Tottenham Hotspur has long reputation for being one of the most entertaining teams in England’s Premier League.
As building continues on its brand new venue in North London, the club is planning to create an entirely new connected fan experience, both for visitors at their new stadium and for fans worldwide. Through Hewlett Packard Enterprise Pointnext services and Aruba networking and wireless technology, the club is aiming to provide fans with an unrivaled connected experience and create opportunities for fan engagement not seen before in football.
With a capacity of more than 61,000, providing reliable connectivity is no mean feat, but new technological advances are making the goal a realistic one. IT infrastructure will be incorporated into the stadium’s design plans, giving it an edge over other stadiums that have had to retrofit IT equipment in an ad hoc manner. Hotspots and other infrastructure are needed to ensure fast and responsive service throughout, and IT-minded construction can help.
Underpinning the project is Aruba’s intelligent edge technology, an area of IT that IDC predicts could become a $2 trillion market by 2020, and one that’s being led by HPE. By using the latest access points and other key infrastructure spread throughout the stadium they can offload data that would otherwise be crunched on more centralised servers, the venue will be able to handle spikes in demand and provide faster and more graceful connectivity than older IT paradigms can provide. Future upgrades will also be able take advantage of edge technology as well, as the distributed design enables endless possibilities.
Unrivaled fan experience
Powerful IT infrastructure presents exciting opportunities but sports venues aren’t always front of mind when these are considered. Selfie-crazed fans will enjoy being able to send as many pics as they want without worrying about their mobile data allotment. In some stadiums, fans are able to order food and drinks from their seat through a team or stadium app, ensuring they never miss out on the on-pitch action. Way finders can guide fans to their seats without worrying about becoming lost, and the team will inevitably find engaging ways to interact with fans during the game.
The team will benefit as well. Engaging apps mean team ownership can gauge fan responses through social media more easily. Concession wait periods will be easy to analyze, leading to more sales and more satisfying service. Promotional offers are central to the sporting world, and teams can send fans offers as they leave the stadium.The new venue will offer the most football club seating in London, so visiting teams and performers, including NFL teams and world-class bands, can take advantage of this infrastructure as well.
In addition to Aruba’s market-leading wireless technology, Spurs is also tapping Hewlett Packard Enterprise for their IT services brand Pointnext to deliver the project.
