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New England Patriots, Gillette Stadium, and 802.11Ac Wave 2 Wireless

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New England Patriots, Gillette Stadium, and 802.11Ac Wave 2 Wireless EXTREME NETWORKS EBOOK Tech Tailgate New England Patriots, Gillette Stadium, and 802.11ac Wave 2 Wireless 1. Patriots Initial Investment in Wi-Fi and the Transformation of the Connected Stadium 2. Why Now – Timing of the Wave 2 Wireless Upgrade 3. Wi-Fi Coach Program and Eliciting Feedback From Fans 4. Technical Considerations and Fan Experience Benefits of Investing in Wave 2 Wireless 5. Business Impacts and Support of Digital Initiatives Moving Forward Entering his 22nd season with the team, we sat down with Fred Kirsch, VP of Content with Kraft Sports Productions and the New England Patriots, to discuss fan engagement technologies and mobile connectivity, specifically the team’s decision to upgrade to 802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi throughout Gillette Stadium entering the 2016 NFL season. In 2012, the NFL’s New England Patriots embarked on a journey to deliver in-venue Wi-Fi connectivity to anyone attending a game or an event at Gillette Stadium, their home field in Foxborough, MA. The decision to invest in this technology wasn’t immediately motivated by a desire to increase attendance or leverage the network to establish consistent revenue streams for the club. Instead, the Patriots recognized the cultural shift toward a heightened engagement with digital mediums, and with it the growing expectations of their fan base to stay connected to their mobile devices. Ultimately, the goal was to provide the best possible experience for their fans. The resulting Wi-Fi network was met with an encouraging response, and the Patriots were seen as pioneers for successfully tackling the in-venue connectivity challenge at a time when other clubs were still debating the investment. Fast forward four years and the majority of the NFL stadiums have some form of a Wi-Fi network, with a significant number offering fan-facing Wi-Fi throughout their venue. The rest of the big three in North America pro sports (NBA/NHL/MLB) are following suit, and college athletics is sure to be the next big market in the US and Canada - if it isn’t already. At the time of the original investment, the decision wasn’t immediately motivated by a desire to increase attendance or leverage the network to establish consistent revenue streams. The goal was to provide the best possible experience for their fans. It certainly looks as though the past four years have validated the Patriots’ original investment, but characteristic of all technology, Wi-Fi has evolved significantly along with the way in which organizations leverage Wi-Fi solutions. In addition to delivering robust connectivity in-venue, teams are now tapping Wi-Fi analytics to better understand the engagement patterns of their fan base, delivering value-added mobile services and unique content offerings, as well as leveraging the technology to improve game day operations, and advance strategic digital marketing initiatives. In addition, monetization strategies to leverage the network as an asset are being established, delivering consistent revenue streams back to the business. With the steadfast goal of optimizing fans’ experience at their venue, while staying at the forefront of in-venue technologies, the Patriots are entering the next phase of their Wi-Fi journey by upgrading Gillette Stadium with Wave 2 802.11ac Wi-Fi. To better understand why the Patriots are upgrading now and what the perceived impacts will be, we sat down with Fred Kirsch, VP of Content at Kraft Sports Productions and the New England Patriots. Fred was a stakeholder when the team first invested in Wi-Fi several years ago; he witnessed first-hand how Wi-Fi impacted the game day experience, and articulated what the plans are for Wave 2 moving forward. Share New England Patriots, Gillette Stadium, and 802.11ac Wave 2 Wireless – 1 1. Patriots Initial Investment in Wi-Fi and the Transformation of the Connected Stadium The Patriots first began discussing the idea of delivering Wi-Fi in-venue due to a preemptive interest in the role emerging technologies would play in sports. Jonathan Kraft, President of The Kraft Group and the New England Patriots, headed the NFL’s Digital Media Committee at the time of the team’s original investment and recognized the prominent role technology would play in the League (and in the sports industry) moving forward. Kraft’s proactive involvement and understanding of this space extended across the team’s management. The growing expectations of a more mobile-enabled fan base were acknowledged, leading the Patriots to believe in the value of providing Wi-Fi connectivity to their fans upon entering into Gillette Stadium. The upfront goal was to improve overall mobile functionality through a robust Wi-Fi solution. The Patriots envisioned Wi-Fi as a platform to develop and expand moving forward. While the current network is slightly older than some of the League’s newest installs, unique Wi-Fi usage among fans on game day averaged about 25% adoption in the ’15 season – a number which has steadily grown since the network’s first deployment. The Patriots now collect Wi-Fi analytics from fan engagements, and provide mobile services to venue goers. The team has also built out an app specifically targeting in-venue fans called Patriots Gameday Live, offering rich content and unique promotions for fan consumption. On the business side, the team increasingly relies on the network to support the critical operational functions Wave 2 in necessary for event management. Public Venues “When it comes to the experience economy, the Patriots are right in the middle of it; from the moment a fan decides to plan a trip to Wireless traffic growth in —Fred Kirsch many hospitality, sports, and Gillette Stadium, the experience begins.” entertainment venues – with their high-density of users and devices In what began nearly a decade ago, Gillette Stadium and its surrounding campus has also transformed and the ever-present requirement into a more comprehensive experience for fans, a venue model that’s grown across professional for instant communications – is and collegiate sports. While the product on the field remains the focal point, fans are now able to motivating demand for the benefits build an experience around the game by accessing an array of restaurants, bars, retail shops, hotels, of Wave 2 of 802.11ac. Indeed, we movie theaters and team-centric options like The Hall at Patriot Place and Patriots Pro Shop – all in a often define both the challenges and centralized campus known as Patriot Place. This approach has taken off in the sports community as the solutions to core wireless LAN fans are hungry for an experience that permeates behind the physical confines of the stadium and the capacity demands in terms of density. product on the field; the Patriots want to position Gillette Stadium and Patriot Place as such. Plans also This term can actually be used in this include delivering Wi-Fi connectivity in select parking lots and tailgating areas, emphasizing the goal to context to describe both demand bring an encompassing and connected experience to fans. (more clients, with ever-greater traffic demands, in a given location within an area covered by Wi-Fi) and also supply (decreasing the distance between access points and providing improved wireless efficiency so as to provide more raw bandwidth to all those users). Demand, after all only grows over time – consider the emerging impact of the Internet of Things (IoT) with many new customer devices that will play a major role in security, location-based services, and other applications over the next few years. Share New England Patriots, Gillette Stadium, and 802.11ac Wave 2 Wireless – 2 2. Why Now – Timing of the Wave 2 Wireless Upgrade The timing behind the Wave 2 upgrade is multi-faceted. The team has witnessed a significant increase in devices, the number of critical business functions, and the number of third party organizations requiring reliable and secure Wi-Fi access in and around the stadium. On the fan facing side, by measuring engagement patterns year over year the Patriots noticed an incremental growth of network usage and adoption. They also noticed a change in how Wi-Fi bandwidth was being generated: with rising awareness and usage, uploaded fan traffic to the internet equaled downloaded fan traffic from it. Whether you are in the sports industry or not, for those in the IT space the increased user reliance of mobile devices and their applications (and Wi-Fi to support them) is a known trend. However, this doesn’t change the Patriots’ goal of best servicing their fans with a phenomenal game day experience; this means Wi-Fi delivery to the client must align with the habits of their fan base, including the best access to social media, personal applications, streaming video, unique team content (the Gameday app) and promotional team offerings and services. For the Patriots, investing in upgraded Wi-Fi equipment – in this case Wave 2 Wi-Fi - was a primary catalyst to achieve this goal, but what was the technical rationale behind the upgrade? “In-stadium, high-density Wi-Fi connectivity that provides any guest unrestricted mobile access with a rich content experience was always the next frontier for the NFL, and something we had researched for years.” —Fred Kirsch It was critical to ensure the network investment would experience an expanded lifespan of four to five seasons; this is compared to the previous generation of Wi-Fi technology, which typically averages a three season lifespan before upgrades are recommended. The Patriots’ forthcoming network will be primarily designed to leverage 5GHz as most Wi-Fi clients today support that operating band. Typically 50-60% of Wi-Fi clients in sports venues today support the 802.11ac protocol, so the time to upgrade is a sensible one: match the capability of the clients moving forward with the capability of the AP radios.
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