If you have an HD TV, the Sunday Ticket package and a comfortable couch, a Sunday afternoon at home can be a better experience than a Sunday afternoon at the stadium. NFL teams understand that, and are trying to improve their stadiums to keep up with home.
The Packers are one such team: They’ve got a long season-ticket waiting list, so they don’t have to worry about filling Lambeau Field right now. But they want to make sure that the experience of being there is as good as the experience at home, so they’re adding bigger scoreboards, better concessions, places to watch the game while standing and other amenities with an eye toward competing with the experience of watching the Packers from home.
“Our business is very competitive,” Packers President Mark Murphy told the Green Bay Press-Gazette. “We’re competing with ourselves, in a sense, because TV is so good and we want to make sure the experience in the stadium is unique. It really focuses on technology.”
Improving the technology at stadiums is something NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has mentioned: He wants fans to have high-speed internet access on their smart phones and tablets while sitting in the stands, and he has talked about making TVs available with the Red Zone Channel, so that fans who are at the stadium enjoying one game can also keep tabs on all of the other games.
There are some fans who think nothing compares to the experience of tailgating, being out in the elements and enjoying the game with tens of thousands of your fellow fans. There are other fans who think nothing compares to the ability to enjoy the comforts of home and change channels during commercials. And then there are fans in the middle, who can see the pros and cons of both ways to experience the game. The Packers are trying to make sure that for those fans, the pros of Lambeau Field outweigh the cons.