A Very High-Tech Super Bowl | Tim Bajarin | PCMag.com
s I walked on the field of the Dallas Cowboy Stadium earlier this week, home of this years Super Bowl, I couldn't help but marvel at all of the technology built into this brand new $1+ billion dollar stadium. Most obvious is its famous Mitsubishi HD Screen that spans from 20 yard line to 20 yard line and gives anyone facing it a fabulous view of any replay or the special programming it displays.
Around the stadium there are 3,500 46-inch HD screens, all Internet connected, so that if you are in any of the 100+ skyboxes or walking around the stadium, you don't miss any of the action on the field. Since they are IP connected, depending on where these screens are located, the management can send special messages or even targeted advertising to any one of them at any time, as well.
According to Peter Walsh, the CIO of the Cowboys stadium, this facility was built to not only take advantage of high-tech advances, but to make them available to all who come to the stadium for any event. For example, they have 1,000 Wi-Fi access points that are designed to cover the wireless needs of over 100,000 people doing simultaneous transactions. Their goal is to deliver the ultimate consumer experience, and they believe mobile and wireless technology should be a key part of that experience.
At the upcoming Super Bowl, the Cowboys, along with the NFL, will make two apps available for the iPad and Android platform to deliver stats and other information related to the game. With these apps, you can even vote in real time for the games MVP. They're highly encouraging people to bring their iPads, Galaxy Tabs, and smartphones and use them to enhance the whole sports experience. All of the major wireless networks have special towers inside the stadium to achieve strong wireless signals.
But the real technology marvel at the new Cowboys Stadium is its IT center. It manages all of the Wi-Fi hot spots and can even tweak them in sections where more of a back end push is needed during any given time. For example, Walsh pointed out that at the beginning of the game, a lot of people take pictures or videos of pre-game festivities and send them to friends. At that point, any section where a lot of this is taking place gets more bandwidth for that short period. During half time, when the Black Eyed Peas are performing, thousands may be tweeting and possibly sending live video. Here again, they have the ability to fine tune hotspots to meet the "local needs" of the users at any given time.
This new IT center, which was put together for them by CDW, is the envy of all of the NFL stadium execs and the NFL showcases it as the ideal example of how to create an efficient and all encompassing IT infrastructure for a high-tech stadium. According to Lance Caserottti, a Solutions Architecture executive at CDW, the Cowboys management turned to them for help with the total technology integration to tie all of these technologies together to create a state-of-the-art sports complex.
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