Lafayette's FanconneX Delivers Game Day Data to Fans - In Their Seats

When Lafayette-resident Mike Birdsall sings “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” he’s thinking of something way better than simply sitting idly in the stands with peanuts and Crackerjacks.

He’s the CEO of Lafayette-based FanconneX, a software company that makes it possible for users of mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, to send and receive information about an event while it’s actually happening. This class of software is referred to as mobile venue apps, or MVAs, and they mark a shift in mobile computing both in technical terms of how handheld devices process and present data, and how venues and event organizers interact with fans during events.

FanconneX was a very early mover in developing and deploying MVAs, and it continues to push the envelope even as the potential of these applications is driving them toward broader adoption across major venues.

Truly interactive
Mobile applications targeted at events and venues have been around for years, but have largely offered static content, such as maps, event calendars, and bulletin boards, essentially porting the information available on a website onto a small screen. The new generation of MVAs offer truly interactive features specifically designed not only for mobile technology, but for how actual mobile users behave while in a venue.

"We’re looking at, 'What is the behavior (of the mobile user)?' and then building an app around the behavior," Birdsall says of the approach to building interactive MVAs. The key, he says, is to, "make it a specific mobile behavioral experience."

The experience can be a rich and thoroughly engaging one, if done right, supporters said.

FanconneX provides social features such as access to  facebook and chat, as well as streaming video replays, in case a fan misses a key moment of a game or event.  All of the features are provided in realtime, to any mobile device with an Internet browser, as the event is unfolding, which gives fans the opportunity to share immediate insight or argue about a close call in the middle of a game.

Creating a new in-venue experience
Stanford Cardinal fans got a taste of this new type of mobile app in the fall of 2011, when it rolled out Stanford Game Day Live, based on the FanconneX platform, at Stanford Stadium and Roscoe Maples Arena.  The university already had a sports-focused app called iCardinal, which provided static content covering each of its major athletics programs and venues.  However, as fans continued migrating to mobile computing in their everyday lives, it made sense to provide that connectivity at events.

"It was a desire to make it so that attendees of games are able to have the same [digital] experience they have in the rest of their lives," says Kevin Blue, Associate Director of Athletics Business Strategy and Revenue Enhancement at Stanford University.

FanconneX enjoys a close relationship with AT&T Wireless and Cisco Systems, who see well-designed MVAs as a means to deliver content that will in turn drive network usage.  So, once work started on the network at Stanford, all eyes turned to Birdsall and FanconneX to design a mobile experience for their fans.

In addition to real-time stats and chat, Stanford Game Day Live offers fans video replay, which is a neat trick given the licensing restrictions Stanford faces as a NCAA Division One team.  Video of a football or basketball game cannot be broadcast outside of the game’s venue without special licensing agreements.  FanconneX’s technology, however, is cloud-based, which means that there’s a box in the venue that serves content, both video and otherwise, to mobile devices logged-on inside the venue. Once a user logs off and leaves the venue, the content is not longer accessible. Leveraging the cloud is both a clever way to provide a higher level of interactivity (data is pushed out as it’s generated by events in the venue) and address rights issues faced by top-tier collegiate and professional sports venues.

Early to the game and still swinging for the fences
FanconneX’s approach evolved from the early, ugly-duckling days of mobile data, when the methods and machines involved in moving data to and from mobile devices were young, clunky, and not very pretty.  One of the earliest venues to take a swing at MVAs was PacBell Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.  As early as 2004, the Giants felt a need to get ahead of the game.
"We were ahead of the curve because we’re in AT&T Park," says Bill Schlough, Senior Vice President and CIO of the San Francisco Giants, "and, we’re in silicon valley. Our fans tend to be more technically savvy."

Initially, Schlough says that the wireless network was designed only to offer fans with laptops the ability to surf the Internet, the way they might in a hotel, airport, or local Starbucks. In 2005, FanconneX came on scene and set up a mobile portal that offered games, scores, stats, and news, but still mostly to laptops and the awkward, first-generation handheld devices.  It was static stuff accessed only by several hundreds of fans, according to Schlough.

The game changed in 2007 with the arrival of the iPhone, the first widely-adopted device that could elegantly manage mobile data. Viewing the Giant’s mobile portal via the iPhone was much better and even allowed users to maximize and minimize pages for better viewing on a small screen. But, the Giants and FanconneX soon realized that just viewing what was on the Web wasn’t living up to the potential of mobile.

"We then quickly figured out that it’s not the best way to do content,” Schlough recalls. It was then that FanconneX changed its game and focused on how mobile data could best enhance the fan experience. The result was its version of a truly interactive MVA that in 2010 attracted around 14,000 users per game, at a time when no other Major League Baseball team offered a mobile experience, according to Schlough.

Major League Baseball eventually caught on and in 2011 took over the mobile experience with its proprietary MVA called, At the Ballpark.

Still, Schlough gives a nod to the pioneering efforts of Birdsall and FanconneX,  “If we didn’t have the MLB app, we’d be using FanconneX.”

FanconneX is still growing with its deployment at Stanford, as well as at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minn., home of the Minnesota Wild hockey team, and more on the drawing board. Across the country other venues are rolling out interactive MVAs as both venue operators and mobile users begin to understand the potential that mobile data holds for enhancing event experiences. Other companies have entered the interactive MVA business, but few have experience with such early, large-scale deployments. The technology and how people use it at live events continue to evolve and if Birdsall has his way, ballparks will have a lot more to offer fans than just peanuts and Crackerjacks.

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