The 49ers’ plan to build the greatest stadium Wi-Fi network of all time...

[Upton]

When the San Francisco 49ers' new stadium opens for the 2014 NFL season, it is quite likely to have the best publicly accessible Wi-Fi network a sports facility in this country has ever known.

The 49ers are defending NFC champions, so 68,500 fans will inevitably walk into the stadium for each game. And every single one of them will be able to connect to the wireless network, simultaneously, without any limits on uploads or downloads. Smartphones and tablets will run into the limits of their own hardware long before they hit the limits of the 49ers' wireless network.

Until now, stadium executives have said it's pretty much impossible to build a network that lets every single fan connect at once. They've blamed this on limits in the amount of spectrum available to Wi-Fi, despite their big budgets and the extremely sophisticated networking equipment that largesse allows them to purchase. Even if you build the network perfectly, it would choke if every fan tried to get on at once—at least according to conventional wisdom.

But the people building the 49ers' wireless network do not have conventional sports technology backgrounds. Senior IT Director Dan Williams and team CTO Kunal Malik hail from Facebook, where they spent five years building one of the world's largest and most efficient networks for the website. The same sensibilities that power large Internet businesses and content providers permeate Williams' and Malik's plan for Santa Clara Stadium, the 49ers' nearly half-finished new home. "We see the stadium as a large data center," Williams told me when I visited the team's new digs in Santa Clara.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/03/the-49ers-plan-to-build-the-greatest-stadium-wi-fi-network-of-all-time/

The 49ers new stadium may not be the most ostentatious in the NFL, that rather dubious honor obviously goes to the Cowboys, but Silicon Valley know how will make the new Santa Clara stadium the toast of the NFL with a Super Bowl soon to follow.

[marmar]

1. So that even more people can be distracted and pay no attention to the game.

nt

[bluedigger]

2. A stadium full of people looking at their iphones.

[Auggie]

3. Meanwhile, many life-time season ticket holders cannot afford to renew

Fail

[Upton]

4. The city of San Francisco is to blame..and those who opposed a new stadium.

Those former season tickets should direct their acrimony towards them. The 49ers tried for years to get something done..even passed that measure for stadium and mall, whatever became of that? Perhaps things may have been different.

Now, 75% of the seats in Santa Clara have already been sold. The 49ers are moving forward. I commend Jed York for doing something many said couldn't be done. And after the opening next year, I suspect any griping will die down rather quickly..

[Auggie]

7. Fuck that. It wasn't the city.

it was egos, my friend.

Eddie D, Willie Brown, Gavin Newsome and John York. Douchebags all.

[Upton]

9. Granted..

Eddie's riverboat scheme and the resulting fallout scuttled a lot of things, but it seems to me the 49ers and the city of San Francisco were again talking about a new stadium as recently as 7-8 years ago, but couldn't come to an agreement..which then led them to Santa Clara.

As for the primary villains, I vote Newsom and John York.

[Auggie]

15. I concur -- Newsom and York

[madinmaryland]

5. Good news!! The Frisco 49er's have just lost their home field advantage.

Everyone will be so busy on their iPhones being iDouches that they will not be paying any attention to the game.

[Upton]

6. Goodell wants Wi-Fi in all the stadiums..

Goodell said the league is pushing to have high-speed Wi-Fi in every stadiums so fans can have their mobile-device fun. A lot of fans would say this upgrade is overdue.

"We believe that it is important to get technology into our stadiums," Goodell said. "We have made the point repeatedly that the experience at home is outstanding, and we have to compete with that in some fashion by making sure that we create the same kind of environment in our stadiums and create the same kind of technology. ...

"We want to make sure our fans, when they come into stadiums, don't have to shut down

.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d82944c9c/article/goodell-nfl-wants-wireless-internet-in-all-stadiums

From what I can gather, it's in the stadiums of at least 8 teams now, albeit more limited than the 49ers undertaking. Jets and the Giants have it, Falcons, Colts, Bucs, Saints, Panthers and the Dolphins. Strange Seattle doesn't. Anyway, it's the future.

[trumad]

8. Why is it the future?

replays? Pandora?

Watching other games on your 7 inch tablet?

Sure there are some conveniences to it... but most go to the game to watch the game, not play on their phones or tablets.

[JonLP24]

10. This was also in the news

School officials expected to appeal the ruling

Santa Clara: San Francisco 49ers get edge in $30 million case against South Bay schools, judge rules

SACRAMENTO -- After a yearlong royal rumble between the San Francisco 49ers, local schools, the Brown administration and others, a judge on Wednesday ruled that South Bay school officials were wrong last year to yank $30 million in disputed tax funds from the team's new stadium.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Allen Sumner said in a nine-page tentative ruling that he could not immediately award the funds to the 49ers, but he appeared to leave little recourse but to make sure the Niners eventually receive the money one way or another. The team may have to wait until as late as 2016 to receive the cash, however, the judge said.

K-12 schools in Santa Clara County argued they needed the money to prevent further classroom cutbacks while Gov. Jerry Brown's finance team tried using the funds to help balance the state budget.

But Sumner ruled that Santa Clara voters and city officials had specifically earmarked the funds for the new stadium being built in the city -- and outside groups had no legal right to take it away.

http://www.mercurynews.com/southbayfootball/ci_22834039/judge-schools-cant-yank-30-million-from-49ers

[JonLP24]

11. Also

Santa Clara agrees to league's financial demands to host Super Bowl in 2016

<SNIP>
The issue for the city was whether it could afford to agree to a list of financial demands imposed by the NFL. On May 22, league owners will choose between the Bay Area and Miami to host Super Bowl L in February 2016. For Santa Clara, shooting down the NFL's requests could make it tougher to land the game.

Unlike Miami, Santa Clara has agreed to waive its 9.5 percent hotel tax for about 350 employees of the NFL and the teams playing in the game. The city anticipates making up the tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue by selling out other hotel rooms that normally might be vacant.

Super Bowl tickets would also be exempt from two ticket surcharges that will be in place for 49ers home games after the $1.2 billion stadium opens in 2014.

<snip>

City officials agreed to the deal because they still expect to make money off the game, citing past Super Bowl hosts that have seen the event spur hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity. Still, San Francisco -- the official host city -- would be home to many of the associated events and hotel stays.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_22817607/santa-clara-agrees-nfls-financial-demands-host-super

Santa Clara sells the farm to win Super Bowl (summary of what is being waived)

<snip>

10% NFL Ticket Surcharge – At a conservative set price of $500 per SB L ticket, the $50 surcharge would yield $3.75 million with an expanded capacity of 75,000.

$0.35 Ticket fee – Meant to fund some senior and youth programs. A cap of $250,000 per year is imposed on this revenue source. If the 49ers play at least one home game, it’s likely that the 49ers would hit the cap, rendering additional collection of this fee moot.

Hotel tax – A Mello Roos district was created to provide some stadium funding, backed by a hike in the transit occupancy tax from 9.5% to 11.5% in the stadium’s immediate area. The NFL asked for its share (350 rooms for an unspecified number of days) to be waived. Assuming that the NFL needs 350 rooms for the full two weeks, the City would forego some $70,000+ in hotel taxes. The City notes that it expects to make up this loss via taxes collected on additional room bookings.

Off Site Parking fee – The City has imposed a $4.54 fee per space for event parking. That too will be waived. This appears to be for all Super Bowl activities, not just the game itself. The City notes that the fee is meant to offset the cost of traffic management.
http://newballpark.org/2013/03/19/santa-clara-sells-the-farm-to-win-super-bowl/

[Upton]

12. What you highlighted is key..

should the 49ers new Santa Clara stadium be awarded Super Bowl 50 or another one in the future, San Francisco would still be the official host city. Ed Lee, SF's present mayor understands that, right along with the benefits associated with it. Which is why he came together with other Bay Area mayors to support the bid. Yet, you still have people like Dianne Feinstein for example, who apparently gets her kicks out of taking public shots at the 49ers for moving..

[JonLP24]

13. Good for SF

not so good for SC in consideration to what they are giving away.

[Upton]

14. Those are the NFL's terms...

The Bay Area has only hosted 1 Super Bowl..and that was almost 30 years ago. They want one bad. If those concessions by Santa Clara secure the bid along with the estimated 500 million a Super Bowl could infuse into the Bay Area economy, then I'd say they're doing the right thing.

[JonLP24]

16. There are no details of the estimates

Besides the city were saying $300,000 million. Which is besides the point in that, the city that is footing the bill for the stadium is being left out in a big way in the Super Bowl event, which is used to get these things built..

This is the economic activity a Super Bowl brings

New York gets Super Bowl, promised rain of money, snowballs

In case you missed it, the NFL awarded the 2014 Super Bowl to the new New York Jets and Giants stadium on Tuesday night, setting off a media frenzy in the capital of what’s left of the news media. For sheer hype, you’ll of course want to turn to the New York Post, which asserted, among other things:

The Super Bowl could pump $500 million into the metro-New York economy, according to some estimates.

The vote was a clear nod of appreciation to the Giants and Jets for building a state-of-the-art, 82,500-seat stadium without having tapped public funds.

Errrr, it was certainly a reward for building a new stadium, which is what the NFL does to get these things built. But “without having tapped public funds” isn’t exactly true, given that the stadium got free state land and property tax breaks — and in any case, since when does the NFL want to reward its teams for putting up more of their own money and extorting less from taxpayers?

On the subject of that $500 million for the “local economy,” meanwhile, ESPN’s Peter Keating talks to some economists who say it’s a load of crap:

http://www.fieldofschemes.com/2010/05/27/2665/new-york-gets-super-bowl-promised-rain-of-money-snowballs/