their digital worlds. And while the 21,000-seat American Airlines Center has had DAS installations for improved cellular, a robust Wi-Fi network allows for greater levels of connectivity, as well as potential future applications that might produce a better fan experience as well as more revenue.

“At some point, you just can’t live without it,” said Lori Glasser-Seinera, vice president of corporate sponsorships at American Airlines Center, in a recent phone interview. Cuban, she agreed, was correct in trying to prioritize the fan experience, but even he now agrees that Wi-Fi needs to be part of the stadium amenities. Joe Heinlein, IT Director for the arena, said that for many fans not having connectivity could be a reason to justify staying home.

“We need to make sure we fill our seats, and not fill the couch,” Heinlein said, in the same phone interview. A good network, he said, is one way of ensuring that fans don’t have a reason to stay home.

Moving from back office to fan-facing

Though the fan-facing Wi-Fi network (which AT&T makes available for free to all attendees) is new, there has been an Aruba-based network in the facility for more than several years. According to Heinlein, the network vendor approached the arena in 2005 “with an incredible offer” to put in a Wi-Fi network for back of the house business operations.

“We’ve used it for internal operations, for the press, and in meeting rooms,” said Heinlein of the 40-AP network that went unseen by fans of the Mavs and the NHL’s Dallas Stars, who also share the building. (American Airlines Center is owned by the city of Dallas, which leases it to the Stars and Mavs.) But 2 years ago, Heinlein said the arena started talking about how to put fan-facing Wi-Fi into the facility, a discussion that involved Dallas-based AT&T, a longtime sponsor for the arena.

“Since Aruba had been a longtime partner of ours we requested that AT&T include them in the deployment,” Glasser-Seinera said. The final result is the new Wi-Fi network announced last week, one where AT&T will use advanced Wi-Fi technology to automatically log in AT&T customers. Other carriers’ customers can also use the network, after logging in through a separate process. Heinlein said the network was a joint project between the arena and partners including AT&T, and as such did not divulge the total costs of building the new network.

Aruba gear helps overcome changing network needs

With more than 200 events during a calendar year, American Airlines Center is a constantly changing venue (think circuses, and concerts), especially when it comes to network coverage. Heinlein said specific challenges to connectivity include the large open space in the center of the arena, as well as the need to extend coverage deeper into the floor for basketball games.

“We have a big hole in the center of the arena, and there’s not a lot of places there to hang [antenna] assets,” Heinlein said. A “good portion” of the APs are located beneath seats, Heinlein said, along with some other ones that are located in vertical risers, which had holes bored into them for that purpose.

“It’s always a challenge to get a signal where you need it,” Heinlein said.

For basketball, the seating plan moves farther out onto the floor than for hockey games, a factor that often has the arena’s IT team being creative in deployment strategies, like putting access points on top of mobile tripods to provide extra coverage.

“The people sitting close to the court are very important customers,” Heinlein noted. “One of the reasons we went with Aruba is that their APs lend themselves to being able to make quick changes, and we use that capability.”

Looking to the future, with a network now in place

Cuban’s opinions about replays not working well on cellphones may keep the Mavs from being on the cutting edge when it comes to stadium apps. But that doesn’t mean the arena will be sitting still when it comes to utilizing its new resource. According to Heinlein and Glasser-Seinera, there are many potential new avenues to explore when it comes to using robust in-building connectivity. One such idea is using Wi-Fi as a GPS type system, to help attendees find resources inside the building more quickly. In the past, such applications could only be dreamed about. Now, they can be tested in the real world.

“Now that the system is in, we can test it and try different things,” Heinlein said. “Now that it’s here, we can explore what’s possible.”

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