Pro athletes aren’t the only ones at MetLife Stadium working on their competitive edge. There’s much more to a successful fan experience than what’s happening on the field. Let’s take a look beyond the sidelines, through the chanting fans and past the concession stations… we’re going into the depths of the data center.
What does IT have to do with sports? A lot, actually.
MetLife Stadium, home of the New York Jets and Giants, was proud to be named the Venue of The Year at the Stadium Business Awards 2017. For the 6th time in its first 7 years, MetLife Stadium was ranked the #1 grossing stadium in the world in 2016, by Billboard Magazine and the “Top Stop of the Year” by Venues Today.
Athletes and entertainers can’t take the credit for these accolades alone. It’s the combination of talent and an innovative, cutting edge facility. MetLife Stadium intends to be able to implement every technology that is available today and in the future without hesitation.
Each electronic item, from the massive HD video display boards to the concessions check out register is digitally connected. Tickets are scanned instantaneously to eliminate long lines and concession stands transactions are much faster. Video highlights are shown immediately in HD throughout the building so fans will never miss a single second of the excitement. In addition, there is free Wi-Fi throughout the venue to enhance the “second screen experience.” If you want to check in on your fantasy football teams at any given moment? Do you want to snapchat your favorite artist playing live? No problem!
Before anything else, MetLife Stadium prioritizes safety. Prior to implementing the Dell solutions, the old security system stored only six days of video and required hours of downtime for backup, meaning the stadium could not review reported incidents or identify disruptive attendees in a timely manner.
With Dell’s Isilon and Genetec’s surveillance cameras, MetLife Stadium now monitors every seat in the venue and increased real-time video storage retention from 6 to 45 days and enabled archival capacity to hold more than three years of video footage. Saying goodbye to old tape backups and gaining more storage capacity meant a drastic reduction in the time to manage video storage. Fans could now enter the stadium feeling protected.
So what did the IT team do with the time and money saved? A streamlined, automated, cost-efficient data center means IT teams can take their hands off of the mundane, redundant tasks and focus on the future of stadium. MetLife set out to cultivate one of the most technologically-advanced stadiums around.
These technology advancements the IT team brought to life play a critical role in the stadium’s astounding reputation. There are clearly no plans of slowing down when it comes to innovation, either!
Creating the cost efficient and faster data center with Dell allowed MetLife’s IT team to reallocate its resources and go full speed ahead with innovation. The technology refreshes enabled the organization to act quickly and implement the things that keep them competitive.
