How to Fill a Stadium? Offer Video Better Than TV

How do you keep football fans as regular visitors to stadiums when the television coverage of every play is so good? For the Giants and the Jets, the answer, perhaps surprisingly, is more and better video than people can get at home.

This season, the New Meadowlands Stadium will offer fans free smart-phone applications that they can glance at to see video replays, updated statistics and live video from other games -- and that will work only inside a stadium. Over the next few years, stadium officials say, the applications will provide fans with statistics on the speed of players and the ball, and fantasy games that will allow them to pick players and compete against other fans. A real-life game no longer seems to be enough. In recent years, television coverage of the National Football League has become so rich and detailed that teams and stadiums have no choice but to respond with their own technology plays. Last spring the league's commissioner, Roger Goodell, said the experience for fans in stadiums needed to be elevated to compete with television broadcasts, to keep fans engaged -- and to keep them buying tickets -- in a challenging economic climate. To do that, stadium officials here have taken steps few other NFL stadiums have. About $100 million has been spent on the stadium's technology, and a former television production executive was hired to oversee the fan experience to offer more than fans can get sitting at home on their couches in front of their high-definition television sets.