Security cameras / Axis Communications
Incident: A baseball cap, signed by a popular former player, is swiped from a silent-auction table in a ballpark’s main concourse before a game.
Result: A team employee notices the cap is gone and alerts security. The HD camera in the concourse provides security personnel with images of the thief. Twenty-megapixel cameras within the bowl, capable of reading a name tag from across the stadium with nearly 100 percent clarity, find the suspect, whose young son is sitting next to him wearing the stolen cap. Security approaches the man and shows him the video on a tablet.
“Identification to apprehension in less than two innings,” said Mark McCormack, national manager for Axis Communications’ national and global accounts.
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Houston’s NRG Stadium is among the NFL venues where Axis has high-tech cameras in use.
Courtesy of: AXIS COMMUNICATIONS |
Incident: A visibly drunk 20-something falls over a stair railing and later tries to sue the stadium’s owner, its operator and the team.
Result: The fan is shown video that proves there was no liquid on the ground, which he had claimed made him slip, and he drops his complaint.
The presence of a new generation of security cameras meant that the results of these real events were dramatically different than they would have been before the 9/11 attacks, when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security identified sports venues as a highly vulnerable and relatively unprotected potential target for terrorists.
“In the analog world, cameras just showed you a picture, and if it was in color, that was just a bonus,” said McCormack, who has been in space for more than 20 years. “Now you can speak through the cameras, connect through the internet and incorporate technology like facial recognition, audio recognition and thermal imaging.”
Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls is replacing the 80 20-year-old analog cameras, which were wired to about 15 DVRs, from an NFL stadium. The new system comprises 330 Axis cameras with 498 views. These cameras, many of which automatically analyze and tag surveillance video and even audio in real-time, are connected through a dedicated security network, on which the data is stored.
Axis also recently completed a Wrigley Field project that tripled the number of cameras at the venue, another example of the evolution in the surveillance world.
Venue operators now must monitor a much bigger footprint. Tailgating areas; adjacent open-air concourses, where there may be several hours of pregame or postgame entertainment; and even public transportation stops must be factored into game-day operations.
“The security umbrella has opened pretty wide,” McCormack said.
The use of cameras with thermal-detection capabilities is relatively new in sports. Such technology can spot, for example, a passed-out fan getting trampled; a surge in the number of people gathering in one spot, indicating a possible brawl; or a drone encroaching on the venue’s airspace.
The NFL used Axis’ thermal imaging cameras at Houston’s Super Bowl Live fan festival in February, and McCormack estimates that 20 percent of sports venues now use the technology.
