This year’s MLB playoffs were both exciting and surprising with the young and athletic Kansas City Royals, shocking the baseball world by making it to Game 7 of the World Series.
Fans flocked to the stadiums to support their teams and witness baseball’s biggest stage. And as all major sporting events today, this lead to heavy loads on the connectivity infrastructures at the ballparks.
AT&T installed Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) as in-stadium networks at ballparks in preparation for such an influx of data usage as fans shared videos of big home runs or amazing catches. In five of the ballparks where the network system was installed, the average cellular data usage on the network was at 352GB, an 86 percent increase compared to the average data usage of the last home series of the regular season. Talk about some social baseball experiences for fans.
AT&T also set its own all-time record for mobile data traffic usage at AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, where they installed two complementary networks–DAS and WiFi. As AT&T’s innovation blog points out, fans used the most data during Game 4 of the World Series; and consumed approximately 2.1TB of data across both networks, specific numbers being more than 477GB of data on the DAS and more than 1,626GB on WiFi.
The numbers achieved by AT&T prove that more and more sports fans are sharing what they experience at sports venues. But with digital engagement strategies by teams continuing to evolve and progress, it would not be surprising to see mobile data demand continue to skyrocket.
Here are some more of AT&T’s interesting data traffic stats from this year’s MLB playoffs:
AT&T had five venues with cellular DAS coverage, and a total of 18 playoff games were hosted at these stadiums. The average cellular data usage on AT&T’s network for each of these games was 352GB.
- 352GB of data is an increase of 86 percent compared to the average data usage per game at the final home series of the regular season across all five venues.
- Out of these 18 games, the highest single game total for cellular data usage on a DAS was at Busch Stadium in St. Louis during the league championship series on October 11, when more than 508GB of data crossed the network. The highest peak hour of cellular data usage on a DAS also occurred October 11 at Busch Stadium, when more than 84GB of data crossed the network from 8-9pm CT.
- AT&T set all-time records for mobile data traffic usage at AT&T Park, where they have two complementary networks–DAS and Wi-Fi.
- During the final round of the playoffs, fans used the most data during Game 4 played on October 25 at AT&T Park, consuming approximately 2.1TB of data across both our cellular DAS and WiFi networks (more than 477GB of data on DAS and more than 1,626GB on WiFi). This is equivalent to more than a whopping 6 million social media posts with photos.
- However, perhaps the most telling statistic is that WiFi usage during the final round of this year’s playoffs at AT&T Park increased approximately 302 percent compared to the average game during the final round of the 2012 playoffs.
