Super Bowl tech: Experts tackle the connected stadium | #SB50
What’s it take to run stadium Wi-Fi for nearly 80,000 fans, keep them fed and highly entertained? We hear from the tech experts who know a thing or two about scaling IT for today’s modern, connected stadiums like Levi’s in Santa Clara, CA, host of this year’s Super Bowl event.
Built in 2014, with a seating capacity at 68,500 to 75,000, the stadium is hyped as the highest-tech sports venue in the country and promises to produce a personalized fan experience for all.
It takes a great deal of technological innovation to provide the experience and scale to the demands of a population that wants more bandwidth in order to be part of the in-person game experience.
Serving up the big game
Part of the tech team putting the technology in place is Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. As the wireless provider at Levi’s stadium, it is the driving force of the technology the stadium employs, and the evolution of wireless now provides a rich fan experience.
Explaining this evolution during an interview with John Furrier and Dave Vellante, cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, Dominic Orr, president of Aruba described the changes in wireless: “Wi-Fi was like fries with the burger,” he said. “There has been a fundamental shift since the introduction of the iPad, the iPhone and Android devices. The Happy Meal formula shifted, and now Wi-Fi is the burger and Ethernet is the fries to supporting the infrastructure.”
The instant replay
In order to support a stadium’s Wi-Fi infrastructure, the challenges are high density, roaming and supporting multimedia traffic. Orr believes deep-packet inspection will become the prevalent technology in the wireless world in managing wireless traffic.
According to Orr, it is essential for the access point to be aware of the traffic it is carrying and have the ability to throttle traffic that is not real-time sensitive. When tasked with powering instant replays in less than six seconds, with the requirement of being visible from every seat, managing the network traffic is critical.
Orr said, “The modern-day stadiums are all tuned for live replay from the angle of every seat.”
For the Super Bowl, Orr’s team had to factor in every seat, while assuming there would be standing room attendance. He explained, “It is really significantly overdesigned using a microcell technique. When you have a capacity-filled stadium like that you basically leverage the physics of using the audience body to attenuate the propagation.”
Fan connectivity
Keeping fans connected to mobile devices is a vital component to the fan experience. A key partner for Aruba is VenueNext, who developed the technology platform and context-aware app for Levi’s Stadium.
According to Chris Kozup, vice president of marketing for Aruba, it is necessary to manage and provide a secure and seamless experience for the fans at Levi’s Stadium. And supplying connectivity will be critical this Sunday when fans begin using the Levi’s Stadium app to order food and beverages to be brought to their seat and search for the restrooms with the shortest lines.
Building a faithful team
In an interview with theCUBE, Kozup was asked by host Dave Vellante about the coolest wireless experience he witnessed. “I have to point to the Levi’s Stadium as a venue that has one of the highest uses of their applications deployed,” he said. “I think roughly 30 percent of people attending the game have the app.”
To increase adoption, the app pulls users’ pictures from Facebook and displays them on the mega screens around the stadium.
Kozup said it takes a great deal of integration to pull it all together, and he is amazed at how the application provides deeper insight into guest behavior and provides ultimate control over the entire ecosystem.
On-the-field technology
Keeping fans connected is important, but stadium technology goes beyond the fan experience. The players have now become a part of the Internet of Things (IoT). Zebra Technologies Corp., a provider of real-time location solutions, is providing the NFL with the ability to track each player, on each team, in all 31 venues while generating valuable statistics for the League, teams, coaches and players.
John Furrier and Jeff Frick, cohosts of theCUBE, learned more about this technology at SportsDataSV 2015 during an interview with Michael King, director of sports products for Zebra Technologies. “Placing sensors on the pads of each player to track movement allows the league to see x-y position, accumulated distance, speed (both acceleration and deceleration) and orientation,” King said. He continued by noting that coaches can now gauge a player’s ability for Sunday’s game just by monitoring practices.
An estimated 189 million people are expected to watch Super Bowl 50, and if you are one of them, enjoy the game, the commercials and the technology that will make this event the first of its kind featuring next-gen tech.
VenueNext
The company powering the technology at Levi’s Stadium is VenueNext, Inc. and CEO and founder John Paul. MercuryNews features a profile Q&A with him on how it all came together.
According to CEO Paul, “We take all the systems of a stadium — parking, ticketing, food services and others — and they’re all integrated within the app to let the customer create a great fan experience. The app’s tied into the point-of-sale system so you can have a beer delivered to you anywhere in the stadium. It’s also integrated into the security system, so you can take a photo of an incident and text it to security, or anonymously send them a photo of the drunk guy causing problems next to you and security will come over and take care of it.”
Integrating various systems of a venue (parking, security, food) on a single platform and then giving fans a mobile app to transform the way they experience live events. The platform is running at Levi’s Stadium and other sites and the app has been enhanced for Super Bowl 50.
After a year as the San Francisco 49ers’ vice president for stadium technology, Paul is leading VenueNext as it redefines the way we find, buy tickets to and experience sporting and other events. Its first “context-aware” app lets fans at Levi’s do everything from getting beers delivered to their seats to finding restrooms with short waiting lines. At the same time, VenueNext’s software gathers user data that helps the stadium operator improve services.
photo credit: ecstaticist via photopin cc
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