Jets, Giants, Video

These days, it takes more than a winning football team to fill a stadium. So, when Peter Brickman, chief technology officer at New Meadowlands Stadium, began exploring ways to make the venue more enticing for New York Giants’ and New York Jets’ fans—as well as individuals attending other sporting and entertainment events—he decided to take stadium technology to a new level. “The idea was to offer the ultimate fan experience,” he says.

New Meadowlands Stadium has scored a touchdown. Today, the 82,566-seat facility is equipped with four massive high-definition video display scoreboards and more than 2,200 HD video displays—all designed to provide fans with access to the game virtually anywhere in the venue. Each screen has its own IP address, and it’s possible to send content and messages to groups of screens and even to an individual monitor.

Officials can add or delete elements—everything from a birthday greeting to a menu selection—in real time. What’s more, every point-of-sale terminal is equipped with a scanner and, as a result, it’s possible to preload offers and incentives with tickets. The system also allows stadium executives to monitor lines and track everything from gate flow to food quality in real time.

John Mayer, president of the New York Giants, says, “It’s the most advanced stadium ever built. Fans feel like they have stepped into the future.”

It is the future—the future of live entertainment. As networks become more sophisticated and the need to interact in real-time with customers grows, a growing number of organizations are turning to more sophisticated systems and tools to ratchet up performance and manage costs.

“It is an industry in transformation,” says Blake White, director of the Entertainment, Media and Communications Practice at Pricewaterhouse-Coopers (PwC) Consulting. “Huge opportunities exist, and it’s up to organizations to tap into them.”