Dallas Cowboys and AT&T unveil interactive game day upgrades to AT&T Stadium
AT&T and the Dallas Cowboys today unveiled new ways they hope to more fully engage fans in the game day experience. Citing improvements to both wifi and cell coverage at the stadium, AT&T Senior VP of Network Planning and Engineering Scott Mair revealed that the stadium itself is now blanketed with enough network power to serve the entire wifi and cellular needs of a city that’s the size of Mckinney. To deliver all that coverage, AT&T has installed 1,500 wifi antennae and the equivalent of 17 cell towers. That web of coverage allowed 25,000 fans to connect simultaneously to the internet during the recent George Strait concert.
“Our goal is to create the most technologically advanced stadium in the world and the most engaged fan network in the world,” says Esther Lee, AT&T’s Senior VP of Brand, Marketing, Advertising and Sponsorships.
To that end, AT&T revealed more tangible improvement that AT&T calls the worlds first fan-powered digital experience. A new high-resolution, 130-foot wide video display comprised of 40 rotating louvers towers over the north concourse. During the game, AT&T plans to display game stats, fan photos and video on the board. Below the board, on the north concourse, four 84-inch wide interactive columns function like giant high resolution touch screens, flashing videos and still images of players, cheerleaders and the stadium’s art collection.
The team also revealed a new interactive app, to be released prior to the season opener in September against the San Francisco 49ers. The position-aware app will mark your car space, guide you from your car to your seat, show nearby concessions, allow you to post to social media sites, and display instant messages from the Cowboys about the game in progress. For example, a push notification sent during the game through the app will instruct fans to press a button that animates your display, vibrates your phone and synchronizes your camera flash with others in the stadium. Photos taken through the app at the game can be uploaded to the stadium server and may be displayed on the new video board. The goal, says Gregg Heard, AT&T’s VP of Brand Design, revolves around the concept of “Unite this house.”
“You get all these fans interacting, engaging with their team, uniting their team in an amazing application that will allow fans to interact in a way that’s never been done before,” said Heard.
“We are all about fan engagement,” added Charlotte Jones Anderson, Dallas Cowboys EVP and Brand Officer, adding that the technology boosts allow the Cowboys to “take that one step further.”