Philadelphia Eagles’ Lincoln Financial Field Beefs Up IPTV, Digital Signage With FanConnect

Technology controls LEDs in suites, concessions, other areas for all events

NFL clubs are re-examining their technological infrastructure to see if it’s creating an enjoyable experience for fans in the stands. As sports venues grow larger and host more events, the tech stacks are under additional stress. In the case of the Philadelphia Eagles and their home at Lincoln Financial Field, the 2018 Super Bowl Champions switched to IPTV and digital signage with the assistance of FanConnect.

“This [upgrade] was necessitated by a bigger initiative to renovate our suites,” says David Sullivan, senior broadcast and media engineer, Philadelphia Eagles. “When we looked at adding more technology, it was a good opportunity to go IP.”

Scanning the Market: Offline Testing Takes Place During the Offseason

Messaging on LED screens welcomes fans to their dedicated suite at Lincoln Financial Field and can be changed via the venue’s new IPTV platform.

The renovation efforts were a response to the venue’s previous system, which was aged in comparison with those at other stadiums. Since opening on Aug. 3, 2003, the building relied on QAM RF distribution for all digital signage. Once an IP-based system was decided on, the tech team began checking out available options near the end of the 2023-24 season. With a short timeline for completing the project — mostly to align with the NFL season start in late August — Sullivan and his crew went on a crash course to determine what was compatible with current workflows.

“We spent about eight months evaluating providers of IPTV digital signage,” says Sullivan. “We started calling around to friends around the league and asked a number of them if there was a company that they thought we should look into.”

The cloud-based solution gives the Eagles control of signage to add or take away certain elements.

Much of the testing phase was done offline in a real-life yet replicated environment. They tested many products with a small-scale scenario as a baseline, and, after suite-holder feedback was incorporated, many solutions tested didn’t meet expectations for many of the large-scale events that would take place in the building.

The organization once again looked outside for an answer. The conversations, along with a visit to NAB 2024 in Las Vegas, were fruitful, but the one that left the biggest impression was one suggested by MetLife Stadium VP, Stadium Technology, Ryan McKenzie. Sullivan’s industry peer referred him to FanConnect: an IPTV, digital-signage, display, and content-technology provider that has partnered with other professional franchises and collegiate athletics programs.

Getting to Work: Install Begins in March, Launch Takes Place in May

FanConnect was ultimately chosen, and the real work needed to begin. The only problem was that the company initially didn’t have a portion of the workflow that Sullivan was looking for.

Concession stands on the main concourse of Lincoln Financial Field leverage FanConnect’s services.

“When we started working with David [Sullivan], we didn’t at that point support LG Web OS system on Chip (SoC), which is what he had and what he wanted,” explains Brett Crossley, VP, product, FanConnect. “We spoke with LG’s technical team, and, after looking at all the documentation, we knew we could do it but it would take a bit of work.”

Crossley and his team came aboard the project in early March, but, with a major sports event scheduled for the venue in May, the timeline for completing the installation was extremely short. The event wasn’t an ordinary event; it was the 2024 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship. The two semifinal matches on Saturday, May 25 and the National Championship on Monday, May 27 continued the legacy of the competition at the venue, which was hosting it for the seventh time in 21 years and the third time in the past five. With an eventual attendance of 31,479 fans for the title match, the system needed to be ready to handle a massive number of people.

“We were able to onboard 32 suites [for that tournament] in just two months,” says Crossley. “We ended up deploying full-suite implementation before the Kenny Chesney concert on June 8, and, since David [Sullivan] liked what he saw, we ported our design for concessions prior to the start of preseason.”

A touchscreen in the suite enables fans to access the various TV feeds.

Less than two months after Chesney’s performance, the Eagles’ first and only public training camp, on Aug. 1, was the team’s first use of the new system. It was deployed for the first preseason game vs. the Minnesota Vikings on Aug. 24 and the first regular-season game vs. the Atlanta Falcons during Monday Night Football on Sept. 16.

Ease of Use: System Handles Venue’s Varied Events

The result of the project is a robust system that infuses cloud-based software with top-of-the-line equipment at numerous touchpoints in the venue. Displays throughout the stadium and at the team’s training facility at the NovaCare Complex total more than 1,400 and include 577 in suites and 322 concession menu boards. The displays deploy LG WebOS 4 and WebOS 6 devices, and the televisions in the suites are managed through Q-Sys and FanConnect’s device-control APIs. Ten FanConnect headend servers provide corporate-partnership assets in designated areas and integrate live 50/50 raffle information in real time to the dedicated LEDs. The IPTV system distributes channels from DIRECTV, over the air, and in IP-encoded internal video feeds and has the capability to control specific stakeholder branding via a custom smart-suite-signage app. Outside the stadium, digital signage facing I-95 is also powered by FanConnect.

From Eagles and Temple University football games to music performances and concerts, event scheduling is vital to the building’s success.

Sullivan’s biggest concern was durability to withstand a long calendar of sports events — including the home schedule of Temple University football — and live entertainment, the ability to adapt to the various needs of clients, and the need to streamline operations to prevent unnecessary headaches. The company’s solutions handle all three factors, with event-based scheduling seamlessly switching among events, data-driven concessions changed on demand (including hiding alcohol sales during a certain time in the game), and allowing tasks to be handled through a web-based device because the platform is in the cloud. In addition, device management can recognize the time slots of different events and automatically swap Eagles info with Temple info and vice versa.

“It’s less work because you’re not having to go in and take a whole bunch of displays and change them over,” says Crossley. “Our focus is trying to make that [process] easier while making sure it works well.”

Compared With the Rest: FanConnect’s Largest Deployment of Devices

Suite TVs feature the live game feed and an L-bar with other pertinent information.

This is, without a doubt, FanConnect’s largest tech implementation for any given customer. It’s a milestone worth celebrating after the entire platform was rebuilt 3½ years ago to accommodate the industry’s need for reliable IPTV. The system’s very first IPTV implementation was at Ohio Stadium in 2012, where fans in premium seating can watch the game live on tablets and order food and beverages through FanConnect’s Touch solution. The provider has built on this success and met the goals of teams in other leagues, including a deployment on Opening Day for the San Diego Padres at Petco Park.

“The goal,” says Crossley, “was to do exactly what we’re doing now: power every television in a venue.”

A suite at Lincoln Financial Field with multiple TVs

Although the Eagles and Temple seasons are in full swing, the working relationship between the club and FanConnect is ongoing. The Eagles in-venue team has become extremely comfortable with the new system and are confident enough to stretch the limits on what is possible.

“They were upfront about what they could do,” notes Sullivan. “There was great project management to make sure that everything was met, and there were numerous times when they were a week ahead of schedule. We’ve been able to tweak some of these solutions to make them work efficiently in our environment. Those conversations are a lot smoother with a partner who cares.”

FanConnect is open to any feedback for multiple reasons. Such communication gives its customers the best service possible and also fine-tunes the workflow for future implementations.

“We can see David’s feedback in real time, which helps us hear about what’s working well, what’s not working well, and what they’d like to be changed,” says Crossley. “Our speed of feature development and improvement to the product is at a very high rate. We’re also committed to making our system run without failure or interruption to avoid any issues on game day.”

The Philadelphia Eagles will tap into this new IPTV system during their next home game, vs. the Carolina Panthers on Sunday, Dec. 8 at 1 p.m. ET.