DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
Thinking about it, though, I wonder if the stadium's hooked up to be a potential test vehicle for AWS cloud services for IoT-enabled fan experiences and things like that. That's the next step in terms of sports experiences worldwide - bringing digital innovation into the matchday experience and offering interactivity to attendees over massive WiFi networks. The Premier League hasn't yet seen the onset of that sort of thing, but it's getting there rapidly - and in the US, stadiums are being designed to specifically focus on the massive potential of digitally-enhanced sports experiences (SoFi Stadium, for instance). The age of the smart stadium is almost upon us.
By all accounts, our stadium fits into that category - it's potentially the first 'smart stadium' in the UK. I know we parterned with HPE for the WiFi at the place, and it's aparently cutting edge in terms of being seamlessly networked, available for over 60,000 attendees simultaneously and potentially usable for any number of innovations in terms of how attendees interact with live events. With the cashless system in place and the WiFi active, we can also potentially generate enormous amounts of user data that could help shape the future in terms of how organizations deliver sports experiences.
If AWS sees the stadium as a vehicle to test the next generation of interactive live experiences using IOT technology, then that sponsorship starts to make more sense. It could make them more money than the sponsorship would cost, especially if we also partner with them for the development of those digitally-enhanced live experiences.
By all accounts, our stadium fits into that category - it's potentially the first 'smart stadium' in the UK. I know we parterned with HPE for the WiFi at the place, and it's aparently cutting edge in terms of being seamlessly networked, available for over 60,000 attendees simultaneously and potentially usable for any number of innovations in terms of how attendees interact with live events. With the cashless system in place and the WiFi active, we can also potentially generate enormous amounts of user data that could help shape the future in terms of how organizations deliver sports experiences.
If AWS sees the stadium as a vehicle to test the next generation of interactive live experiences using IOT technology, then that sponsorship starts to make more sense. It could make them more money than the sponsorship would cost, especially if we also partner with them for the development of those digitally-enhanced live experiences.