It’s hard to believe that Super Bowl LI is almost here. As the Official Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Analytics Provider of Super Bowl LI, Extreme has been working all season long to ensure NRG Stadium is equipped to provide high density Wi-Fi for the 70,000+ fans expected to be at the game. We were also curious to see how fans were using Wi-Fi throughout the regular season, so during four regular season games hosted at Extreme-powered stadiums, we reached out to fans on social media to see how ExtremeWireless^TM was enhancing their in-game experience.

We got feedback from more than 1,700 fans on Twitter and the results were pretty interesting. Overall, an average 31 percent said they were using the Wi-Fi to update their social media feeds. It looks like Patriots and Bengals fans have a soft spot for their moms. At the game on October 16, 2016 at Gillette Stadium, nearly half of the respondents (48 percent) said they used the Wi-Fi to text their mom. In terms of using the Wi-Fi for fantasy football apps, fans at the Ravens vs. Bills game on September 11, 2016 at M&T Bank Stadium were the most compelled out of all four games to check in on how their players were performing.

 

 

With just two weeks left until Super Bowl LI, we’re not only curious about who will win, but we’re looking forward to seeing how fans’ usage of Wi-Fi to update social media throughout the season will translate to the big game and what platforms they’ll use the most. Will they be sending snaps of Lady Gaga’s halftime show or posting a selfie on Facebook in their seats waiting for kickoff? 

At last year’s Super Bowl, social media was the second most popular application group.  While fan usage of social media isn’t exactly a revelation, the change in which social media applications are favored over others year-over-year and which social apps consume the most network bandwidth, are fascinating trends to explore.  For example, Facebook reigned king as the most popular platform based on fans’ mobile engagement, with Instagram and Twitter taking second and third place.  That said, SnapChat, an image messaging and multimedia app, continues to experience growth in both the percentage of fans using the app and the amount of bandwidth the application consumes.    

Stay tuned – we’ll have all the details on fans’ mobile activity at NRG after the game.