Zippin checkout-free system debuts at stadiums in Sacramento, Denver

A Zippin-powered checkout-free concessions stand at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento in 2019. Credit: Zippin/Sacramento Kings (click on any photo for a larger image)

Checkout-free shopping payment systems, where customers simply take items off shelves and are charged automatically as they leave the store, are now arriving in sports stadiums, with startup Zippin leading the way with active installations in Sacramento and Denver.

At the Sacramento Kings’ Golden 1 Center and at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver, trial concession stands powered by Zippin have already opened and been used by fans, both before the pandemic (in Sacramento) and during the past season at Empower Field, where the Denver Broncos had some games this fall with limited fan attendance.

The checkout-free store idea, pioneered by Amazon a few years ago, uses pre-visit payment information (collected either via an app or a credit-card swipe before entry) and a combination of in-store recognition technology — usually a mix of cameras, weight sensors and artificial intelligence software — to “see” what customers are taking off the shelves, and to charge the customers for those items as they leave the store.

While many customers are amazed the system actually works even after they leave a store, the potential checkout-free systems have to solve one of the biggest pain points of stadium visits — waiting in line for concessions — has generated considerable interest among venue owners and operators. And with transaction times in both Sacramento and Denver averaging less than a minute — and some in Sacramento as quick as 10 seconds — it’s a also good bet that fans will quickly embrace more checkout-free operations so that they can get back to their seats to watch the event they paid to attend.

Fans can’t believe it works

“It’s so intriguing to watch a fan go through the [checkout-free] process, and see how they react,” said Jay Morrison, district manager for Aramark, the concessionaire at Empower Field. At one of the Broncos games this fall Morrison was watching fans exit the Zippin-powered concession stand “and they would look around, sort of stand there and say that they can’t believe it,” Morrison said. And then, of course, the fans would share the experience on social media.

“In all my years of being in F&B, I’ve never seen somebody taking a picture of somebody buying a soda,” Morrison said.

Overhead cameras track customers as they select items. Credit: Zippin

While Amazon may have pioneered the checkout-free idea when it opened its first Amazon Go store in 2018, the market now has a growing number of startups seeking to become the back-end suppliers. But Zippin, a San Francisco-based startup with 50+ employees and $15 million in venture funding, is the first to crack into the stadium concessions market, an area that seems ripe for such innovation, especially given the new reality of supporting concession operations during a pandemic.

In Denver, Aramark had already decided to trial the Zippin technology at Mile High well before the pandemic put a premium on less human contact for transactions.

“The unintended benefit is that [checkout-free] fits perfectly with Covid and beyond,” said Aramark’s Morrison.

John Rinehart, president for business operations with the Sacramento Kings, noted that the Zippin system’s entry gate inherently delivers a way to enforce social distancing by limiting capacity inside the store as necessary.

Getting fans back to their seats

Like in Denver, Sacramento had decided to try the Zippin system well before the pandemic hit — at Golden 1 Center a Zippin-powered store was opened in September in 2019, as part of what Rinehart said is a continued desire to use technology to improve the fan experience.

“It’s kind of in our DNA to look out for these things,” said Rinehart of the arena that opened in 2016 with some of the most advanced wireless networking and display technologies, as well as one of the most innovative stadium apps.

Entry gate at Zippin stand at Empower Field. Credit: Zippin

At Golden 1 Center, the Zippin store was an open area on the main concourse, and in addition to coolers with drinks it also had an assortment of snacks, as well as a way to use Zippin to pay for hot food items like popcorn or pizza. According to Rinehart a customer would purchase a ticket for the hot items inside the Zippin store, and then go next door to a hot-food stand where their order would be fulfilled.

In Denver, Aramark added the Zippin technology to one the “Drink Market” stands it had opened at the stadium the year before, which were basically walk-through stands with self-serve glass-door drink coolers. In 2019, those stands used a unique visual-scanner system from Mashgin where fans would place items to be scanned and priced. The only staffing needed was one person at the end of the line to check IDs and to open cans and bottles before fans left.

With the Zippin technology, fans can either download an app or use their credit cards at the entry gate. Once they are authorized, they enter the store, select their items and simply walk out through the exit gate (again, where they would encounter one staffer for ID check and bottle/can opening).

According to Aramark’s Morrison, having support both for an app as well as walk-up credit card access was a key selling point for Zippin, since many fans have historically proven “resistant” to downloading and registering through an app.

While education on how the store works is necessary — in Denver and Sacramento both stadiums had signage as well as email instructions for the systems — Morrison also said that fans seem to learn the system quickly and are happy to tell others how it works.

And in both stadiums, operators saw fans coming back for repeated visits during a single game, since they knew they wouldn’t have to wait long.

“If you know what you want, you can get in and out in less than 10 seconds,” said the Kings’ Rinehart. Both Denver and Sacramento operators said they saw average visit times of around 45 seconds, an unthinkable speed for anyone who’s ever spent an entire baseball inning or half a football quarter waiting for a hot dog and a beer.

Minimal reconfiguration needed

According to Zippin CEO Krishna Motukuri, the Zippin-powered stands don’t need a lot of technology or networking support. The camera systems, he said, only use about 15-to-20 Mbps of network bandwidth, and the AI computations are done on the edge modules Zippin installs on the site.

Ceiling cameras seen in Zippin Denver stand. Credit: Zippin

Motukuri said Zippin operates under a software-as-a-service module, charging venue owners and operators a monthly fee and a per-transaction fee. According to Aramark’s Morrison the cost of a Zippin deployment is far cheaper than buying similar technology from Amazon, which Aramark had initially considered.

At Golden 1 Center Rinehart said the Zippin system was fairly easy to deploy, since the open-concourse setting allowed them to bring cameras down from above. In Denver, Aramark and the Broncos actually had to raise the ceiling on the area used, so that the Zippin cameras could have a better range of focus.

And according to Aramark’s Morrison the Zippin system reduced the needed real estate for checkout, using less than a third of the space required by the Mashgin systems. “That let us put four more beverage coolers into the space,” Morrison said. In addition to the cameras, a Zippin system also requires entry and exit gates, as well as sensors for all shelves holding items.

Using the pandemic to ‘leapfrog’ to the future

Zippin’s Motukuri, who founded the company in 2015, said that the Covid pandemic has exposed some of the issues that still plague other concession systems, the fact that there still may be a wait to purchase items.

“Self-checkout doesn’t get rid of lines,” Motukuri said. “Our system is not just frictionless, it’s contactless. It offers venues an opportunity to leapfrog ahead.” According to Zippin, a new Zippin-powered concession stand is set to open at the San Antonio Spurs’ AT&T Center when fans are allowed back in that building.

In Denver, Aramark’s Morrison said that the speed enabled by the Zippin system was part of the process that allowed the venue to re-open with limited attendance.

“The state of Colorado [regulators] observed us, and we had to deliver on the commitment [to safer operations],” Morrison said. “Having the self-order system was part of what enabled us to get back to having fans.”

(Zippin promotional video below)

Team-app builder Built.io acquired by Software AG

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.

Commentary: Time to rethink in-seat delivery?

A beer vendor at Wrigley Field this summer. Credit all photos: Paul Kapustka,, MSR (click on any photo for a larger image)

I have a major scoop: Even though Wrigley Field doesn’t have its new Wi-Fi network installed yet, I can confirm that the Friendly Confines has food and drink delivery to fans in all seats.

And you don’t need an app to order a frosty malt beverage. You simply say, “Hey! Beer man! One over here!” And he walks over and pours you a cold one. Apparently this is not new, but has worked for many, many years.

Though I do jest a bit I hope my point is clear: Sometimes there is a bit too much fascination with technology, especially on the stadium app front, which has not yet been warranted. The main question of this essay is whether or not it’s time to rethink the in-seat ordering and delivery phenomenon, to find what really matters to fans and where technology can deliver better options.

Who really wants in-seat delivery?

Editor’s note: This profile is an excerpt from our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT, our Fall 2017 issue that has in-depth profiles of network deployments at Notre Dame Stadium, Sports Authority Field at Mile High, Colorado State’s new stadium, and the Atlanta Falcons’ new Mercedes-Benz Stadium. DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COPY of the report today!

I will be the first to admit to being guilty as charged in being over-excited about stadium apps and the idea of things like instant replays on your phone and being able to have food and drink delivered to any seat in the stadium. When the San Francisco 49ers opened Levi’s Stadium four years ago, those two services were fairly unique in the sporting world, and it was cool to see how both worked.

The Niners did a lot of human-engineering study on the food delivery problem, knowing that it was more an issue of getting enough runners to deliver the goods than it was to get the app working right. Even a big glitch at the first-year outdoor ice hockey game at Levi’s Stadium was sort of a confirmation of the idea: That so many people tried to order food deliveries it screwed up the system wasn’t good, but it did mean that it was something people wanted, right?

Turns out, no so much. Recently the Niners officially announced that they are taking a step back on in-seat concessions ordering and deliveries at Levi’s Stadium, limiting it to club areas only. Whatever reasons the Niners give for scaling down the idea, my guess is that it mainly had to do with the fact that it turns out that the majority of people at a football game (or basketball too) may not want to just sit in their seats the whole game, but in fact get up and move around a bit.

The end zone view from the beer garden at Colorado State Stadium.

That may be why most of the new stadiums that have opened in the past couple years have purposely built more “porch” areas or other public sections where fans can just hang out, usually with somewhat of a view of the field. The Sacramento Kings’ nice beer garden on the top level of Golden 1 Center and the Atlanta Falcons’ AT&T Perch come to mind here. For the one or two times these fans need to get something to eat, they are OK with getting up and getting it themselves.

Plus, there’s the fact that at the three or four or more hours you’re going to be at a football game, if you’re drinking beer you’re going to eventually need to get up anyway due to human plumbing. We’ve been fairly out front in saying stadiums should spend more time bringing concession-stand technology into the 21st century, instead of worrying too much about in-seat delivery. It’s good to see there are some strides in this direction, with better customer-facing interfaces for payment systems and things like vending machines and express-ordering lines for simple orders.

While there may be disagreement about whether or not in-seat delivery is a good idea, there is certainly universal disgust for concession lines that are long for no good reason. It’s beyond time for stadiums to mimic systems already in place at fast-food restaurants or coffee shops and bring some of that technology spending to bear in the place that everyone agrees still needs work. Even at the uber-techno Levi’s, regular concession stand lines have been abysmal in their slowness. Maybe the Niners and others guilty of the same crimes will pay more attention to less flashy fixes in this department.

Is drink-only delivery the right move?

The Niners’ revolutionary attempt to bring mobile ordering and in-seat delivery to all fans in a big stadium was part of the app suite from VenueNext, the company the Niners helped start as part of their Levi’s Stadium plans. While VenueNext is regularly adding new pro teams to its stable of customers (in September at Mobile World Congress Americas, the Utah Jazz announced they would switch to VenueNext for the upcoming season), not a single one has tried to copy the Niners’ ambitious deliver-anywhere feature.

The end-zone AT&T Perch at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

And for Super Bowl 50, the signature event that Levi’s Stadium was in part built for, remember it was the NFL shutting down the idea of in-seat delivery of food and drink, limiting the service instead to just beverage ordering and delivery. It probably makes sense for Mobile Sports Report to put together a list sometime soon about the various attempts at in-seat ordering and delivery around the pro leagues, to see what’s working and what hasn’t. To be clear we are talking here about widespread delivery to all seating areas, and not the wait-staff type delivery systems that have been widely deployed in premium seating areas for years.

Our guess, just from tracking this phenomenon the past several years, is that while such services make sense in premium and club areas, simple logistics and stadium real estate (like narrow aisles or packed, sellout crowds) make in-seat ordering and delivery a human-factor nightmare in most venues.

One experiment worth watching is the system being deployed by the Atlanta Falcons at Mercedes-Benz Stadium as part of the team/stadium app developed by IBM. Instead of working online, the app will let fans pick food items and enter payment information, and then take their phone to the appropriate stand to scan and fulfill the order. Nobody knows yet if this will speed up lines or make the concession process faster, but it is at the very least an attempt to try something new, using technology doing what it does best to eliminate a pain point of going to a game — waiting in line.

And while I will be excited to see the new networks being planned for Wrigley (Wi-Fi and a new DAS are supposed to be online for next season), I’m just as sure that whenever I visit there again, I won’t need an app to have a beer and hot dog brought to my seat. Maybe having more choice in items or having that instant gratification of delivery when you want it is where the world is going today, but on a brilliant summer afternoon at Wrigley Field somebody walking down the aisle every now and then works just fine. With the Cubs winning, the organ playing and the manual scoreboard doing its magic in center field, it’s a welcome reminder that sometimes, technology isn’t always the best or neccessary answer.

Join us TODAY: Twitter chat July 27 with Sacramento Kings, Miami Heat, Built.io and BeyondCurious

Want to know more about how and why the Miami Heat and the Sacramento Kings chose the platform and services for their new team and stadium mobile apps? Join us in a Twitter chat on Thursday, July 27 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time in the U.S. (1 p.m. Eastern) with representatives from the Kings, the Heat and their platform providers, including app-platform developer Built.io and design firm BeyondCurious.

The chat with hashtag #SportsTechChat will be led by yours truly, and while it will be “directed” at the Kings and the Heat, anyone can join in with replies or their own thoughts during the hour we are chatting live. Follow me on Twitter (@PaulKaps) for the chat and for updates on the world of stadium and large public venue technology in general.

Built.io formally announces sports-app business

Screenshots from Built.io’s under-development mobile app for the NBA’s Miami Heat. Credit: Miami Heat

Built.io, the startup behind the Sacramento Kings’ new team and stadium app, formally announced its “fan experience platform” today, putting the company more directly in competition with market leaders YinzCam and VenueNext.

A San Francisco-based company, Built.io did not have a standalone sports-app business when it was selected by the Kings to be the base app technology for both the Kings’ team app as well as the app for the Kings’ new home, the Golden 1 Center. Since that arena’s launch last year, Built.io has also signed the Miami Heat as a customer, ahead of today’s formal launch of the sports-app platform.

In the larger sports world, YinzCam is by far and away the company with the most apps developed for teams and stadiums, with many of its content-focused developments used by numerous pro league teams as well as many large colleges. VenueNext, which entered the world as the app developer for the San Francisco 49ers’ new Levi’s Stadium a few years ago, has since signed up multiple pro teams like the NHL’s San Jose Sharks as well as entertainment entities like Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby.

Of the two market leaders, Built.io’s platform-based approach to app building — where third-party components for features like wayfinding and parking can be added via an API structure — is more like VenueNext’s, though YinzCam also has the ability to add third-party components as needed. The challenge for all stadium- and team-app builders, as well as for venue owners and teams, is to get fans to download and use the apps, so that teams can take advantage of the opportunities afforded by digitally connected customers.

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

While there is plenty of promise and perceived opportunity in team and stadium apps, the current reality sees fans at stadiums using public social-media apps like Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram, or other tools like email and search, far more often than team- or stadium-specific apps. However, by driving fans to use apps for digital ticketing and other necessary service transactions, team and stadium apps are likely to be more used over time, following the adoption curves for other businesses like coffee shops and airline tickets.

Though still small, Built.io has been around for a bit, as it was founded in 2007. The company has previous experience connecting larger enterprise businesses, experience founder Neha Sampat told us will work well as stadiums and teams become more connected in all their businesses.

“What the Kings are trying to do is a large-scale enterprise use case,” said Sampat in an interview last year. “There are a lot of big-data analytics and so much personalization that is dependent on data.”

Sampat said Built.io’s model of a “back end as a service” and its ability to quickly connect other programs’ APIs should be a good fit for the Kings, as well as for other teams looking to blend more services and functions into team and stadium apps.

A building for the future: Tech shines through at Sacramento’s new Golden 1 Center

Golden 1 Center, the new home of the Sacramento Kings. Credit: Sacramento Kings

If you’re building for the future, it’s best to start with a building for the future.

That’s what has happened in downtown Sacramento, where the Sacramento Kings have built a technology-laden future-proof arena, a venue designed not just to host basketball games but to be the centerpiece of a metro revival for years to come.

Now open for business, the Golden 1 Center is a living blueprint for the arena of the future, especially from a technology perspective. And while some technology inside the venue is impossible to ignore — starting with the massive 4K scoreboard that overhangs the court — there’s also a wealth of less-apparent technology woven throughout the building’s core and pervasive in its operating functions.

Led by Kings majority owner and former software company founder Vivek Ranadive, the technology-focused direction of the new arena is a blend of the latest thinking in venue experiences and operations. Among the many got-to-have staples: High-quality wireless connectivity and multiple mobile device-based services, including food ordering and delivery, map-based parking, wayfinding help, and digital ticketing. While its already-available options easily place Golden 1 Center among the top tier of connected stadiums today, what may be more impressive is the internal planning for future technologies and services, a sign that its owners and operators clearly understand the ever-changing nature of digital systems.

The purple lights are on in the Golden 1 Center data room. Credit all following photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any photo for a larger image)

While the arena is open today, it’s still somewhat of a diamond in the rough, as planned surrounding structures, including adjacent hotel and retail outlets, are still in the concrete-and-cranes phase, with “coming soon” signs on the area’s many construction fences. As they wait for their team to show signs of on-court improvement, Sacramento citizens must also be patient for the full plan of the downtown arena to emerge, along with its promise to revive an area once stuck in the past.

The good news? With Golden 1 Center Sacramento fans already have a winner, in a venue that will provide fans with some of the best digital-based services and amenities found anywhere, for now and for the foreseeable future. What follows are our first impressions from an early December 2016 visit to a Kings home game, hosted by representatives of the Kings’ technical staff along with representatives from Wi-Fi gear provider Ruckus and cellular DAS deployment firm DAS Group Professionals.

Showing off the data center

Editor’s note: This profile is from our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT, the ONLY in-depth publication created specifically for the stadium technology professional and the stadium technology marketplace. Read about new networks at the Indiana Pacers’ Bankers Life Fieldhouse and the new Wi-Fi network used for the Super Bowl in our report, which is available now for FREE DOWNLOAD from our site!

Data center guards. Small, but well armed.

If you had any doubts about how proud the Kings are of their stadium technology, those are erased the moment you enter the stadium via the VIP doorway; after the metal detectors but before you hit the new-wave ticket scanners, you see a set of floor-to-ceiling glass walls and doors to your left, showing off the impressive racks of the venue’s main data equipment room.

How can gear racks be impressive? How about if they are impeccably encased in their own white metal and glass enclosures, a technique that allows the Kings to refrigerate each rack separately, leaving the rest of the room at a temperature more suitable to human bodies. You don’t have to be a network equipment operator to recognize an over-the-top attention to detail here; even the exposed fiber cabling that stretches out up and across the ceiling is color-coded in the Kings’ main team purple; another level of coolness appears when the main lights in the room are turned off, and more LEDs come on to bathe the room in a completely purple hue.

This room is also where you see the first hints of how the team is preparing for the future, with two 100 Gbps incoming bandwidth pipes (from Comcast), as well as two full rows of racks left empty, waiting for whatever innovation needs arise next. While the backbone bandwidth will eventually also support the nearby hotel and retail locations, twin 100-Gbps connections should provide adequate throughput for now and the foreseeable future.

Walk a few steps past the mini-sized Imperial Stormtroopers who guard the facility and you are in a hallway that separates a “mission control” room with monitors for a huge number of operational services, and the video control room. The innovation here starts simply with the side-by-side proximity of network, operations and video administration rooms, a rarity especially in older stadiums where coordination between people working in such rooms often meant walkie-talkies and lots of running around.

Multiple live video inputs in the “control room” at G1C.

While the video control room and its need to supply coordinated content to more than 800 monitors in the building (as well as to the app) is impressive, what’s really interesting is the “mission control” room, where Kings employees, network types and public safety personnel can track multiple inputs on a wall of monitors. In addition to security and public service video monitoring (Kings reps talk about seeing fans spill a drink and hustling to deploy clean-up services before anyone can ask for them), there are also displays for real-time social media mentions and live traffic information, which the Kings can monitor and respond to as needed.

Another “unseen” technology innovation is an operational app that provides real-time access to a huge list of game-day business statistics, like live ticket-scan numbers and real-time updates to concession purchases. This app is also available to Kings execs on their mobile devices, and it’s addicting to watch the numbers update in real time, especially the fast-moving alcoholic beverage purchase totals; according to the Kings, during a Jimmy Buffett concert at the arena, adult-beverage purchases were pushing the $1,000-per-minute mark.

When it comes to the fan experience, such “hidden” technologies may be the services that provide the best examples for how high-quality networks can bring real ROI to stadiums and large public venues. Fans may never know the guts of the system, but when a stand doesn’t run out of hot dogs or a clean-up squad arrives quickly to mop up a spilled beer, it’s a good bet that customer satisfaction will keep increasing. With massively connected systems and attached real-time analytics, such services become easier to deploy and manage; at Golden 1 Center, it’s easy to see how multiple stakeholders in the venue benefit from the decision to make networked technology a primary core of the building’s operations.

The huge scoreboard dominates the view at Golden 1 Center.

A scoreboard that stretches from hoop to hoop

Taking an elevator up to the main concourse floor, the initial impression of Golden 1 Center is its openness — it is built so that the main or ground level entrance is at the top of the bottom bowl of seats, with court level below. Open all the way around, the ability to see across the venue gives it an airy feeling, more like a bigger enclosed football stadium than a basketball arena. On the night we toured the venue its unique glass entryway windows were closed, but they can be opened to let in the breeze during milder days — adding another degree of difficulty for wireless network administration, since LTE signals can both enter and leave the building when the windows are open.

The next thing to catch your eye is the main scoreboard, which the Kings bill as the biggest 4K screen for a permanent indoor arena, with 35 million pixels. If it were lowered during a game, the Kings folks claim the screen would touch both baskets, so without any other numbers you get the idea: This thing is huge.

New entry kiosks from SkiData move more fans inside more quickly, the Kings claim.

It’s also incredibly clear, thanks in part to the 4K resolution but also in part to the fact that it is tilted at just the correct angles so that it’s easy to glance up from live action for a look at either the main screens or the bordering screens on both sides. Just citing clarity or size for scoreboards, I think, is missing a critical factor for video boards — what really matters is whether or not the screen is a positive or negative factor for during-game viewing, a subjective measurement that may take time to sink in. First impressions, however, during the live action between the Kings and Knicks during our visit, were incredibly positive, with the screen not interfering with live action views but incredibly clear for replays and live statistics.

The next part of our tour was to see if we could spot any of the 931 Ruckus Wi-Fi APs that are installed inside the venue. With the clear emphasis on clean aesthetics it was hard to spot any of the wall- or ceiling-mounted units, but we were able to locate several of the many under-seat AP enclosures, including some on retractable seats. According to the Ruckus folks on hand the retractable-seat APs took a little extra engineering, to allow the devices to be disconnected during seat movements.

The JMA Wireless DAS equipment was a little easier to spot, since like at Levi’s Stadium there are a number of antenna placements around the main concourse, pointing down into the lower bowl seating. The DAS Group Professional representatives on hand also pointed out more antennas up in the rafters, as well as some specially designed “antenna rocks” that hide cellular equipment outside the stadium in the open-air plaza. According to DGP and the Kings there are 136 DAS remote placements housing 213 antennas; right now only AT&T and Verizon Wireless are active on the DAS, with T-Mobile scheduled to join before the end of the NBA season. Negotiations with Sprint are still under discussion.

Blazing Wi-Fi in the basement of the building… and the rafters

When we dropped back down to the court-level to see the locker room entrances and one of the premium-seat club areas, we took our first Wi-Fi speed test at Golden 1 Center, and almost couldn’t believe the result: We got 132 Mbps for the download speed and 98 Mbps for upload. Greeted a few minutes later by owner Ranadive himself, we congratulated him on getting what he wanted in terms of connectivity, a theme he relentlessly promoted during the arena’s construction phases.

That’s good Wi-Fi. Taken in the Lexus Club on court level at Golden 1 Center.

The Wi-Fi connectivity was superb throughout the venue, with readings of 51.35/22.21 on press row (located at the top of the main lower bowl, just in front of the main concourse) and 42.14/38.83 in the crowded Sierra Nevada brewpub club at the top level of the arena. In section 220 in the upper deck we got Wi-Fi readings of 53.39 Mbps for download and 36.27 for upload. Throughout the stadium the Verizon LTE signal was in low teens to 20 Mbps range on the download side and usually between 20-30 Mbps on the upload side.

One of the decisions the Kings made on the Wi-Fi side was to drop 2.4 GHz coverage for fan devices in the main bowl area. According to both Ruckus and the Kings, fan devices now are almost 90 percent 5 GHz capable, meaning that it makes administrative sense to take 2.4 GHz out of the main fan Wi-Fi equation (while still keeping it for back-of-house operations like POS and wireless wristbands and cameras, which all still use 2.4 GHz technology). Other teams in the NBA, including the Indiana Pacers (who also recently installed a Ruckus Wi-Fi network) have also said that they are getting rid of 2.4 GHz coverage for fans since most devices used today have 5 GHz connectivity.

While we didn’t have time during this visit to explore all the numerous services available through the team’s app — including a game that lets fans bet loyalty points on predictions about which players will score the most points — it was clear that many fans were taking advantage of the connectivity, especially in the brewpub area where handy lean-up railings with small shelves made it easier to operate a mobile device while still being somewhat engaged with the court action below.

Team execs can get live feeds of fan-related stats on their internal app.

According to the Kings, during the first regular-season home game on Oct. 27, 2016, there were 8,307 unique users of the Wi-Fi network, out of 17,608 fans in attendance. The connected fans used a total of 1.4 terabytes of data on the Wi-Fi network that night, with a top peak concurrent connection number of 7,761 users. The highest sustained traffic to the Internet that night was a mark of 1.01 Gbps for a 15-minute period between 7:45 to 8:00 p.m., according to the Kings.

Another technology twist we saw in the brewpub was the use of Appetize’s flip-screen POS terminals, which allows for faster order taking simply by letting fans sign on screens with their fingers. Back at the front gates, the new ticket-scanning kiosks from SkiData may take some time for fans to get used to, but even obvious first-timers seemed to quickly understand the kiosk’s operation without much help needed, thanks to the helpful instructions on the wide screen that greets fans as they encounter the device. According to the Kings, tests of the new kiosks at other venues have shown that they can be as much as three times faster than previous technologies, good news to anyone who’s ever had to wait in line just to have their ticket checked.

A building for the future, whenever it comes

While we here at MSR clearly focus on venue technology, it was clear even during our brief stay at Golden 1 Center that while Sacramento fans may be immediately enjoying the amenities, they are still first and foremost concerned about the product on the court. In the upper deck two men spent several minutes questioning why Kings star DeMarcus “Boogie” Cousins (who has since been traded to the New Orleans Pelicans) didn’t seem to get the kind of refereeing treatment alloted to other NBA leaders; on an escalator another fan interrupted one of my speedtests by loudly requesting a fan-to-fan fistbump while he simply said, “Kings basketball, right baby?”

A view outside the stadium’s main entrance, with one of the two large vertical video boards visible.

Even in the face of mulitple years without playoff teams, Sacramento fans still turn out for the Kings; the point here in regards to technology is that it may take time for fans to notice and embrace the finer points of all the technological attributes of their new arena, which should become more than just an NBA venue as more concerts and civic events are held in and around its environs.

Our quick take is that fans may turn faster to services like the traffic, parking and seat-wayfinding features in the app, simply due to the newness of the building to everyone, as well as its tightly sandwiched downtown location. Like in other new arenas, the jury is still out on other app-based services like the loyalty-points voting game, and in-seat concessions ordering and delivery; the Kings declined to provide any statistics for in-seat ordering and delivery, a service which became available to the entire stadium on the night of our visit. The Kings, like many other teams, also offer instant replays via the app, but with the numerous high-quality big-screen displays (including two arena-sized screens outside the main entryway) it will be interesting to see if fans ever see an overwhelming need to check their devices for live action while attending a game.

The good news for the Kings is that they based their stadium and team app on a new flexible platform from a company called Built.io, which the Kings say allows for easier addition (or deletion) of services through an API layer. Like the future-proof parts of the building itself, the app also shows the Kings’ dedication to building something now that will almost certainly change going forward. As we look to the future it will be interesting to see which parts of the technology base contribute most to the fan experience and business operations at Golden 1 Center — and to see how many other existing or new arenas follow the lead.

More photos from our visit below!

Under seat Wi-Fi AP on a moveable section of stands.

The view from upper-deck seats.

A Wi-Fi speed test from those same seats.

One of the “rocks” hiding DAS antennas on the outside walkway.

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