Norman Rice, Chief Marketing, Development and Product Operations Officer of Extreme Networks, talks about the WiFi usage in the US-stadiums and the difference to the European market.
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| Norman Rice |
Stadionwelt: Which NFL teams is Extreme Networks currently working with and what are the company’s main responsibilities?
Rice: We are working with 27 NFL teams in a variety of compacities. We collect and analyze the network traffic and behavior, and we provide the information and results to the individual teams and the National Football League itself, so they get a perspective across the board. 15 of the teams use our technology for the fans, for the point of sale, for security or for team communication.
Stadionwelt: How much data are being transferred via stadium WiFi throughout an average NFL game?
Rice: Just a couple of years ago the average was below a terabyte – and now we have an average of 4.1 to 4.3 TB per game. The highest data in a game through the regular season was 7 TB, but in big events like the Super Bowl we have seen up to 12 TB. So it depends on the event. 15 to 50% of the fans in the stadiums use the WiFi – in some cases 60%. The increase of data usage is much higher than the increase of the fans using the WiFi.
Stadionwelt: What is special about big events like the Super Bowl?
Rice: During the last Super Bowl 12 TB of data was transferred. In a Super Bowl, there are a lot of more activities than in a regular season game. Reasons for that are the higher number of media partners, the increase of security and the increase of the timeline. Super Bowls are longer than normal games because of the pre-game activities, the in-game breaks and the halftime.
Stadionwelt: Which purposes are fans using the WiFi for?
Rice: They use it for a lot of stuff. Social media is certainly one of the top activities. Increasingly the fans are checking scores of other sports events or they are gambling. I give an example: when there is a playoff game in Baseball, people are watching another game of the world series on their phone or get scores on their phone while seeing a game in the stadium. An interesting phenomenon is that in the United States, college sports has higher attendance and higher participation of the fans than professional sports. We have a number of colleges who use our technology. The NFL stadium in New England has a capacity of 68,000 people and the University of Michigan has a capacity of 110,000 people – and they are sold out. The people and their activities in college games are faster and the consumption of data is much higher than in a professional environment. That’s because the fans are younger and technical astute. In a NFL game the average age of the fans is 47 years, in a Baseball-game the average age is 52 years and at a college game the average is 30 years. Also there are much different numbers of WiFi usage between a Taylor Swift concert and a sports event the following day. That’s purely a result of who is in the audience.
Stadionwelt: What’s special about the European market and what’s the main difference between European and American internet usage?
Rice: What’s special about the European market is the European audience. The openness to betting is one fact. Betting is regulated differently in Europe than it is in the US. An European football-team will say that they do not expect a lot of WiFi usage of their fans because they think that their fans are more in touch of the game. What you see is the exact opposite. People want to be connected and want to share their experiences. I think the European users are becoming more adept using WiFi and we will see a higher adoption rate.
I am sure that there will be more WiFi in the European stadiums in the future. The stadiums and the clubs must understand that this will keep fans in their stadium. We have witnessed the same in the US. Costumers took a while to adopt it. The American Football team Green Bay Packers have a very strong fan base, but they are saying that they do not need WiFi because the fans are watching the game. When they finally decided to adopt the technology, the club with the highest data rate were the Packers. It is a great story. That’s what European football fans should think about when they say that their fans do not need WiFi.
Stadionwelt: What’s the main difference between the internet usage of soccer and football fans?
Rice: There is no really difference of the groups. They are doing different things, but the amount of usage is not different. The distinction is that the fans of American Football use the WiFi at a different point of time. For example football has certain timeouts and longer half-times.
Stadionwelt: What do you do with the data?
Rice: We are working with the local team to optimize the usage of the WiFi. We are also looking which marketing strategy can be useful when we analyze the data and the apps the fans are using. For example, we analyze where you can place sponsorship advertising. The NFL itself engages sponsorship activities that relate to the behavior. For example, the league made a sponsorship with Twitter because the fans were using the app for a lot of things.
Stadionwelt: Which new technologies will be coming in the future?
Rice: We are working on new security technologies in the mobile ticketing, communication, payment and customer section. Also there will be new 3D technologies for the fans to watch in-match videos and statistics on a virtual glass, which can be useful for investments and betting. The fan experience in the stadiums must develop because the technology of the broadcast television is very strong.
Stadionwelt: How difficult is it for stadium owners and operators to install WiFi systems in their stadium and how long does the installation last?
Rice: We recommend a time span of four to six months for the WiFi installation in a stadium. This includes the entire installation that goes from the design, then you get the equipment, and then there is a lot of structure work in the stadium to do. After that the installation and the testing has to be done. The technology is first tested without an event. After the first two events the data is analyzed and we are trying to optimize the technology to create the optimal experience.
We already did an installation in 60 days but the whole process takes time, so we recommend the venue-owners to start with the project four to six month before the first event.
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