The sports industry benefits from the most passionate fans and followers in the world—a breed so loyal to their favorite team they’ll wear its colors proudly, name their first-born after its legendary stars, and make hard-hitting sacrifices to support that team.

When it comes to sports, good technology helps keep fans in their seats.

With an increasing number of channels through which fans can connect with their team, though, the uniqueness of experiencing a game in person is fading. Teams face a growing imperative to make their venues inviting and game-day experiences compelling in order to fill seats.

A consistent focus on four key components of the venue experience—fans, sponsors, technology, and community—will help owners and operators maximize ROI for all stakeholders, and create a place where people want to be: turning a field into a home field advantage.

Constantly connected in every other aspect of their lives, fans increasingly expect the game-day experience to be immersive, interactive, and accessible. Implemented effectively, technology improves fan communications, facilitates sponsor promotions, and streamlines overall venue operations.

A full complement of HD technology has been implemented over the past year that enables the event-day control room to mix a variety of feeds and send images (both live and prerecorded) to fans in FedEx Field. The signals are delivered to two 100ft Daktronics screens as well as to a stadiumwide video distribution system that can be configured to send different signals and promotions to different parts of the venue.

The overall system can receive and record video and audio feeds from network TV production trucks as well as video signals from the dedicated video replay system, cameras and other external audio and video sources.

Indeed, keeping fans’ interest is a challenge for all sports stadiums these days as they endeavor to create a live experience fans can’t get at home on the couch.