Providers exploring the business opportunities of in-stadium WiFi, team apps

When fans of Sporting Kansas City are watching a live game at the team’s 18,467-capacity stadium and miss a kick, play, or goal on the soccer pitch, they can catch up by pulling out their smartphones and choose from which angle they want to see a replay. The Major League Soccer team’s smartphone app, called Uphoria and which can be connected by free, in-stadium WiFi, also allows fans to get directions to and from the stadium, find out where the closest ATM or washroom is, and get news and stats for the team’s matches, among other functions. Sporting Kansas City is one of a growing number of teams that have upgraded the WiFi capabilities of their stadiums and rolled out digital features to enhance the in-person game experience. A welcome development for sports fans—who can see key plays they missed while grabbing a hot dog—it’s also a business opportunity for the companies that provide the technology and make it happen. “Anyone who’s involved in the entire vertically integrated chain of services—from the apps on top, to the network underneath, to the services layer … who can get their brand front and centre and in front of the customer—will potentially benefit from being involved here,” independent technology analyst Carmi Levy said in a phone interview. The fans' interaction with the team begins before the game does, said Asim Pasha, chief executive and managing partner for Sporting Innovations, a company focusing on sports teams that got its start by putting Sporting Kansas City’s mobile platform in place. Over time, the team can get to know their app users—such as whether they buy food at the game—and before the game can offer them a deal on snacks or assign a parking spot, Pasha said. Once the fan arrives and their smartphone is detected, he said, a stadium app can indicate which of their friends are sitting nearby, provide a video stream of the coach’s pre-game pep talk or notifications about, say, an autograph session by their favourite player. With so many thousands of people and smartphones crammed into one area, the service requires a solid WiFi network. “If you don’t have a WiFi network, then this one terabyte of traffic … is going to have to go over their cellular system,” which doesn’t have the capacity to handle so much local traffic, Pasha said. “A very large percentage” of teams in leagues like the NFL and MLB “are heading in the direction of putting connectivity in their venues,” he said, and there's interest in Canada, too. Pasha said Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Ltd.—which, jointly owned by BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc., owns the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Toronto Raptors and Toronto FC—is “moving in this direction,” and set to meet with Sporting Innovations, Pasha said. Rogers, which separately owns the Toronto Blue Jays, has also expressed interest, he said. (Rogers and MLSE did not respond to requests for comment.) “I know there is a lot of momentum across Canada now to provide connectivity in their venues as well, and some of your large communications vendors are looking to do that for them. So Canada is definitely now on the radar in a pretty big way,” Pasha said. “Canada is moving pretty fast.” Levy said no Canadian teams have so far rolled out apps connected “to the live event experience,” but given the trend in the United States, its spread into Canada is inevitable. Larry Schessel, the tech lead for Cisco Systems Inc.’s sports and entertainment group, which builds in-stadium WiFi and is behind the StadiumVision Mobile technology used by Sporting Kansas City, said the demand in Canada is similar to what the company has seen in other markets. “We are certainly in talks with stadiums in Canada,” he said, adding that the connectivity can be adopted by both big and small stadiums. They offer a way for the sports industry to fight back against home theatre technology, which over the past 15 years has made it easier and cheaper to replicate the in-stadium or in-arena experience in your home, Levy said. Moving to in-stadium wireless technology would be a natural evolution for wireless providers and companies like Bell and Rogers, where there are opportunities in what Levy called an “absolute match made in heaven.” The largest opportunity is marketing, with in-stadium technology offering an “incredibly valuable platform from which to sell other wares,” Levy said. “The opportunity here is not to monetize the activity itself but to generate a marketing multiple on top of that activity.” Levy said telecom companies don't need to own a team to provide some kind of sponsorship, equipment, technology or expertise. They could become the official wireless carrier or WiFi provider for a sports team, receiving exposure in home and visiting venues, or provide promotions and giveaways to fans. “More and more, we certainly see that opportunity where stadiums want to partner with service providers to build out infrastructure,” Schessel said. “A big thing within stadiums is basically paying for the promotions—being able to advertise their brand in the stadium and provide quality WiFi—which then gets linked to that service provider’s name.” WiFi is also a strategic investment for service providers because they want their mobile networks to work in the stadium, and WiFi data offloading avoids an overloaded cellular network and the resulting failed text messages or dropped voice calls. Service providers “want to be linked with sports. They want to be linked with the fans. Theoretically, those fans are their customers, and they want to make sure their customers have a good experience,” Schessel said. Schessel said in a follow-up email that the cost of installing stadium WiFi typically runs from $1 million to $2 million US, depending on factors such as the size of the venue, whether it's a new installation or a retrofit, the state of the infrastructure, and the number of wireless access points required for high-quality coverage for all fans. While the investment to establish stadium apps and WiFi technology is significant, the payoffs are big, too, said Levy, since it offers “engagement levels that you’ll probably never find anywhere else. “Even long after they leave the game, they’ll probably still be buzzing about the rich experience that they had because watching the game today is light years ahead of where it once was thanks to your technology,” Levy said. “You can’t buy that kind of branding or marketing messaging. From where I sit, it’s worth every penny.” That means service providers and sports teams have to make sure they do it right the first time. “If you don’t invest sufficiently, and you don’t have enough bandwidth, and if your apps are lousy, and if the in-venue experience is sub-standard, it could potentially damage your brand,” Levy said. “This isn’t something you would want to do remotely half-way.” —With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Simon Doyle at sdoyle@thewirereport.ca

Providers exploring the business opportunities of in-stadium WiFi, team apps

News | 09/06/2013 2:15 pm EDT

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