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MLB wrapping up $300M wireless buildout

After nearly three years of development work and study, Major League Baseball this season is introducing improved wireless connectivity to fans, representing a critical component in the league’s ongoing mobile and youth engagement aspirations.

The 2015 season brings the introduction of free, widespread wireless coverage in ballparks and improved cellular coverage across the league following a $300 million buildout, overseen by MLB Advanced Media and funded primarily by the four main U.S. mobile carriers: AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint.

The initiative is aimed at providing a comprehensive solution for the industry instead of piecemeal, individual efforts to improve fan connectivity, each with wildly different technical and business structures. Instead, MLBAM developed a standardized package in which teams received a state-of-the-art network typically including both Wi-Fi and a cellular distributed antenna system. But that network had to be carrier neutral and the installation could not be contingent upon a club signing an exclusive sponsorship with any particular wireless company.

The project ensures that fans at all MLB ballparks receive improved wireless access.
Photo by: Getty Images
Individual clubs, however, remained heavily involved in the specific design and installation of their respective networks. Teams also can still have sponsorships with particular wireless carriers, but those deals remain separate and distinct from the connectivity project.

In some ballparks, such as the 2014 World Series sites of San Francisco’s AT&T Park and Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium, fans last fall received a preview of what will now be available leaguewide. The MLBAM oversight provided a level of checks and balances to help ensure all fans will be able to receive the improved access.
MLBAM will use both its New York headquarters and new San Francisco office to monitor the networks.

A handful of clubs have yet to complete the full upgrade process, including the Chicago Cubs, which have Wrigley Field under extensive renovation work, and the Boston Red Sox, which have required extra time to work around equipment installations in and around the neighborhood surrounding Fenway Park. But full capability is expected later this season.

As the connectivity project developed, many plans were tweaked as MLB executives discovered mobile traffic patterns shift significantly from a more inbound dynamic to one decidedly outbound from fans.

“When we started this, we thought it would be 80 percent download, people like us pushing information and content,” said Bob Bowman, MLB president of business and media. “That’s still critically important. But what happens now in the ballparks has completely flipped around and it’s 80 percent upload as people tweet, post on Facebook and Instagram, text with friends and so on. So there was an adjustment in how we approached this.”

In addition to the main cellular carriers, the baseball connectivity projects involved technology industry heavyweights such as Qualcomm and Cisco.

Club executives said the improved access will be marketed to fans, but only to a point.

“We can’t make too much of a big deal around this,” said Brian Himstedt, Kansas City Royals senior director of information systems. “This is like running water, a basic utility, for our fans. We simply have to have it. It’s what our fans expect. But we were excited to have an improved system during the playoffs last year, and now for a full season in ’15.”

More fundamentally, the improved connectivity also creates a virtuous circle with MLBAM’s updated mobile application suite that includes the flagship At Bat and Ballpark, among other products, and specific enhancements such as seat upgrades. Those elements, in turn, typically skew disproportionately among younger fans, who are a particular target of MLB.

“There is a bold line that we see between the improved access and our apps,” Bowman said. “Those apps obviously need the access to work to their full potential, and that can now happen.”

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