NASCAR takes Extreme action to boost in-stadium streaming
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Editor
| 20 February 2023
Aiming to enhance its fans’ race-day experience through higher quality access to real-time, live-streamed video from drivers and race officials, NASCAR has completed what is said to be the largest outdoor Wi-Fi 6 deployment at its racetracks.
Talladega 20Feb2023
The sites by the famous racing series include some of the largest sports venues based on fan capacity and some are located in rural areas and previously did not offer Wi-Fi. In addition, streaming live video traffic has to date has seen huge strains applied on the stadiums’ networks.

To facilitate its enhancements, NASCAR has enlisted the services of cloud networking provider Extreme Networks which has completed Wi-Fi 6 network deployments at five racetracks, including Darlington Raceway, Martinsville Speedway, Richmond Raceway, Talladega Superspeedway and the world-famous Daytona International Speedway. The latter is a key fit out, encompassing a 2.5-mile racetrack and required nearly 2,100 access points (APs), making it the largest outdoor Wi-Fi deployment in the US.

With the new Extreme Wi-Fi 6 network, NASCAR is sad to be able to offer fans the high bandwidth, high-performing Wi-Fi necessary to deliver high capacity Wi-Fi for up to 125,000 fans simultaneously, improving race-day experiences. IT teams at each NASCAR track will have visibility into network activity and performance, in addition to Wi-Fi for fans, NASCAR is also improving fan experiences with digital amenities, including mobile payments, digital ticketing and updated contactless point-of-sales systems. These are also supported by the new Wi-Fi 6 network from Extreme, ensuring enough bandwidth for both operations and high-quality audio and video broadcast systems in addition to fan access.

Said John Martin, VP of media & event technology, NASCAR. “With Extreme, we are changing the way fans experience the race. These five racetracks now have a network that can support adding more amenities for fans like in-seat concessions ordering, and our venue IT teams have confidence that they can easily monitor everything happening over the network so we can make real-time adjustments and ensure a seamless experience for everyone using a Wi-Fi device.”