The Norwegian Professional Football League became the world’s first pro sports league to implement a comprehensive Wi-Fi solution across all of its venues back in 2014. The NPFL has installed both Cisco’s Connected Stadium Wi-Fi and its DNA Spaces solution to provide location analytics for the league and customized engagement experiences for the fan.
After Oslo’s Vålerenga Fotball moved from Ullevaal Stadion to the new Intility Arena in 2017, the club saw a 13-percent increase in Wi-Fi users and a 22-percent opt-in rate for location-based engagements, according to a Cisco case study.
All of this boosted the organization’s customer relationship management database and likely appealed to Norwegian fans, who are among the world leaders in smartphone usage. Research by eMarketer indicated that Norway ranks third among all countries in smartphone penetration, with 75.6 percent of the population using such a device in 2017. At the time of the NPFL-Cisco partnership in 2014, an estimated 94 percent of fans brought a smartphone to games.
Cisco’s network was designed to provide enough bandwidth for mobile video replays and live streams of other matches. All NPFL venues are connected via a low-latency fiber network.
“Our initiative was part of a strategic plan that we started in 2012,” said Thomas Torjusen, the NPFL’s head of media and chief digital officer, in the case study. “We wanted to know more about people who attended games at our venues. Our studies showed that only one in four fans was known to us via the ticketing systems, so we needed to find a way to acquire more customer data. We were also seeking to apply what we learned to provide them with the right service and content offerings.”
Vålerenga’s former home, Ullevaal Stadion, serves as Norway’s national stadium and has also become a connected venue, featuring 310 Cisco 3800 Series Access Points as well as a number of wireless controllers. While Norway hasn’t qualified for a major tournament since Euro 2000, fan interest may be rising under the leadership of head coach Lars Lagerbäck, who previously led tiny Iceland to the Euro 2016 quarterfinals.