For college students, getting good seats at their favorite sports teams’ most anticipated game can be a highlight in their student experience. Like any other major events, it is essential to tag the stadium in an Instagram post, live Tweet the game or check in on Facebook. However, it has become a huge frustration for students who cannot connect to the Internet or browse their favorite apps during the game. In fact, fans often leave the stadium at halftime if they have troubles connecting to the Internet. The desire to share their experience at the game with followers, friends and family is so strong that it is one of the major influencers in going to see a sports game live. A Cisco reportdiscovered that one third of college students surveyed said that the Internet is as important as air, water, food and shelter.
“The younger generation of fans, if they’re cut off from Facebook or Twitter or their email or instant messaging or whatever, all that is vitally important to their life. It makes sense that we’re supporting that the best we can so they don’t feel like they’re going into a black hole of connectivity where the Internet doesn’t exist,” said Joe Inzerillo, EVP and CTO for the interactive and digital media subsidiary of the MLB.
The competition major sports stadiums face is the big screen – where viewers can watch the game from the comfort of their own home free. The Cisco survey reported that 57% of viewers prefer to watch the game at home. The leagues are responding to this competition by announcing that its stadiums provide free WiFi access to fans this year. In order to figure out exactly what sports fans are using all that free WiFi for, the NFL partnered with Extreme Networks to look into WiFi analytics and solve problems with connectivity. The analytics provide a lot of information into what fans value as important to browse during the game – and can ultimately assist the stadiums to tailor their mobile apps or WiFi to better suit what their fans need.
The demand for connectivity is also spreading on a worldwide scale – as stadiums around the world are requesting WiFi as advancements in smartphones and tablets are making a giant global impact. Global mobile data increased by 74% in 2015, and by 2018, there will be over 10 billion mobile-connected devices, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index.
