The New England Patriots are among the most successful teams in NFL history. As impressive as their 11 Super Bowl appearances and six championships are, the team is just one piece of a diverse, successful organization — Kraft Group — that also owns the New England Revolution of MLS soccer, forest products, construction, real estate development, and private equity and venture investing companies. The organization also owns and operates Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts home of the Patriots and Revolution and, next year, one of the U.S. venues for the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament.

To support activities throughout Kraft Group, the organization is constantly upgrading and expanding its network and telecommunications systems to accommodate more than 60,000 fans at the stadium and other business needs.

The World Cup will be the ultimate litmus test for the network and technology foundation since it will bring a massive number of people to the venue and will require temporary fan activation zones outside the stadium. Michael Israel, chief information officer of the Kraft Group described hosting the World Cup as having to put on seven Super Bowls in a four-week period. The infrastructure needs to hold up to these demands and provide the necessary levels of security to protect the games, which are watched globally.

To handle that critical work, the Kraft Group this week entered into a five-year strategic partnership with Boston-based NWN, one of the largest technology solution providers in the U.S., to transform the technology framework underpinning the entire Kraft Group business portfolio.

Jim Sullivan, president and chief executive of NWN, said the company is “excited to engineer and deliver an innovative and secure IT framework that scales with the organization and supports their long-term business objectives.” Key projects will include network connectivity upgrades to support new applications, modernized cloud-based collaboration solutions, and AI-enabled applications that improve the stadium experience for fans and players.

“Gillette Stadium is used throughout the year for a variety of events, and it is key for this venue to be as accommodating for our guests as possible,” said Jim Nolan, chief operating officer of Kraft Sports + Entertainment. “Partnering with NWN ensures we have the newest technological capabilities to exceed fan expectations.” He said NWN’s experience and “ability to bring us new technologies” while supporting the current infrastructure, “is key to making our facilities a place where guests can always stay connected.”

New initiatives to enrich the fan experience

Gillette Stadium, like most modern sports venues, is a microcosm of society with technology powering every element of fan experience and back-office operations. Ticketing is mobile and soon to be done using facial recognition, there are “grab and go” food services, mobile payment options and other fan facing technologies that rely on the network, which includes more than 1,800 Extreme Networks Inc. access points on a wired Cisco Systems Inc. network. Because tailgating has become so popular at NFL games, the Wi-Fi needs to be extended to the parking lots, adding another layer of complexity.

The enhanced connectivity and AI-driven solutions will support new initiatives, such as wayfinding applications and the expansion of Gillette Stadium’s internet protocol television or IPTV network. The goal is to enable people attending games, concerts or other events in the stadium’s convention spaces to connect with the Gillette Stadium wayfinding application to find the most direct route to their seat, locate stadium amenities and services, and acquire tickets quickly and easily.

That becomes critically important for the World Cup because many of the visitors are from other countries and have never visited Gillette Stadium before. The IPTV network expansion includes an enhanced digital viewing experience and improved content delivery with interactive features designed to increase fan engagement during live events.

Israel told me the investment in new technologies and connectivity is dedicated to meeting the needs of fans who are “expecting more in their experience here. Years ago, Wi-Fi was a nice-to-have, but now their experience is one in which they’re truly locked into us. They’re engaging more and more from their device itself.”

Left to right: Michael Israel, Jim Nolan and Jim Sullivan

The team offers even more engaging services to fans, from “autonomous purchasing in our food or retail locations to day-of-game activities, it just becomes one in which it’s just becoming more and more a direct relationship with the guests as opposed to a relationship with the masses,” he said.

Though Israel and team have a lot on their plate right now, there is more coming. The organization is currently looking to modernize its contact center to leverage AI to personalize customer experience. After that, World Cup mayhem starts and will consume most of the IT organization’s time. Post-FIFA, the Kraft Group will look at a holistic Wi-Fi upgrade from the existing Wi-Fi 6 network. The team is currently building a new training facility for the players that will offer a modernized experience.

After that, all the firewalls and security will be looked at and likely get and upgrade. If that weren’t enough, the Kraft Group is looking to build a new soccer stadium in Everett, which will be managed remotely from Patriot Place. Israel mentioned it’s critical to work with a partner, like NWN, what will learn their environment and invest with them.

Network-agnostic fan connection

Israel said having a reliable, high-performance Wi-Fi network throughout the stadium from ticket gates to the concession stands and souvenir shops is critical. “All of our gates are on Wi-Fi. 500 point-of-sale terminals are on Wi-Fi. We have a variety of use cases. We’re looking at installing more monitoring-type devices that can tell where our employees are on the grounds, integrating our geographic mapping software into the Wi-Fi and other devices so we can monitor parking, deliveries, and everything happening simultaneously.”

NWN CEO Sullivan said the goal is to partner with the Patriots and Kraft Group to meet the needs of fans at the stadium and the organization’s other business activities. “We’re looking holistically at what Michael is doing over the next five years, and we’re going to work with him to bring best-of-breed solutions by leveraging our experience management platform and service delivery capabilities. Whatever Michael and his team need, we can deliver a holistic solution versus swapping tech out component by component.”

Innovation-led growth at NWN

Sullivan said NWN has grown from a regional solution provider with “a couple of hundred million in sales in 2019” to “more than a billion in sales” last year. As technologies have evolved, including the fast growth of artificial intelligence, NWN has grown and expanded with them.

“We’re thinking about everything from delivering the network and infrastructure services and solutions Michael needs for the next five years, and then things that connect to that infrastructure to enable new fan experiences, new player experiences, such as an IPTV system,” explained Sullivan. On the drawing board are other new applications, such as wayfinding digital tools that help people navigate through the stadium and digital walls with entertainment and information that connect to that infrastructure.

“We’re focusing on delivering the capabilities of a next-generation infrastructure, and we’re going to partner with the Patriots for continued innovations, including agentic AI-powered solutions to do some of these other solutions Michael and his team dream up,” said Sullivan. “One of the things that really attracted us to this partnership was just the alignment of the innovation and the openness to explore, experiment, and drive new ways of creating an incredible experience for everyone.”

A recent survey from ZK Research found that 93% of IT leaders believe the network is more important to business operations than it was just two years ago. In that same time, 80% find managing the network to be more complex.

That creates an interesting juxtaposition as organizations, like Kraft Group, need more technology to move the business forward but complexity creates risk. By partnering with NWN, Israel and team can ensure they are using the latest and greatest best-of-breed technology and, as its services partner, NWN can help minimize the impact of the complexity.

Zeus Kerravala is a principal analyst at ZK Research, a division of Kerravala Consulting. He wrote this article for SiliconANGLE.

Photos: Zeus Kerravala