Super Bowl – Page 16

New Report: Super Bowl 50’s super wireless, under-seat Wi-Fi feature and more!

March 2, 2016 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

The record-setting wireless network consumption at Super Bowl 50 is one of the lead topics in our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT, our long-form publication that takes an in-depth look at the most important news of the stadium technology world, alongside some great in-depth profiles of successful stadium technology deployments. Download your free copy today!

With fans consuming 26 terabytes of wireless data — 15.9 TB on the stadium’s distributed antenna system (DAS) and another 10.1 on the Wi-Fi network — the Super Bowl provided the ultimate test for the Levi’s Stadium wireless infrastructure, one that the venue passed with flying colors. One unique factor of the stadium’s wireless deployment, under-seat antennas for both the DAS and the Wi-Fi networks, is covered in-depth in our most recent issue, with a feature story about how under-seat deployments got started, and why they may become the default antenna placement for large public venues going forward.

Also in the issue: A profile of Wi-Fi and associated mobile device strategies at the University of Wisconsin, including geo-fencing for fan marketing at away games; a close-up look at the wireless infrastructure at the Denver Broncos’ Sports Authority Field at Mile High; a profile of the new Wi-Fi network at the Montreal Canadiens’ Bell Centre; and a look at some new social-media strategies deployed by the Miami Dolphins. All this information is available now for FREE DOWNLOAD so get your copy today!

We’d like to thank our Stadium Tech Report sponsors, who make this great content free for readers thanks to their support. For our Q1 issue our sponsors include Mobilitie, Crown Castle, CommScope, Samsung, Corning, JMA Wireless, Aruba, SOLiD, Xirrus and 5 Bars.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, About MSR, DAS, Denver Broncos, Denver Broncos, Levi's Stadium, MSR Guides, NFL, Super Bowl, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, Super Bowl 50, under seat Wi-Fi, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

Super Bowl 50 app use sets Levi’s Stadium records, led by video watching and drink orders

February 17, 2016 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Screenshot of home page of Super Bowl 50 stadium app. (Click on any photo for a larger image)

As part of the Wi-Fi and cellular usage records set at Super Bowl 50, fans at Levi’s Stadium also set new records for usage of the main stadium app features, including overall app adoption, viewing of action replays and Super Bowl commercials, and food and drink ordering.

According to the San Francisco 49ers networking staff, 46 percent of the 71,088 fans at the game downloaded the Super Bowl 50 stadium app, an NFL-specific app built by VenueNext, designers of the regular Levi’s Stadium app. That total is 16 percentage points higher than any recorded at a San Francisco 49ers regular-season game, according to the Niners.

One of the more unique features of the Super Bowl app was the ability for fans to use the app to order food and drinks, either for express window pickup, or for drinks only, the option for in-seat delivery. According to the Niners there were 3,284 food and beverage orders, 67 percent higher than the previous top order number ever recorded at a Levi’s Stadium game.

The Niners did not provide separate statistics for how many orders were for express pickup and how many were for in-seat delivery out of the larger total. Unlike the regular-season Levi’s Stadium app, which supports food and beverage delivery service to every seat, the Super Bowl app only offered drink delivery, per the wishes of the NFL.

Drink delivery order page on Super Bowl stadium app, including the $13 Bud Light.

According to VenueNext and the team, the average in-seat delivery time for drinks was 10 minutes. The top drink item ordered was Bud Light beer, while the top food item ordered via the app was chicken tenders, VenueNext said.

The Super Bowl 50 crowd also set Levi’s Stadium app records for video viewing, a stat helped perhaps by the availability of Super Bowl broadcast commercials, which fans at the game could watch via the app after they aired on TV. A full 55 percent of all app users either watched a video replay or Super Bowl commercials, the Niners said, 36 percent higher than the previous Levi’s Stadium record for video app views.

The app’s unique wayfinding feature, which uses the 2,000 beacons inside Levi’s Stadium to provide interactive maps, was used by 33 percent of the app users, according to the Niners. Fans could also use the app to purchase Super Bowl merchandise (which could be picked up at a concession stand or delivered to a suite), and according to the Niners all the mobile inventory was sold out before the game actually started, with an average order price of $212. Previously, the high-water average mark for app-ordered merchandise was $77 at a concert.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, DAS, Denver Broncos, Denver Broncos, Levi's Stadium, NFL, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, Bud Light, Carolina Panthers, DAS, Denver Broncos, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, VenueNext, Wi-Fi

Levi’s Stadium crowd sets single-day Wi-Fi record with 10.1 TB used at Super Bowl 50

February 9, 2016 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Broncos fans celebrate during Super Bowl 50 at Levi’s Stadium. Photo: LevisStadium.com

The 71,088 fans at Levi’s Stadium for Super Bowl 50 helped set a single-day record for Wi-Fi usage, with 10.1 terabytes of traffic on the stadium network, according to the NFL and the San Francisco 49ers network staff.

According to figures provided to us by Roger Hacker, senior manager for corporate communications for the Niners, the Super Bowl 50 crowd broke last year’s previous Wi-Fi record of 6.23 TB by halftime, and ended up with the 10.1 total after recording traffic from 6 a.m. local time until 11 p.m. Of that total, 9.3 TB was used by fans on the free Super Bowl network and another 453 GB was used by media at the game. The remainder of 370 GB was used on dedicated internal operations networks, Hacker said.

When the Wi-Fi number is added to the 15.9 TB of cellular data used at the game, the total of 26.0 TB of wireless traffic is fairly stunning, and perhaps a wake-up call to current network operators at large public venues or those designing new ones, signifying that the usage pattern for mobile data at big events is still growing rapidly, with no top yet in sight.

Levi’s Stadium also set other Super Bowl connectivity records, the first by recording 27,316 unique Wi-Fi users and 20,300 concurrent users (set at 5:55pm PT), topping the previous Super Bowl records from last year of 25,936 uniques and 17,322 concurrent users, respectively. The previous max for concurrent Wi-Fi users at Levi’s Stadium was 18,901 for the stadium’s inaugural regular season game vs. the Chicago Bears on Sept. 14, 2014. At that game, the stadium saw 3.3 TB of Wi-Fi use.

Also new records for sustained connectivity and average use

While we’re still waiting for news about usage of the Super Bowl stadium app, there are some more record-setting stats to note: According to the stadium IT figures, the big-bandwidth day also saw a Levi’s Stadium record for peak Wi-Fi bandwidth used at 3.67 Gbps — this number is the total amount of bandwidth going through the network at a single moment in time, in this case at 3:25 p.m. Pacific Time. The previous record was a mark of 3.55 Gbps set during the Coors Light Stadium Series hockey game on Feb. 21, 2015, a night when not everything went well on the stadium-network side.

Sunday at Super Bowl 50 there were no apparent big glitches, with some Twitter complainers noting that stadium network technicians were quick to respond to any mentions of network downtime. Bandwidth provider Comcast has an interesting infographic of game-day data use, and said the peaks in Wi-Fi network activity happened during the following list of Super Bowl moments:

The 10 moments that generated the most data traffic at the stadium included:

The introduction of the 50 Super Bowl MVPs

Lady Gaga singing the National Anthem and the Blue Angels flyover

The opening kickoff

The first coach’s challenge

Von Miller’s forced fumble and the first touchdown of the game by Malik Jackson

The halftime show with Coldplay, Beyonce and Bruno Mars

Von Miller’s second forced fumble and C.J. Anderson’s game-sealing touchdown

Peyton Manning exiting the field and Gary Kubiak’s Gatorade shower

The Lombardi Trophy presentation

Using apps to get back home and to hotels

For those who are interested, here is our updated list of the top five big-venue single-day Wi-Fi records. If anyone has one to add to this list, please let us know!

1) 10.1 TB — Super Bowl 50, Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, Calif., Feb. 7, 2016
2) 6.23 TB — Super Bowl XLIX, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., Feb. 1, 2015
3) 5.7 TB — Alabama vs. Texas A&M, Kyle Field, College Station, Texas, Oct. 17, 2015
4) 4.93 TB — College Football Playoff championship game, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, Jan. 12, 2015
5) 4.9 TB — College Football Playoff championship game, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., Jan. 11, 2016

Congrats to the Niners, the NFL, Aruba, Comcast, and Brocade, as well as DAS Group Professionals, DAS gear supplier JMA Wireless and all the major cellular carriers, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint, who all made exceptional efforts to ensure great connectivity for fans across the board.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, DAS, Levi's Stadium, MSR Guides, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, Super Bowl 50, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

NFL’s CIO sees Levi’s Stadium as leader in connected-stadium future

February 5, 2016 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

NFL CIO Michelle McKenna-Doyle (Twitter profile photo)

Even though Sunday’s Super Bowl 50 has long meant a packed schedule for her, NFL CIO Michelle McKenna-Doyle is happiest this week about what she and her team didn’t have to do — namely, they didn’t need to supervise any technology makeovers to Levi’s Stadium since the well-connected venue was “big game” ready from the moment it opened its doors.

“This is the first Super Bowl since I’ve been here where the league didn’t have to do significant [technology] upgrades,” said McKenna-Doyle in a phone interview. In a way, McKenna-Doyle has seen the future of connected stadiums rise from the ground up, since after joining the league as its chief information officer in 2012 she was able to watch Levi’s Stadium get built, one of the first large venues where connectivity was not an afterthought. With several new NFL stadiums slated to open in the near future, McKenna-Doyle said infrastructures like Levi’s will become the rule, not the exception, as fans and the sport itself increase the need for more connectivity.

“It [connectivity] is as important as electricity and water,” McKenna-Doyle said. “The game is more connected, the fans are more connected. No longer is the idea that you go inside a concrete bowl and are disconnected from the world.”

Super Bowls, stadium apps and staying out of the way

But even as she talks about the future of a game-day experience that relies more heavily on mobile, digital technology, McKenna-Doyle is also trying to make sure that technology works for the benefit of all, and isn’t just there for technology’s own sake. Proof of this thinking is evident in her office’s call to remove the in-seat food delivery feature from the regular Levi’s Stadium app, instead only allowing beverages to be available for the stadium’s unique deliver-to-any-seat service.

“That was our call,” said McKenna-Doyle about the decision to remove food delivery from the app. According to McKenna-Doyle, her staff monitored the service during home games for the San Francisco 49ers and saw that food delivery could at times cause “lots of foot traffic” as runners delivered orders.

“It (food delivery) is a cool option, but we saw it could cause a lot of traffic, with people going up and down stairs and passing food down the rows,” McKenna-Doyle said. “Since the Super Bowl is such a special moment, we didn’t want it [food deliveries] to be a distraction.”

Putting a Super Bowl game-day app together is a bit of art, as the league tries to blend what’s available in the existing venue app with the specific Super Bowl needs. What she likes a lot about the VenueNext-built regular Levi’s Stadium app is its focus on fan services, such as parking, ticketing and wayfinding, in addition to being able to order food ahead of time for “express window” pickup.

And though the Levi’s Stadium and the Super Bowl app will also support instant replay video, McKenna-Doyle thinks more app use may come from fans wanting to find out how to get around. At last year’s big game, McKenna-Doyle said that while half the fans in the stadium logged in through the game-day app, only 20 percent of that number used the app to watch replays. “Mostly, they used the app to check out what was going on,” McKenna-Doyle said. She also expects stadium-app use to be surpassed on Sunday by use of social media apps like Facebook and SnapChat, and by the inevitable Apple iOS and app updates, which happen because many fans have their devices set to run updates whenever they connect to Wi-Fi.

Wi-Fi that’s great becoming the standard

Last year at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., and the year before at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, the league needed to oversee extensive Wi-Fi upgrades so that those venues would be ready for Super Bowl traffic. And even though the league still expects a jump from last year’s total of 6.23 terabytes used on Wi-Fi (a big step up from the 3.2 TB mark a year earlier), McKenna-Doyle is confident the Levi’s Stadium wireless network is ready for the game.

“I was at WrestleMania and that event certainly put the network through its paces,” McKenna-Doyle said of the event that holds the Levi’s Stadium top mark for single-day Wi-Fi use, at 4.5 TB. “I think we will surpass that [total] on Sunday,” she said.

From an overall league perspective, McKenna-Doyle said that with only a few stadiums without Wi-Fi (mainly those with ownership or location issues, like St. Louis and Oakland) she’s “very pleased with the progress” made over the past couple years. With new stadiums in Atlanta and Minnesota seeking to push the connectivity bar higher, and older stadiums getting upgrades, McKenna-Doyle said that league-wide there is full buy-in about the need for fan-facing connectivity.

“We have great support from the owners, and they know that it’s not good enough to have first-generation [networks],” McKenna-Doyle said.

For next year’s Super Bowl LI, it will be back to stadium Wi-Fi upgrades, as Houston’s NRG Stadium finally gets its first Wi-Fi network installed. That job (which won’t start until after this spring’s NCAA Men’s Final Four, which also takes place at NRG Stadium) may make McKenna-Doyle long for Levi’s Stadium, where good infrastructure goes beyond the fan-facing elements of the Wi-Fi, DAS and video boards inside the bowl.

“Levi’s Stadium overall has just so many things that make everything easier,” she said, including unseen elements like power and cabling for on-field and broadcast operations. “Just where the power is, how the cables are all protected. It’s fantastic.”

Filed Under: Apps, DAS, Levi's Stadium, NFL, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, DAS, Levi's Stadium, Michelle McKenna-Doyle, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, Super Bowl 50, Wi-Fi

Arizona Cardinals: Fans used 2.9 TB of Wi-Fi at playoff game vs. Green Bay

February 3, 2016 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Arizona Cardinals and Green Bay Packers during the Jan. 16 playoff game. Photo: Arizona Cardinals

During the exciting 26-20 overtime win over the Green Bay Packers that sent the Arizona Cardinals to the NFC championship game, fans at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., used 2.9 terabytes of Wi-Fi on the stadium network, according to the Cardinals.

Mark Feller, vice president of information technology for the Cardinals, said that during the Jan. 16 game the network also saw 32,330 unique client devices attach to the Wi-Fi network, which Feller said was the highest such total ever and represented a nearly 50 percent take rate since the attendance that day was 65,089. Feller said the Wi-Fi network that day also saw a peak concurrent connected user total of 20,451.

The UoP stadium, which recently hosted the College Football Playoff championship, is still the holder of the single-day Wi-Fi data record, a number of 6.23 TB reached during Super Bowl XLIX last February. All eyes in the Wi-Fi world will be on Levi’s Stadium this Sunday, to see if the record Wi-Fi total number is eclipsed again.

Filed Under: Levi's Stadium, NFL, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: Arizona Cardinals, Green Bay Packers, Levi's Stadium, NFL, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, University of Phoenix Stadium, Wi-Fi

Niners: All (tech) systems go at Levi’s Stadium for Super Bowl 50

January 31, 2016 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Levi’s Stadium, ready for the Super Bowl. All stadium photos: Levi’s Stadium (click on any photo for a larger image)

As far as the technology at Levi’s Stadium is concerned, it’s all systems go for Sunday’s Super Bowl 50, according to San Francisco 49ers chief operating officer Al Guido.

In a phone interview with Mobile Sports Report, Guido said the 2-year-old stadium’s vaunted technology underpinnings — especially the wireless connectivity for fans — is ready to go for the NFL’s biggest yearly event, after a second season spent mainly fine-tuning the different components.

“We couldn’t feel more confident, hosting the game,” said Guido, speaking specifically about the technology infrastructure at Levi’s Stadium. As he stated before the regular season began, the Niners didn’t do anything radical to the stadium’s Wi-Fi network, which uses gear from Aruba, an HP Enterprise company, to bring the main wireless bandwidth to fans.

And while the stadium’s distributed antenna system (DAS) got a complete replacement over the summer, the new capabilities including under-seat DAS antennas for Verizon Wireless should only lead to better reception than the year before. According to Guido, representatives from Aruba as well as from “all the carriers” will be on hand Super Sunday just in case anything needs close attention.

“Everybody’s going to be at a high tech [support] level” on game day, Guido said.

Drink delivery order page on Super Bowl stadium app, including the $13 Bud Light.

No food, but in-seat beverage delivery as part of stadium app

The Super Bowl 50 stadium app, designed for the NFL by the Niners’ in-house app development company VenueNext, will have some but not all of the features Niners fans have available during the regular season. The most obvious omission is the lack of food delivery to all seats, something that makes Levi’s Stadium stand apart from any other large public sporting venue. Instead, the stadium app will only allow fans to order beverages for in-seat delivery, with the option to order food, beverage and merchandise that can be claimed at “express pickup” concession windows.

According to Guido, the decision to only have beverage deliveries at Super Bowl 50 was one reached jointly by the NFL, the Niners and VenueNext, and the catering company for the stadium, Centerplate. Guido said that the potential “amount of education” for all the fans new to the stadium and new to the app led the league, the Niners and the caterers toward a path of greater simplicity, namely just having beverages available for in-seat delivery.

“It was a risk-reward decision about the amount of fan education needed,” Guido said. “There’s so much going on at a Super Bowl and so many people new to the stadium that it didn’t seem worth it to us to risk someone not getting an order delivered because of their error, or our error.” Guido added that with all the extra breaks in action for a Super Bowl, and additional concessions stands, “there’s enough time to get around” to get food.

View of the temporary media towers on the Dignity Health concourse

Michelle McKenna-Doyle, senior vice president and chief information officer for the NFL, told Sports Business Journal that the league was also concerned about game-day delivery traffic patterns being disrupted by the new media towers that have been built for the game in the corner plaza areas of the stadium. “We were worried about having to keep up with demand … and we need to keep the aisles clear, which is important to the security team,” McKenna-Doyle said in a story by SBJ’s Don Muret.

The app will, however, include its normal live wayfinding capabilities, which should prove useful to new visitors to Levi’s Stadium since they can watch themselves walk through a map of the facility as a familiar moving blue dot. Like it does for Niners games, the app will also have instant replays from multiple camera angles available, as well as Super Bowl extras like a “celebrity cam” and the ability to watch Super Bowl commercials right after they are broadcast on TV.

Guido said the Levi’s Stadium app performed well all season, with an average of about “2,000 to 2,500” in-seat delivery orders per game. What was especially pleasing to the team was the number of fans who used the app’s ability to support digital ticketing, a feature that makes life somewhat simpler for fans but exponentially better for the team, which can gain valuable marketing insight from digital ticket-use statistics. According to Guido almost 35 percent of fans used digital ticketing during the past season.

Media towers save seats for fans

Niners fans watching Sunday’s game on TV might be surprised by the media towers, which Guido said were built in the Intel and Dignity Health concourse areas, which during regular-season games are simply open spaces. Guido said the decision to build temporary facilities for media means that the regular stadium seats will be saved for fans. At many other pro championship or playoff events, the overflow media are often housed in regular seating areas.

“The NFL made a great decision there” to put the media in the pavilions, Guido said.

If there is one thing that can’t really be controlled, it’s the traffic and transportation issues of bringing fans to the game. On Sunday fans coming to the game will confront Levi’s Stadium’s unique location in the middle of many Silicon Valley corporate headquarters buildings, which presents challenges that stadiums like AT&T Stadium in Dallas or the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. — which are surrounded by acres of stadium-controlled parking lots — simply don’t have. To help with Super Bowl traffic the planners are using multiple methods, including using Google employee buses as shuttles as well as signing Uber as a sponsor with its own dedicated pickup and dropoff lot. There is also light rail service which stops right outside the stadium, which intially in the past experienced lengthy delays especially after games, but has improved over time.

“Traffic and transportation is our largest concern,” Guido said.

Bring on the players and fans!

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, AT&T, CBS Sports, Comcast, DAS, Denver Broncos, Denver Broncos, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Levi's Stadium, NFL, Super Bowl, VenueNext, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi, Xfinity Tagged With: 4G LTE, Apps, Aruba, AT&T, Carolina Panthers, CBS Sports, DAS, DAS Group Professionals, Denver Broncos, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, Super Bowl 50, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi