Last night, a pretty impressive app was released for the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn, New York, meant to enhance the live sports experience at the stadium. The Barclay’s Center app, out now for both Android and iOS, allows attendees of a Brooklyn Nets game to view live footage from different angles as well as replays and stats from the game, all thanks to something called StadiumVision Mobile technology from Cisco.
The app has the ability to display live video of the game, including the television feed to people who might be waiting in line to use the stadium washroom or buy beer. There are four different cameras to choose from, which are moved around the stadium throughout the game depending on what’s going on. Furthermore, users can rewind the footage up to 30 seconds to get an instant replay of what they just saw.
Operating in a similar way to cable TV providers, Cisco’s StadiumVision Mobile splits the feed and delivers a multicast connection to everyone using the app. As such, there is no difference in quality whether one person or a full stadium of 19,000 fans are using the service, promising a steady, constant stream of video. Although streaming of game video from within a stadium is nothing new in the mobile world, a multicast connection, for as many people as are in the stadium to use the service uninterrupted by technological constraints, is a first.
The Barclay’s Center is the first stadium to offer this technology to its ticket holders, but it’s only a matter of time before Canadian stadiums like the Bell Centre in Montreal, the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, or Rogers Arena in Vancouver begin offering such a service. Who knows, it may be enough to make me feel like spending ridiculous money to see a Canucks game in person instead of staying home to watch them play on TV.
