Stadiums across the country are empty, thanks to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Still, the temporary emptiness has not stopped stadium owners from investing on behalf of their fans, namely, in equipping their spaces with 5G technology in venues such as SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles and AT&T Stadium in Dallas.
Why invest now? They’re betting on a future that will not only have people back in the stadium, but have them experiencing live sports in a different way.
“Bandwidth usage on 4G within an 80,000-seat stadium creates more latency; 5G will help deal with that,” observes Matthew Quint, director of Columbia University’s Center on Global Brand Leadership. While older fans may be content to simply watch the action, today’s typical attendee at a sporting event is increasingly a multitasker who is “on social media or on a sports website looking at stats and data, or sharing information about being at the game, or chatting with people on Twitter,” Quint