October 2013 | www.commercialintegrator.com
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DIVERSIFYING STADIUM
REVENUE OPPORTUNITIES
THROUGH INTEGRATED AV
Sports venues need constant availability to pay their steeper rents, and
AV is helping to transform every inch of them into alternate-event revenue
machines.
By Dan Daley
Commercial
INTEGRATOR
CI
Trends
Interactive AV
stadiums finding ways to spread
THE WEALTH
Sports venues need constant availability to pay their steeper
rents, and AV is helping to transform every inch of them into
alternate-event revenue machines. By Dan Daley
T
HREE YEARS AGO, the University of Nevada
considered a radical new design for a proposed
new 40,000-seat football stadium that could
quickly be converted into a 20,000-seat hockey
or basketball arena. Think Transformers, but on
an even more massive scale. That never came to
pass, but in the meantime sports venues have
been transforming themselves, from places that were dedicated
to a single sport, and often a single team — appearances by the
Beatles at Shea Stadium or the Pope at Yankee Stadium were once
as notable for their diversion from the stadia’s usual purposes as by
the celebrity of their visitors — to a multipurpose design, intended
to allow a much wider use of the facility, and more often. They have
to: costs for the current generation of sports facilities have gone
through the (retractable) roof.
Three of the newest pro football stadiums — Lucas Oil Stadium,
Cowboys Stadium and MetLife Stadium — cost $720 million,
$1.15 billion and $1.6 billion, respectively. Major League Baseball
is not far behind, with the three most expensive ballparks in history (Nationals Park, $611 million; Citi Field, $900 million; Yankee
Stadium, $1.5 billion) all finished in recent years. Basketball, is
no slouch, either, with the Brooklyn Nets’ two-year-old Barclay’s
Center coming at an even $1 billion and the just-completed threeyear-long renovation of the New York Knicks’ storied Madison
Square Garden costing a reported $1.1 billion. Teams, counties and
municipalities that are increasingly on the hook for these costs are
“THERE WAS A POINT WE REACHED SIX
OR SEVEN YEARS AGO WHERE WE AS
INTEGRATORS SAW A REAL
BREAK IN STADIUM DESIGN
BETWEEN THE ‘IN-BOWL’ AND
‘OUT-OF-BOWL’ EXPERIENCE
... THAT’S WHEN SIGNAGE
BEGAN MOVING INTO THOSE
OTHER SPACES.”—CHRIS
MASCATELLO, ANC SPORTS
understandably demanding that new sports venues find ways to
pay their own way. And commercial integration and design firms
are lending their expertise to infuse these increasingly multi-purpose arenas with the technology necessary to support such extracurricular endeavors.
A Costly Cup, Overflowing with Audio
Sergio Mohol, a principal in Walters-Storyk Design Group, an
upstate New York-based acoustical design consultancy, points
to one of five venues the firm did work on during the run-up to
this summer’s World Cup. The 62,160-seat Mineirão Stadium, in
Belo Horizonte, Brazil, dates back to the 1950s and so did its business model: the venue was literally used twice a month for soccer
games, and then only during the season. Looking to leverage the
attention Brazil’s receiving for hosting the World Cup games this
year and the Olympics in 2016 (and offset some of the criticism
of the costs of hosting those events), Mineirão Stadium’s management wanted to be able to use the venue as an international concert
site. In fact, Paul McCartney was scheduled to play the venue just
after the World Cup ended.
First, the stadium had to be updated to comply with the standards of FIFA, the international governing body for the World
Cup, which has its own specifications for speech intelligibility and
sightlines. After that, however, the venue faced what has increasingly become the ultimate paradox when sports venues need to
accommodate music: the former application demands that the
bowl amplify the crowd noise — in certain NFL venues such as
the Seattle Seahawks’ CenturyLink Field stadium noise has truly
amplified home-field advantage — while the latter application
demands that noise be tamed and highly directable.
“That is the conflict, that is where the balance must be found,”
says Molho. “And everything you do in terms of acoustical design
and treatment will have an effect on everything else, from choice of
speakers to placement of the PA system to how you run your cables.
That’s why the [acoustical] analysis of the design is so critical.”
As acoustical consultants are brought into the design phase of
sports venues earlier — a welcome development that some acousticians say is driven in part by the growing need to make sports
venues multipurpose — they can bring their predictive analyses to
Belo Horizonte, Brazil’s 62,160-seat Mineirão
Stadium required many tech upgrades to get
into World Cup playing condition.
the blueprint stage, using virtualization software, such as CATT or
Bastian, combined with the known responses of different type of
sound to various types of spaces and surfaces. The process, known
as auralization, creates 3D renderings of rooms’ acoustics that can
be established with a high degree of precision, which makes the
choice of the sound system’s components — speakers mainly but
also subwoofers and any DSP used to manage them — easier and
optimally matched to the sonic characteristics of the environments. Similar techniques are applied to existing structures; software such as SMAART or EASE is used to establish the acoustical
mapping of rooms, for values such as reverberation time and spectral analysis, using calibrated microphones. (An existing structure may seem easier to deal with, since its parameters are already
fixed; however, many of these tend to be older and use lots of hard,
reflective and parallel surfaces, some of which may be part of the
structure’s support and thus hard or impossible to relocate. Taken
to the scale of a stadium or arena, most acousticians are happiest
to work on new construction.)
In the case of Mineirão Stadium, absorptive panels were placed
below the upper balconies and covered with waterproof material.
This improved the listening experience in the seating areas while
also reducing the bounce back of reflected sound onto the field.
Speaker positioning was also defined for the internal and external
areas, and for numerous zoning maps, which can now be individually controlled for increased flexibility and security purposes. Meet Me in St. Louis’ Jones Dome
More than St. Louis Rams fans will be headed to the Edward Jones
Dome in coming years, thanks to amenities built into its architectural and AV designs aimed at meetings and trade show markets.
For instance, the arena floor can be divided into halves or quarters
with drapes, and the line array sound system rigging is designed to
be motored down to the floor, moved in custom-built cradles for the
array modules (whose signal and power cables remain connected
together) and wheeled over to other rigging fly points located strategically around the hall that will allow a pre-aimed stereo set-up very
quickly, with presets programmed into the system’s DSP that set its
parameters precisely for each physical reconfiguration of the house.
Trends
Interactive AV
Above and right: The San Francisco 49ers’ new Levi’s
Stadium deploys broadband coverage to all 68,500 seats,
plus its suites, clubs and other general areas
levi’s stadium photos by matthew roth
CI
Below: Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center places high value
on visible video throughout the arena and concourse,
especially in its role as part of a multi-venue complex
located within a hub of retail and tourist activity.
“They really needed the Jones Dome to be able to accommodate
corporate events of different sizes, so as important as the choice
of systems was for the project, where and how they are installed,
and how flexible they can be, is just as important,” observes Paul
Murdick, president of Technology Solutions, a division of TSI
Global, also in the St. Louis area, which did the AV part of the
stadium’s extensive renovation — which included a reported $4
million on the audio alone.
This project is another where the sound system needs to serve
dual purposes. The solution, according to Lee Buckalew, audio
systems designer at TSI Global, was to more precisely guide sound
onto seats and away from reflective surfaces, in this case using
JBL VT4888 and VT4889 enclosures with improved beam steerability. “Using more-precise steering lets you accomplish the same
result using fewer boxes, which also can reduce system costs,” he
explains. Murdick adds that audio system components are getting
lighter, which also helps reduce strain on the rigging systems.
“Concerts are always going to bring in their own touring sound,
so you want the hang points there for them, but it’s the corporate
and other events that will use the house sound, so it needs to be as
flexible and as good-sounding as possible,” he says.
Be a Sport When It Comes to Sharing
Sometimes the alternate event at a sports venue turns out to
be another sports event, but one the venue wasn’t designed or
intended for. Craig Janssen, managing director at Dallas-area
design consultancy Idibri (formerly Acoustic Dimensions), points
to the Circuit of the Americas Formula 1 race course in Austin,
Texas, hosting ESPN’s X Games franchise for the first time this
year. Noting the extreme events structures, like the towering Big
Air skateboard ramp, he marvels, “I’m sure no one thought of that
when they were building an F1 track.”
What they do need to be thinking about, he says, is infrastructure. “In addition to sports, the venue design has to keep in mind
the infrastructure needs that other users of the stadium or arena
will need,” he says. “For music concerts, the end of the venue that
will have the stage needs to have the load-in facilities for trucks; the
right kind of power and rigging has to be available there.”
Venues also have to accommodate the fact that sports teams are
increasingly monetizing their AV systems, the potential for which
their outside rental clients are becoming aware of. “You can’t wash
your hands in the sink in the bathrooms at the American Airlines
Arena [in Dallas] without looking at a video screen,” Janssen says
wryly. Rental clients are going to want to access those AV systems
for their own messaging, and in more and more cases for additional revenue of their own at their events.
In fact, much of the focus of alternate usage of sports venues
is moving toward venues’ interior spaces. The Sports Authority at
Mile High Stadium in Denver hosts large events such as massive
automobile auctions, but its club suites and other rooms stage
between 200 and 300 smaller rental events, such as political fundraisers and press conferences, each year; they have even done
high school proms there. And, of course, concerts. Mark Graham,
audio consultant and associate at the Denver office of Dallas-based
design consultancy WJHW, says the increased reliance on these
interior spaces in large sports venues is reflected in the trend away
from the portable sound and video systems that many of them
would have kept on hand in earlier times and toward installed systems, such as permanent left-right audio speakers configured on
either side of installed screens and, increasingly, video walls built
into these types of rooms.
“Spaces like the club suites used to simply have a distributed
sound system with overhead speakers in the ceiling that were fine
for background music,” Graham explains. “Now, we’re seeing leftright audio going in next to the video, which helps draw attention
to and focus on the presentation areas of these rooms.” Small stage
areas are also becoming more common in these types of spaces
now that they are being marketed by venue management as presentation environments. “The AV and lighting is becoming more
sophisticated, to make these spaces more attractive and useful to
non-game day events,” Graham adds, noting that installed systems
add value to the spaces, thus increasing their revenue potential,
and require less labor than portable systems, accelerating their
ROI. “As they realize the value in better AV in their interior space,
we’re seeing stadiums and arenas make the investment in more
installed local AV.”
The Widening Role of Wi-Fi
The proliferation of Wi-Fi in sports venues is also going to be a
game changer for alternate-event use. The San Francisco 49ers’
new Levi’s Stadium, which opened in August in Santa Clara,
deploys broadband coverage to all of the venue’s 68,500 seats, but
St. Louis’ Edward Jones Dome is built for more than football.
The arena floor can be divided into halves or quarters
with drapes, and line array speakers can be motored down to
the floor.
it also extends to its suites, clubs and meeting areas, as well as
ramps and other general areas. That’s a boon to venue sales teams
that are marketing every part of the facility for rentals. The NFL,
which has been losing ticket sales as a result of the high price
of attending games and the constant improvement of the home
experience with HDTV, surround sound and Red Zone Channel,
has been embracing venue-wide Wi-Fi as a strategy to fill seats
using stadium-only content, such as multi-camera replays, as a
lure. This season, Extreme Networks and SignalShare combined
to bring a full-featured Wi-Fi deployment to the Jacksonville Jaguars’ EverBank Field. Baseball is also wiring up: AT&T Park in San
Francisco, Target Field in Minneapolis, and Miami’s Marlins Park
have recently implemented venue-wide high-speed wireless. And
it’s not just the major leagues that are getting in on this act. The
University of Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium, built in 1917 —
before telephones were in widespread use — recently had a new
high-speed Wi-Fi network deployed by AT&T. Wi-Fi is becoming
a requirement for event production in general, in particular for
letting attendees interact via social media. That plus sports’ need
to fight back against declining ticket revenues represents huge
potential for sports venues as alternate event sites.
Perhaps the most visible shift in sports venue design has been
the transition from fixed signage to digital signage. That change,
says Chris Mascatello, executive vice president for technology sales
at integration firm ANC Sports, is turning venues into immersive environments tailor made for advertising applications, which
could turn out to be the ultimate alternate use.
“There was a point we reached six or seven years ago where we
as integrators saw a real break in stadium design between the ‘inbowl’ and ‘out-of-bowl’ experience,” he says. “People coming to the
Trends
Interactive AV
“CLUB SUITES USED TO SIMPLY HAVE A
DISTRIBUTED SOUND SYSTEM WITH OVERHEAD
SPEAKERS IN THE CEILING THAT WERE FINE FOR
BACKGROUND MUSIC.
NOW, WE’RE SEEING LEFT-RIGHT AUDIO
GOING IN NEXT TO THE VIDEO, WHICH HELPS
DRAW ATTENTION TO AND FOCUS ON THE
PRESENTATION AREAS OF THESE ROOMS.”
—MARK GRAHAM, WJHW
stadium or the ballpark were spending about 60 percent of their
time there inside the bowl, in the seats, but the rest of the time they
were in the concourses, the rest rooms and the concessions. The
event was no longer enough. That’s when signage began moving
into those other spaces.”
Mascatello says that video platforms have moved into virtually
every area of the venue now, driven by lower costs for digital signage, video walls, digital menu boards and IPTV content distribution, and he says that ubiquity is what has spurred the most recent
iterations of the company’s vSOFT digital display control system
that manages the content for these expanded environments. But,
he adds, the future may make sports venues look even more like a
scene from Minority Report, where advertising is targeted to the
individual in any environment.
“The combination of so much display area every with systems
like iBeacon” — Apple’s wireless indoor proximity system that can
automatically interact with nearby iOS 7 devices, which Major
League Baseball has already implemented in 28 ballparks — “is
going to change how the venue interacts with the people in it. It
will be about getting personalized content to individuals in the
venue that’s appropriate for exactly where they might be standing
at that minute.”
It’s a futuristic vision but an eminently plausible one, given how
much sports venues have already changed, especially as they
relate to advertising and retail. (Philadelphia is the Petrie dish for
that trend. Its South Philadelphia Sports Complex combines the
Wells Fargo Center, Lincoln Financial Field, Citizens Bank Park with
retail/entertainment center Xfinity Live, and Major League Soccer
venue PPL Park, and anchors the economic development on the
waterfront including entertainment, retail and residential projects.) And in the most meta of phenomena, several venues, including the Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium, Yankee Stadium in New
York, and the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Heinz Field offer paid tours, thus
making the venue a destination with no event at all taking place.
Similar fan-engagement initiatives include a museum at the 49ers’
Levi’s Stadium.
The traditional sports venue is heading toward a paradigm closer
to that of the ancient Roman coliseum: a mixed-use facility where
more time is filled with non-sports activities (besides gladiation and
chariot racing, Romans had circuses, markets and public executions
at their venues). That comes at a time when not only are some sports
are struggling to put fans in the stands but touring concerts have
replaced recorded music as the main revenue source for the music
industry. Between Paul McCartney and new-car introductions, you
might have to wait a while before you actually see sports at the local
sports arena — but integrators and AV designers can prepare today’s
venues for anything that’s thrown at them. CI
DAN DALEY is a New York and Nashville, Tenn.-based writer.
Venue-wide WiFi is a major focus, particularly for
new venues like Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
matthew roth
CI