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NHL takes first steps toward possible return to action; baseball players don’t like proposed salary cuts

May 27, 2020 by

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announces the league’s ‘Retun to Play Plan’ in a video.

It’s just the beginning of the beginning, but progress of some kind toward a return to live sports action surfaced this week as the National Hockey League made an initial, official step toward that possibility.

On Tuesday the NHL announced is Return to Play Plan, which is centered around a direct move to the playoffs with 24 teams involved. Though many details of the idea are still to be determined, the plan is to have the first two rounds take place in two “hub cities,” where teams will be housed in a virtual bubble to try to make safety procedures easier. The idea is for players to come back for training in mid-July, but as many outlets noted, whether or not players agree to the idea is just one part of the work yet to be done.

In a short video announcing the plan, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman emphasized that nothing would take place without the approval of “civil and medical authorities.”

MLB, meanwhile, finally sent an economic plan for its idea of a shortened season to the players, and reaction so far is in the negative category, as perhaps expected with the salary cuts the owners have deemed necessary. What that means is more negotiations ahead as players and owners try to find a way to salvage the 2020 season in a way both sides can agree upon.

Filed Under: Baseball, coronavirus, Major League Baseball, NHL Tagged With: , , , ,

Appetize sees more contact-free concessions for venues going forward

May 18, 2020 by

Fans at Empower Field at Mile High Stadium use Appetize-powered kiosks to order and pay for food. Credit: Paul Kapustka, MSR

While the timeline for fans returning to large public venues for sports and events is still uncertain, one thing that does seem inevitable is that the future of stadium concessions will see more ways for fans to get food and beverages without human interactions.

That’s certainly the view from Appetize, one of the top players in the venue point-of-sale technology business. In a recent call with Appetize chief strategy officer Kevin Anderson, he said the last few weeks have been among the busiest in company history, as teams, schools and venues seek ways to make concessions operations more touch-free going forward. Though there are no government mandates yet making such technologies a necessity to open venues, it makes sense that when events come back fans might be feel safer using technology-aided methods like ordering and paying online, or paying with touchless device systems (like Apple Pay), as opposed to traditional human-based counter interactions.

“Most of our customers, including venues and managed-service food companies, are realizing that if their venues are not able to accept [contactless] payments today they will have to — and if they don’t have mobile or online ordering, they will need to do that as well,” Anderson said.

App- or web-based ordering should increase

Appetize, which sells a wide range of software and hardware for stadium and other point-of-sale systems, has also recently added support for web-based ordering in venues, something that other vendors like VenueNext have also rolled out. While stadium and team apps with support for in-venue food ordering (with either delivery or pick-up options) have been around in various forms for several years, the idea of a web-based “app” with similar functionality is a newer and growing idea, one that could gain even more traction whenever venues open again.

An Appetize screenshot of what a mobile payment screen could look like.

What web-based systems have in their favor is that they can be used by fans almost instantly, without having to go through the process of downloading an app.

A web-ordering system, Anderson said, “is very well positioned for a post-Covid world” since it could give venues the flexibility of a walk-up encounter without the human interaction. In one scenario Anderson said fans could use their device’s camera to scan a sign or display with a QR code, which would bring up a menu for the concession stand close to the sign. Fans can then order and pay without having to stand in a line, and get an alert to pick up their order when it is ready.

“Venues are not going to bulldoze concession stands, but they will have to figure out how to space out people in lines and how to incentivize people to pay with contactless systems,” Anderson said. “It’s going to be the future.”

Still bullish on touch-screen kiosks

Anderson also thinks that touch-screen kiosks will still be popular going forward, even if some people feel less safe touching a payment or ordering screen.

“We’re still bullish on kiosks,” said Anderson, who said 90 percent of Appetize’s venue deployments included some kind of touch-screen system. For many of its systems, Anderson said Appetize uses antimicrobial screen protectors, and going forward they foresee having sanitization stations near any touch-screen device.

“If you just use one finger to touch the screen and then you sanitize it after you’re done, that’s still better than being two feet away from someone speaking to you,” Anderson said.

Other less-human-contact ideas for venue concessions include more vending machines and grab-and-go type windows, where prepared, boxed items will help keep fans safer. Appetize is also already working on systems where food and beverages can be placed inside lockers that fans can access with a mobile device.

“I think you’ll see more concession stands flipped inside out, where you can just grab a sandwich in a package with a bar code and go,” Anderson said.

Filed Under: Appetize, Apple, Apps, Concessions, coronavirus, Covid-19 Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Friday links: NASCAR ready to roll, MLS considers Orlando-based tourney

May 15, 2020 by

In bits and pieces, sports across the country is trying to come back, mostly without any fans in attendance. At the very least, fans will at least have something to watch on TV besides a recap of Michael Jordan’s last title run.

NASCAR returns at Darlington, with no fans in attendance: This Sunday one of the bigger sports will return as NASCAR stages a race in Darlington, S.C. This ESPN post has a good breakdown of all the rules in place to keep drivers and staff safe from the coronavirus. What will be interesting will be to see how the announcers do, calling the race remotely. Here is an FAQ about the return to racing from the NASCAR web site.

MLS considering full-league tournament in Orlando: It sounds like a very strange summer vacation, but according to this Washington Post report, Major League Soccer is considering a plan to bring all 26 teams to Walt Disney World in Orlando for a full-league tournament. No official comments yet but it sounds like a fairly ambitious quarantine plan.

Golf gets going with a mini-tour event: With professional golf planning to hold events soon without fans, a mini-tour event in Arizona gave a glimpse of what it might look like to have players compete under safety conditions, which were followed by some but not all in this great report from Golf.com’s Alan Shipnuck from earlier this week. Now all we need is a self-sanitizing bunker rake and pin pole.

What will happen if and when the NFL season starts up? A couple interesting takes on what might happen (or not happen) if and when the NFL starts its season. In Carolina, the owner doesn’t see fans packing the venues at the start. And a good Washington Post piece about the challenges of coping with different situations in different states.

Filed Under: coronavirus, Darlington Raceway, Golf, MLS, NASCAR, NFL Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

California Governor Newsom says no live-audience sports until ‘therapeutics’ are available

April 28, 2020 by

Gavin Newsom, governor of California, tweeted out some information Tuesday on a staged approach California will take toward re-opening the economy following the current coronavirus shutdowns — and it’s not good news for those looking forward to returning to live sports events in the state anytime soon.

In a tweet thread where he said “Our re-opening must be gradual, guided by public health and science,” Newsom outlined four stages of “re-opening,” starting with Stage 1 of “Safety and Preparedness,” which is what the state currently does with stay-at-home measures. In Stage 2 Newsom forsees opening of “lower-risk workplaces,” including retail, manufacturing and some offices. It isn’t until Stage 3 when Newsom foresees opening “higher-risk workplaces,” where his list includes “sports without live audiences.”

Then finally he gets to Stage 4, where the “end of the stay-at-home order” includes live audiences for sports events, but only “once therapeutics have been developed.” According to news reports, Newsom said Phase 3 and Phase 4 are likely “months away.”

According to news reports, the first “Phase 2” openings could be weeks away, Newsom said. It’s not yet apparent whether the Stage 4 phase will require a vaccine, or if “therapeutics” means other kinds of treatments. We will continue to follow this story and provide updates as we get them.

Filed Under: coronavirus Tagged With: , , , , , ,

NFL teams’ IT staffs emerging as key players in virtual draft

April 21, 2020 by

As sports fans we’re used to hearing quotes from general managers like John Elway touting the skills of players on their teams, but when’s the last time you heard a GM go out of his way to praise the IT department?

Elway, like several other NFL GMs who have been publicly appreciative of their IT departments, was quoted calling his team’s IT department “heroes” for their work during the coronavirus shutdowns, as well as in preparation for this week’s virtual NFL draft. Take a bow, Russ Trainor! You and your team, like other IT departments around the NFL and in sports in general, are earning their keep and more during these everyone’s-remote times.

UPDATE: The Niners’ John Lynch likes his IT team, too.

With reports that a test run of the NFL’s draft operation hit a few hiccups early, some teams are likely to follow the Detroit Lions’ lead of having the IT staff close at hand to tackle any emergency communication issues:

Filed Under: NFL, NFL Draft Tagged With: , , , ,

Super Bowl LIV recap: Big jump in per-device usage fuels record Wi-Fi mark

April 21, 2020 by

Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium hosted Super Bowl LIV this year, where the new single-day Wi-Fi record was set. Credit: Brian Nitenson, MSR

The big game is back on top of the unofficial Mobile Sports Report single-day Wi-Fi rankings, with a mark of 26.42 terabytes of data used at Super Bowl LIV in Miami, according to figures reported by Extreme Networks.

What’s most interesting (to us) about the number is that it was generated in a venue that had approximately 8,000 fewer fans in attendance than last year’s Super Bowl (70,081 in Atlanta for Super Bowl 53 vs. 62,417 for Super Bowl 54). It was also the second-lowest Super Bowl attendance figure ever, just above the 61,946 fans who attended Super Bowl 1.

So not surprisingly the fans who connected to the Wi-Fi network at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium also set a new record for average data consumed per connected user, at 595.6 megabytes per user — a big jump from last year’s average data per user total of 492.3 MB. Going forward, we here at MSR think this statistic is even more important than the overall data-used or total tonnage mark, since it more accurately reflects how the network is performing for fans.

“I think the average [data] per user is the metric we’re most proud of,” said John Brams, director of sports and entertainment for Extreme Networks. Extreme, which has a sponsorship deal with the NFL to provide network statistics from every Super Bowl, was also the gear provider for the network at Hard Rock Stadium, the first Super Bowl for Extreme gear since Super Bowl 51 at Houston’s NRG Stadium back in 2017. According to Extreme, the Wi-Fi setup at Hard Rock Stadium uses some 2,000 APs, many of which are deployed in under-seat enclosures in the bowl seating.

The average data used per device, Brams said, is to Extreme the proof of how well each user is served by the network, and is perhaps a more important metric than the simple total of data used.

“If you are asking what is the health of a network, the average [data used] per user is a good metric for that,” Brams said. Brams, like MSR, also believes that the average data used per user is a metric that can be used to compare network performances between different-sized stadiums, like football stadiums and basketball arenas, which might be very far apart in total data used simply because of the capacity differences.

Verizon autoconnect helps out on the Wi-Fi usage

Editor’s note: This profile is from our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT, which is available to read instantly online or as a free PDF download! Inside the issue is a profile of Dickies Arena in Fort Worth and a recap of a DIY Wi-Fi deployment at Rutgers University! Start reading the issue now online or download a free copy!

With a reported 44,358 unique devices connected to the network this year’s Super Bowl also set a new mark for Super Bowl take rate at 71 percent; the top overall take rate mark still belongs to Ohio State, which saw 71.5 percent of its fans connected when Ohio Stadium saw 25.6 TB of Wi-Fi used this past fall during a game against Michigan State. It’s worth noting that the average data per user mark from the Ohio State game was 341.6 MB.

Wi-Fi ‘coaches’ helped fans connect at the big game. Credit: Extreme Networks

Like at Ohio State, at Hard Rock Stadium fans whose devices were on a Verizon cellular subscription could be automatically connected to the Wi-Fi network, a factor that often results in high take rates. Verizon has similar deals with a number of NFL stadiums and some large college venues, including Ohio State, Florida and Brigham Young. Verizon would not reveal what percentage of its customers were included in the overall unique Wi-Fi connection number at Super Bowl LIV.

Peak network usage hits 10 Gbps

Some more info from the great list put together by Extreme: The peak concurrent user number of 24,837 devices was seen during pre-game activities; the peak network throughput of 10.4 Gbps also occurred before the game started, according to Extreme. Of the final data total, 11.1 TB was used before the game started, with the balance of 15.32 TB being used after kickoff.

“We’ve seen the highest data rates right before the game started at the last four Super Bowls,” said Brams. According to Brams, this statistic may be caused by the fact that people at Super Bowls tend to arrive very early for the games, and by the NFL’s attempts to keep things interesting with plenty of pregame entertainment.

The most used streaming apps by fans at Super Bowl LIV were, in order of usage, Apple iTunes, Apple Streaming, YouTube, Spotify and Netflix; the most used social apps in order of usage were Facebook, Instagram, Twit- ter, Snapchat and Bitmoji. For sports apps, the most used in order of usage were ESPN, NFL, NFL OnePass, CBS Sports and ESPN Go.

When reading through the list of apps, MSR wondered out loud who would be watching Netflix at a Super Bowl. But Brams thinks Extreme’s network statistics have an answer.

“It’s amazing how many people bring kids to a big game,” he said. “And those kids may not be that interested in everything going on at the game, so in between they are streaming shows [on Netflix].” Brams said the Netflix-at-games is a trend at NFL games in general, with Netflix consistently showing up in the top 5 of apps used on a stadium network.

A view of the field just before kickoff. Credit: Brian Nitenson, MSR

Filed Under: Apps, Extreme Networks, NFL, Super Bowl, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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