New York Islanders Debut Isles+ Digital Platform Presented by Verizon for New Fan Experience at UBS Arena

Feature allows user to toggle among four unique camera angles, view replays on phone

In Belmont Park, NY, the New York Islanders are once again cooking up another digital enhancement that fans can enjoy at all home games. Via a web-based browser and a handful of technological upgrades implemented by the club’s in-venue production department, any person attending a game at UBS Arena can hop onto Isles+, a new digital platform that allows users to watch the action on the ice from four camera angles at once, watch replays of the game at any time, participate in a live chat with fellow spectators, play trivia games, vote on songs being played in the building, and access pertinent information on game day.

“Isles+ is the ultimate game-day companion,” says Ryan Halkett, SVP, Isles Media & Entertainment Group, New York Islanders. “Fans will now be able to go back and look at replays that you wouldn’t normally see on the videoboard as well as other features that we’ve added through feedback from our fans.”

Long-Term Vision: Club Builds Off HomeIce Activation From COVID Season

Coming to fruition this month, the project was initiated three years ago. As fans supported their respective NHL teams during the pandemic-stricken 2020 season, the Islanders teamed up with HomeTurf to develop a second-screen experience for fans to use at home. Typical in-game activations and familiar prompts attracted fans to HomeIce to connect with a team they weren’t able to see in person. Entering their new home, UBS Arena, in November 2021, the Islanders worked closely with Verizon to establish secure 5G connectivity inside the building for when fans returned.

Isles+ entertains fans at all New York Islanders home games at UBS Arena.

The club was interested in leveraging one tool in particular: Verizon’s 5G Multi-View. To build on the success of HomeIce, Halkett and Director, Production, Alex Leafer sought a way to augment the exclusivity of attending a home game in person and utilize the venue’s tech backbone. For this balance, the Islanders relied on the assistance and partnership with Verizon to achieve the desired result.

“It took us over a year and a half to develop, test, and further revise this solution,” Halkett explains. “Since we’re used to having HomeIce as our second screen, we took some key learnings to understand what our fans like and don’t like. We saw that they love trivia and polls but wanted to watch more replays and get more stats, but you can show those only during a stoppage in play. Alex and I sat down to figure out how we could enable any of our fans to control their own experience along with some of those other additives that they enjoy.”

Fans can view updated MTA train times, access the team’s website, enter the 50/50 raffle, and more on Isles+.

A deeper dive into the analytics revealed a dip in engagement when fans were asked to download HomeTurf’s HomeIce app to their mobile device. With a rise in popularity since the pandemic, the team opted for a QR-code–based entry to enable fans to join the fun more easily.

“We want it to be frictionless and allow fans to get in right away,” adds Halkett.

With the idea conceived, further work on the project went into overdrive during the summer months prior to the start of the season. When the preseason began with a contest against the Philadelphia Flyers on Sept. 27, the team was beta-testing a handful of designs. As the team member doing the heavy lifting on the backend, Leafer integrated fans’ familiarity with HomeIce with newer elements in Isles+.

“There were some challenges along the way to making sure that everything was working correctly and figuring out the right way of displaying features like live chat and polling,” he says. “For instance, when you go into a live video feed, you’re able to click a button to participate in a poll without its taking over your entire experience. There were a lot of changes that we made to it, and, while they weren’t necessarily difficult, it was about repurposing the design.”

Reliving the Action: Replays, Interactivity, Personalization, and More

Nearly two months after first offline testing, the first official version of Isles+ launched on Nov. 22 vs. the Flyers. The current iteration, which Halkett and Leafer want to further improve and ultimately create a home version for, can be activated only within UBS Arena. After scanning the QR code displayed on the main centerhung — QR codes and nods to join the platform are shown throughout the game — fans with location services enabled are taken to the digital portal.

One of the biggest draws is four synchronized angles of the action from various positions on the ice: one of the main video feeds shown on the videoboard with a scorebug and SMT graphics showing the names of players moving on and off the ice along with real-time stats; a full-ice view from an elevated corner of the building; one of the Islanders’ attacking end of the ice; another specialty camera displaying a unique perspective of the playing surface each game. For its debut, this fourth angle was an Ankle Cam, which can be seen on national broadcasts on TNT and ESPN. It is controlled in-house via an Islanders camera operator and a PTZ camera.

“We’re actually utilizing some of the cameras that we bought during COVID-19 for a bunch of our remote productions,” adds Leafer. “When we moved into this building, Ryan [wanted our production] to not be a normal show and to show our fans angles that they don’t typically see. We can change these feeds every game, so the angle can be from an Ankle Cam one game and an aerial view of the face dots on the next game.”

All home games can be viewed from multiple angles within the venue.

Besides a view of the game from a variety of angles, one of the main objectives for Isles+ is to offer multiple replays that the production team doesn’t have time to show on the videoboard. To motivate fans to watch a goal in real time and go back to their phones afterward, each feed is on a 25-second delay from the action on the ice.

“We timed out our goal sequence,” says Leafer. “By the time the play happens and you’re done celebrating the goal, you can look down at your phone to rewatch the play as it’s happening. If you waited a couple seconds longer and missed it, there’s a 10-second rollback button to see it again.”

A live chat can be paired with the multiview of the action.

In addition to live camera angles and replays, amenities include chatting live with fans in the building, tapping for arcades-style games to play during intermissions, participating in an online version of the 50-50 raffle, accessing tickets, searching and learning about the numerous food locations on the concourse, and looking up updated train times for the nearby Long Island Rail Road station. Fans who bring headphones to the game can listen to the real-time broadcast on the Islanders Radio Network. The platform is customizable as well, allowing fans to add the web-based destination to their home screen for easier retrievability at the venue.

Fine-Tune and Feedback: Fans’ Important Role in Platform’s Maturation

Since the platform is still in its early days, the Islanders are letting fans navigate the platform and become comfortable with its options. With the goal of making Isles+ as fan-centric as possible, feedback through surveys and messages in the chat is encouraged.

“We’ll be adding a feedback mechanism over the next couple of weeks,” says Leafer. “We welcome all feedback because we want fans to tell us what they want.”

Stats and graphics are enhanced through live player tracking from SMT.

Being collaborative with the audience has been a pillar of the production team’s vision since the beginning. Since offline testing was done with a select group of fans, the team has been open about what it would like to incorporate into the platform.

“When we sent an email out [for the test], there wasn’t a negative comment throughout the entire night,” says Halkett, “and [respondents had] a ton of suggestions. As for the numbers, compared against HomeIce, our interaction was 10X higher.”

Perfect Game-Day Companion: Isles+ Extends the In-Venue Show

Not wanting to emphasize the importance of the in-game show over Isles+ or vice versa, Halkett is merging the two productions to curate the perfect blend of digital and real-life entertainment.

“I need to excite fans and their experience in the arena,” he notes, “so I don’t want them completely in their phone. We’ve created the formula that not everyone is going to sit on their phones in their seat the entire time, so we have the same trivia that fans can see on their individual screens as well as on the videoboard.”

The Islanders have created arcade-style games to play on the web-based platform.

From an operational standpoint, the game-day production doesn’t need to overextend themselves to accomplish the intended purpose of Isles+. Along with a moderator parsing the messages sent on the live chat, a single employee can monitor and switch camera angles with the push of a button, thanks to the work of the club’s engineering team.

“[Our engineers] set up a couple of quick keys on our IPTV switchers,” Leafer explains. “Every time there’s a break, our IPTV feed can change over to our in-house feed, which also changes the feed seen on Isles. They also have different settings to change the cameras for each period, so it’s seamless.”

Two Years Strong: New Tool Continues Commitment to Innovation at UBS Arena

Live polls allow fans to submit a choice for a song to be played next.

In a short time, UBS Arena has turned into a breeding ground for production technology. Through the executive leadership at the club and the venue, as well as the day-to-day staff entertaining millions of hockey fans every season, the two-year anniversary on Nov. 20 marked a tremendous achievement for those involved. For fans experiencing the innovations in technology and creative ideas in production, Isles+ is another example of elevating the atmosphere and environment of UBS Arena.

“We’re getting more comfortable with the technology and starting to push a lot of what we’re capable of doing with it,” says Halkett. “We’re maintaining our equipment, which allows us to be creative and work on things like this to add to the mix. A lot of the feedback that we get from fans is that this is an exciting place to come to, and we want to justify the value of their ticket.”

Isles+ will be available at all 23 remaining 2023-24–season home games at UBS Arena, including the matchup vs. the Boston Bruins on Friday, Dec. 15 at 7:30 p.m. ET.