NBA – Page 4

New Report: Texas A&M scores with new digital fan-engagement strategy

January 2, 2019 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

In the short history of in-stadium mobile fan engagement, a team or stadium app has been the go-to strategy for many venue owners and operators. But what if that strategy is wrong?

That question gets an interesting answer with the lead profile in our most recent STADIUM TECH REPORT, the Winter 2018-19 issue! These quarterly long-form reports are designed to give stadium and large public venue owners and operators, and digital sports business executives a way to dig deep into the topic of stadium technology, via exclusive research and profiles of successful stadium technology deployments, as well as news and analysis of topics important to this growing market.

Leading off for this issue is an in-depth report on a new browser-based digital game day program effort launched this football season at Texas A&M, where some longtime assumptions about mobile apps and fan engagement were blown apart by the performance of the Aggies’ new project. A must read for all venue operations professionals! We also have in-person visits to Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium and the renovated State Farm Arena, the venue formerly known as Philips Arena. A Q&A with NFL CIO Michelle McKenna-Doyle and a report on a CBRS network test by the PGA round out this informative issue! DOWNLOAD YOUR REPORT today!

We’d like to take a quick moment to thank our sponsors, which for this issue include Mobilitie, JMA Wireless, Corning, Huber+Suhner, Boingo, Oberon, MatSing, Neutral Connect Networks, Everest Networks, 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.

As always, we are here to hear what you have to say: Send me an email to kaps@mobilesportsreport.com and let us know what you think of our STADIUM TECH REPORT series.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, About MSR, AmpThink, Apps, Aruba, AT&T, Atlanta Hawks, Basketball, Cisco, Comcast, DAS, Hewlett-Packard, MSR Guides, NBA, NCAA Football, NFL, PGA, Samsung, Sprint, Super Bowl, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi, Xfinity Tagged With: 4G LTE, AmpThink, Apps, AT&T, Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta Hawks, CBRS, Cisco, Comcast Business, DAS, Kyle Field, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NBA, NCAA, NFL, Paul Kapustka, PGA, Stadium Wi-Fi, State Farm Arena, Super Bowl, Texas A&M University, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

Team-app builder Built.io acquired by Software AG

September 28, 2018 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Screenshot of part of the Built.io app for the Kings.

San Francisco startup Built.io has been acquired by German software giant Software AG, a deal that will not mean the end to Built.io’s nascent stadium- and team-app business, according to an update from the company.

Started in 2007 as a company with tools to help enterprise businesses move operations to the cloud, Built.io made a splash in the sports scene when it was chosen as the base technology for the stadium and team apps for the Sacramento Kings and their tech-centered new stadium, Golden 1 Center. Built.io subsequently announced a separate business focused on sports operations, and signed the Miami Heat as its second client.

Publicly, Built.io has not announced any new sports customers since last year, and founder and former CEO Neha Sampat has shifted duties somewhat to another company that was part of a sort of conglomerate inside Built.io, a bit of a confusing situation that was cleared up with this message from a Built.io spokesperson late Friday:

Before its acquisition today, Built.io was the best known of the brands under the umbrella of a company called Raw Engineering, which also comprised the sports business and a company named Contentstack. Neha Sampat is still very much involved with Raw Engineering as president, and with Contentstack as CEO. Until recently, these three businesses – Raw Engineering, Built.io and Contentstack – all operated as one company, Raw Engineering, which was doing business as Built.io because that was the best known brand. In 2017, the decision was made to split the organization, in part to differentiate the sports offering and not have it be continuously confused with the things that Built.io was really known for, which is the enterprise integration platform. That platform [Built.io] was the business that Software AG acquired today.

According to the company spokesperson, the sports app business is still alive and well, so we will keep an eye out for more news from that standpoint.

Filed Under: Apps, NBA Tagged With: Apps, Built.io, Golden 1 Center, Miami Heat, Mobile Sports Report, NBA, Neha Sampat, Paul Kapustka, Sacramento Kings, Software AG

First Look: Milwaukee has a gem in Fiserv Forum

September 1, 2018 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

The front of Fiserv Forum, with the new Milwaukee Bucks logo ready for fan selfies. Credit all photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any photo for a larger image)

With its first event scheduled for next week, Fiserv Forum, Milwaukee’s shiny new basketball and concert arena, is definitely ready for the spotlight as a sneak-peek tour by Mobile Sports Report this past week revealed a state-of-the-art stadium with great technology and pleasing aesthetic touches that should wow fans of pro and college basketball, concerts and other events for years to come.

While MSR plans to circle back soon for some more in-depth reporting and live testing of the stadium’s Wi-Fi and DAS networks, and closer looks at the digital displays in action, our short tour of the Milwaukee Bucks’ new home made it clear that the designers and builders of Fiserv Forum definitely learned from what others had done before them, and then advanced things in many areas.

Smart touches on the networking side like small Wi-Fi antennas in the railings and clever use of overhead Wi-Fi enclosures as seating signage show a dual commitment to getting the tech right while also paying attention to aesthetics, sometimes a challenge that falls short on one side or the other. Other interesting twists include an array of TV screens and other displays underneath the main large video board, so that fans in courtside seats have their own comfortable way to view replays and other information.

Railing Wi-Fi antenna enclosure in the lower bowl

The visual fan experience at Fiserv Forum starts, of course, with the stadium’s unique outside design, which either looks like a breaking wave or part of a beer barrel, depending on your view and sense of artistic license. The venue also uses architectural twists to provide an assortment of exciting views, with the top-level Panorama Club giving any ticket holder an eagle’s-eye view of the court as well as a spectacular view to downtown Milwaukee, courtesy of an outside deck.

Stay tuned for more MSR reporting on Fiserv Forum’s technology later this fall, including the Cisco Wi-Fi network with its 577 APs (most of which are the two-radio version) and Cisco Vision digital display deployment; cellular infrastructure from ExteNet and JMA; the LED banners and the huge Daktronics display; and live testing of the across-the-street beer garden scheduled to be open in time for Oktoberfest. Prosit and congrats to the Bucks and Fiserv. Some selected photos from our visit below (watch for more photos and more info in our upcoming Fall issue of the STADIUM TECH REPORT).

Artsy panoramic view of the front of Fiserv Forum

Inside the front door, the atrium soars up on both sides of the building

A full-court view from the Panorama Club (Marquette University will also use the stadium)

Looking up at the Panorama Club

The north side of the stadium, as seen from the attached parking structure

The section number sign doubles as a Wi-Fi AP enclosure

Construction continues on the next-door beer garden and entertainment area

View of the beer garden and entertainment area from the Panorama Club outside deck. The front two structures will house a brewpub and a Punch Bowl Social outlet

A look at the display (and wireless) technology mounted underneath the main video board

Concession displays

The Bradley Center, left, will soon be demolished, ceding the stage to Fiserv Forum

Fear the deer, but enjoy the beer

Filed Under: Basketball, Cisco, DAS, NBA Tagged With: Cisco, Cisco Vision, Daktronics, DAS, ExteNet, Fiserv Forum, JMA, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Milwaukee Bucks, Mobile Sports Report, NBA, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi

Technology central to Target Center renovations

May 2, 2018 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

The new scoreboard is one of the highlights of the Target Center renovation. Credit: Target Center (click on any photo for a larger image)

For Minneapolis residents who passed by every day, the renovation of the Target Center might have seemed like a mining project, chipping away at a somewhat blank slate until a sparkling gem was revealed.

Now complete, the 2-year, $145 million project to update the 28-year-old downtown venue has brought the 19,356-seat arena to the forefront of advanced fan experiences, with its main tenants, the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves and the WNBA’s Lynx, now able to offer fans amenities like open club spaces, high-density Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity, and a new mobile app as well as a huge new center-hung video scoreboard.

All those features are located inside the arena’s shiny new exterior, which includes a multi-level atrium with glass windows facing the streets, replacing the old concrete walls. According to Ted Johnson, chief strategy officer for the Timberwolves, the renovation “touched every surface,” with new seats, bathrooms and other hard-to-notice items like a real loading dock to make it easier to move equipment (like concert staging) in and out of the arena.

Technology to the forefront

Editor’s note: This profile is an excerpt from our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT issue for Spring 2018, which includes a look at Wi-Fi performance during the Final Four, a recap of wireless performance at Super Bowl 52, a profile of new venue construction in Los Angeles and more! DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COPY right now from our site!

Target Center’s new entryways use lots of glass. Credit: Paul Kapustka, MSR

On top of the physical changes came the technology layer, with obvious improvements including the center scoreboard, which Johnson said is “the largest in the Midwest,” and four new large video boards in each of the stadium’s upper corners. New LED ribbon boards circle the stadium bowl as well, with one lower one and another series of ribbons above higher entryways that create what Johnson calls an “optical illusion” of a second continuous ribbon.

A new fiber-based network backbone was also installed, to support a cellular DAS deployment as well as a new Wi-Fi network designed and deployed by AmpThink, a company extending its mark in Minneapolis after previous Wi-Fi deployments at U.S. Bank Stadium and the Mall of America.

According to AmpThink, the Wi-Fi network inside the Target Center has approximately 400 access points, but since many of those are the newer Cisco 3800 versions with two radios in each AP, there are actually about 550 radios serving the stadium.

During a visit to the arena during a game in November, Mobile Sports Report found solid Wi-Fi speed results in all parts of the venue, including the upper seating areas and the concourses. Walking around the upper concourse by section 240 we got a Wi-Fi speed test of 34.42 Mbps on the download side and 45.20 on the upload; in the same location, a test of the DAS network for a Verizon Wireless client saw speeds of 22.88 Mbps / 22.66 Mbps.

Moving into the upper stands, at the top rows of section 239 we still got Wi-Fi speeds of 33.73 Mbps / 61.56 Mbps; looking up, we could see multiple Gillaroo antennas mounted up in the catwalks, along with the glowing blue lights of the APs.

Lots of light is a hallmark of the new Target Center. Credit: Target Center

Down in the open gathering area near the brewpub (located in the stands behind one of the baskets) we got Wi-Fi marks of 21.26 Mbps / 67.07 Mbps. Then in one of the stadium’s club suites we got a test of 42.27 Mbps / 68.83 Mbps, with all tests taken during game-action times. We did not get any lower-bowl seating area tests, where AmpThink said it has deployed APs under seats.

Linking digital displays and Wi-Fi

In addition to its Wi-Fi design and deployment, AmpThink is also assisting the Timberwolves in using the digital displays to drive fan engagement with the app and the Wi-Fi network. The AmpThink tests, Johnson said, along with the decision to switch to VenueNext for a new app (which supports more fan services than the previous, content-focused team app), are part of a deliberate strategy to build a next-generation “seamless fan experience” that starts long before fans get to the arena.

“We’ve used Flash Seats for some time now — we were one of the first [teams] to disable paper printing [for tickets],” Johnson said. “We had already educated fans to use a mobile device, so we decided to use that advantage as much as we could.”

A big part of the physical renovation, Johnson said, included improvements to the intersections between the arena and downtown Minneapolis’ famed Skyway, the connected maze of in-building public walkways and skybridges that links much of downtown together.

“Right now 12,000 to 15,000 people a day come through our building via the Skyways, and about 66 percent of our fans come into the building through there [the Skyway],” Johnson said. As part of the renovation the Target Center added digital displays to its Skyway territory, and the team is part of a city-wide plan to bring beacon technology to the Skyway system so that a wayfinding app could be used to help visitors, residents and anyone else better find their way around.

New video boards on the concourses relay messages to fans walking by

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AmpThink, Apps, Cisco, DAS, NBA, VenueNext, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, AmpThink, Cisco, DAS, Minneapolis, Minnesota Timberwolves, Mobile Sports Report, NBA, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Target Center, VenueNext, Wi-Fi

New Report: Wi-Fi scores at Final Four, Vegas Knights get more Wi-Fi, and more!

April 16, 2018 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

A live in-person report of the Wi-Fi network performance at this year’s Final Four is just the beginning of our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT, the ONLY in-depth publication created specifically for the stadium technology professional and the stadium technology marketplace.

Mobile Sports Report traveled this spring to San Antonio, Texas, to get a firsthand look at the new networks installed at the venerable Alamodome, including one new permanent Wi-Fi deployment and another specifically tailored for the temporary courtside seats the NCAA brings in for its crown jewel event of the men’s basketball season.

Download our free report to get the details on how this network was able to deliver a superb wireless experience to the almost 70,000 fans in attendance.

The report from San Antonio, however, is just the beginning of our content-rich Spring 2018 issue, which also contains another in-person review, this one of the updated Wi-Fi network at T-Mobile Arena, the home-ice castle for the NHL’s newest sensation, the Vegas Golden Knights. Prompted by the team’s somewhat unexpected on-ice success, the quick network upgrade is a great lesson on how to respond to fan-experience demands. And it’s all explained in the STADIUM TECH REPORT.

More Wi-Fi for Vegas Knights, new construction in LA

There’s also a profile of the new network that was part of the refurbishment of Minneapolis’ Target Center, home of the NBA’s Timberwolves, as well as a look at some innovative marketing programs combining digital signage and Wi-Fi for greater fan engagement. Our Terry Sweeney also provides a look at new venue construction and old venue remodels in Los Angeles, and we also have a full recap of the record-breaking Wi-Fi and DAS traffic at this year’s Super Bowl at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis — all available for free download from our site!

We’d like to take a quick moment to thank our sponsors, which for this issue include Mobilitie, JMA Wireless, Corning, Huber+Suhner, Cox Business, Boingo, Oberon and Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. Their generous sponsorship makes it possible for us to offer this content free of charge to our readers.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AmpThink, Apps, AT&T, Basketball, Cisco, DAS, MSR Guides, NBA, NCAA Hoops, Super Bowl, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, Alamodome, AmpThink, Cisco, Final Four, Men's NCAA Tournament, Michigan, Minnesota Timberwolves, Mobile Sports Report, NBA, NCAA, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, T-Mobile Arena, Target Center, Vegas Golden Knights, Verizon, Verizon Wireless, Villanova, Wi-Fi

San Antonio Spurs refresh mobile app with new features from YinzCam

March 13, 2018 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Screen shot of new app design for the San Antonio Spurs. Credit: YinzCam

The San Antonio Spurs announced a new version of the team’s mobile app, which includes new features both for fans attending Spurs home games at AT&T Center as well as for fans following the team remotely. The new features were added to the app by developer YinzCam, which also designed previous versions of the team’s app.

According to YinzCam and the Spurs, a new interface designed for clarity and faster navigation will help fans find new features like blue-dot wayfinding (available only for Apple iOS devices) as well as new interactive maps available for both iOS and Android devices. Another update is the inclusion of on-demand replays for fans at AT&T Center, with four different camera angles to choose from, according to YinzCam.

In a nod toward a trend of team and stadium apps adding more attendance-specific services, the new version of the Spurs app will inlcude a “Season Ticket Member Club,” which the Spurs and YinzCam said will provide special offers and discounts, as well as the ability for season ticket holders to have single sign-on access to Ticketmaster’s account manager, which they can then use to digitally manage their tickets.

What’s not clear is if this update is an addition to an update YinzCam was scheduled to provide to the Spurs in the wake of a 2015 deal with the NBA under which YinzCam was to redesign 22 NBA team apps, including the Spurs’. Since that deal several teams have replaced YinzCam with a competitor — the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Utah Jazz and the Charlotte Hornets are all currently working with VenueNext to deliver their team apps. The Orlando Magic are also a VenueNext client, the first NBA team to pick that developer.

YinzCam, however, still claims to have developed 21 of the NBA team apps in use this season, including apps for the following teams: Atlanta Hawks, Brooklyn Nets, Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers, Denver Nuggets, Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets, Indiana Pacers, LA Clippers, LA Lakers, Memphis Grizzlies, Milwaukee Bucks, New Orleans Pelicans, New York Knicks, Oklahoma City Thunder, Philadelphia 76ers, Phoenix Suns, Toronto Raptors and the Washington Wizards. The Sacramento Kings and the Miami Heat use apps designed by Built.io, another newcomer in the stadium and team-app market. This year the Detroit Pistons turned to Venuetize for their team app in their new home, Little Caesars Arena. According to this release Venuetize also helped design the new app for the Portland Trailblazers. The Dallas Mavericks’ team app is supplied by Tixsee.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, iOS, NBA, VenueNext, YinzCam Tagged With: Apple, Apps, Mobile Sports Report, NBA, Paul Kapustka, San Antonio Spurs, VenueNext, YinzCam