Sky teases new experiences for fans at Wellington's Cake Tin stadium

Thursday, 22 August 2019

Sky boss Martin Stewart says it wants to deepen its connection with sports fans, and taking the naming rights to Westpac Stadium is part of that.

Pay-television company Sky is working on ideas to improve 'fan experience' when it takes over as naming sponsor of Wellington's biggest stadium.

Sky said a six-year agreement would see the 34,500 seat Wellington Regional Stadium – which is home to the Hurricanes, the Wellington Phoenix and the Wellington Lions – rebranded as the Sky Stadium from January 1.

The company said the new partnership with the Wellington Regional Stadium Trust (WRST) would result in improvements to fan experience both at the stadium and on TV.

WRST chief executive Shane Harmon said they were 'holding fire' on official announcements about what that would be until closer to renaming, but that the improvements would likely include harnessing Sky's technological and broadcasting capabilities.

**READ MORE:

A mock-up of what the Sky Stadium will look like after its rebrand.

* Sky Television writes off $670m of 'goodwill', suspends dividend

* Wellington's Westpac Stadium to get new name as bank ends its 20-year sponsorship**

'We're working through a number of ideas … we're hoping to do things we may not have been able to do in the past.'

Those changes were likely 'not operational', but 'how we can use technology to improve fan experience,' he said.

In 2015, the stadium, which is unofficially known as 'the Cake Tin' and had been sponsored by Westpac, investigated specialised mobile apps to fans and had set aside $1.5 million for investment in technology improvements for the following two years.

Sky's sport content media manager Tom Frankish said, while exact details would be released 'closer to the time', the new partnership could see unique content from Sky made available within the stadium, as well as fan offers, events and in-stadium experiences.

Technology commenter Peter Griffin anticipated that a partnership with a mobile operator would be necessary if Sky wanted to be able to offer 5G technology and fast streaming within the stadium.

'They'll need to be able to deal with a surge of people wanting to see a replay of a red card or something similar.'

He saw the naming move as the company 'reasserting its dominance' within sport coverage, without which they 'would be doomed'.

'The future is streaming and they've seen the light … eventually.'

However, a lot of that technology, including 5G, was still a year to 18 months away, Griffin said.

The stadium welcomed over 10 million fans over the past 20 years and become New Zealand's busiest multi-purpose stadium.

Stewart said its naming-rights move was part of a strategy to deepen Sky's connection with sports fans and to work with sport partners to increase fan engagement.

'We'll be there for the finale of the coming cricket season and the opening of Super Rugby.'

Elsewhere in the world, stadium technology has been advancing with the UK's Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which opened this year, considered to be one of the most technologically sophisticated football stadium in the world.

The stadium has 1,641 Wi-Fi access points that provide 100 per cent wi-fi coverage, as well as bluetooth beacons which work with an app to give fans location services.

Closer to home, Melbourne's Marvel Stadium has 1000 'medallion club seats' with in-seat tablets which allow fans to watch video action of the game they're attending or switch to games being played elsewhere.