Worcester Red Sox Bring Major League Fan Experience to Polar Park with Extreme Wireless

The Worcester Red Sox, nicknamed the WooSox, is a professional minor league baseball team that began playing in 2021. Succeeding the Pawtucket Red Sox, the team is a Triple-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. Polar Park, home of the WooSox, is a newly constructed ballpark located in Worcester, Massachusetts that sits on 6 acres of land and has capacity for nearly 10,000 patrons.

While baseball is the centerpiece, Polar Park and the WooSox have created a ballpark experience that welcomes everyone by providing events year-round, from football games to wine tasting festivals. The team’s slogan, “WooSox ‘23: Even More to Do and See”, promises to deliver a year full of improvements and enhancements. Helping them fulfill that promise is Extreme’s comprehensive, MLB-grade wireless solutions.

Challenges

Deploy major league-grade wireless network to support thousands of stadium-goers, their devices, and stadium operations
Deliver robust connectivity throughout entire solid concrete and steel stadium
Seamlessly blend technological amenities into stadium experience

“The great thing is that we put in an Extreme network three years ago, and that network still has plenty of headroom. We really aren’t even scratching the surface of what the network can handle.”

Mark Ayotte

CIO, Worcester Red Sox

“Having that seamless network that we have with Extreme leads us to be able to [operate] easily, seamlessly. And in three years zero latency, zero drops. We looked systematically about what we could do to deliver a major league product to a minor league venue. And I think we’ve done that here.”

Robert Malone

Vice President of Ballpark Facilities, Polar Park

Extreme Solutions

• ExtremeWireless™
• ExtremeSwitching™

Results

Major League Deployment

• First minor league ballpark to deploy comprehensive, whole fan Wi-Fi network
• Digital amenities like fully autonomous retail experience, digital ticketing, touchless payment and more supported by network
• Voted #1 Triple-A ballpark in America with no complaints about Wi-Fi

Uninterrupted Connectivity

• Reliable, strong Wi-Fi connections throughout solid concrete and steel stadium structure
• Less fiber use for delivering production video and audio to and from stadium control room

Room to Scale

• Easy handling of continually doubled data usage with no downtime and plenty of headroom
• Three years after deployment with no latency or interruptions

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Source:
Extreme Networks