TV. We can stop and flip the camera 180o on our
replay boards as it provides the vantage point of any
player. So, we can freeze a quarterback’s throw midpass
and do a full loop around to get the wide
receiver’s view of the catch on the back side. Intel
rolled it out with us and then took it to the Olympics,
so we’ll see it in Tokyo.”
Gold standard
Perhaps the most ambitious plan for the 49ers is to
introduce 8K video production. Here the technology
partner is Foxconn industrial internet (Fii), which
announced a new deal with the 49ers in September.
One element of the partnership is enabling the Levi’s
Stadium to become the first in the world to fully roll
out 8K. A key aspect will be replacing all TV monitors
with more advanced ones from Sharp, a company
Foxconn acquired recently “I think 8K has huge
potential to make the in-venue experience much
better. It’s unbelievable how granular it gets, to the
point where you can show clearly whether a player’s
foot is out of bounds. It’s four times superior
resolution to 4K, so a major upgrade,” Schoeb says.
Analyzing gameday data such
as fan traffic or concessions
enables operators to make
more informed decisions
BROADCASTING
SMART EXPERIENCE
When the San Francisco 49ers wanted their own unique management
solution that would evaluate real-time data across nine sources,
including ticketing and attendance, parking, food and beverage,
retail, and social media, they partnered with German enterprise
software company SAP. After months of workshops, they came up with
an innovative approach called Executive Huddle. An analytics team
monitors data from various SAP technologies and feedback appears
on screens in a suite. From there, the team can send it to screens
around the stadium, or deliver notifications on apps.
“It makes a big difference to fans. If a parking lot is full, we switch
the digital arrow and redirect traffic. And we can tell how many
people are coming through a gate in a certain time segment and
switch them to an empty gate around the corner using app alerts.
We also monitor food, so concessions never run out of hot dogs,” says
Brent Schoeb, chief revenue officer at the 49ers.
Executive Huddle’s reams of data provide useful insights after
games. “At our most recent game, we had 22% more people in the
building before kick-off than for the previous game, showing our
message about getting here early was getting through,” he says. Not
surprisingly, there has been interest from dozens of clubs around the
world in implementing the 49ers’ new system.
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