While the fans cheered, Aneesh Patel, the NFL’s director of stadium and wireless engineering, and Aaron Amendolia, the NFL’s deputy CIO, began to relax. This is because all systems, including TV broadcasting, instant replay, access control, and Wi-Fi, were operating normally and the network was operating stably.
Build a network in a week
Patel and Amendolia had a difficult week getting to that point. Patel is responsible for designing and operating the network infrastructure for all NFL stadiums, whether international, domestic or Super Bowl. Amendolia is paying more attention to strategic aspects such as frequency management. This is because Europe must use a different frequency than the United States.
Another important challenge for Amendola was the issue of privacy. Many services taken for granted in the United States, such as visitor tracking and fan data processing, are unavailable in Europe due to GDPR regulations.
3 IT equipment containers
For a three-hour NFL game in Munich, Patel and Amendolia’s team had to build the entire network, including a small data center, cyber defense system, WLAN, private LTE, VoIP call manager, and fiber optic infrastructure, within a week.
Describing the enormity of the task, Patel said: “We brought in three containers of equipment just for this Munich match.” This includes switches, routers, access points, mmWave equipment, card scanners, tablets, and bulk fiber optics. For on-premise hardware, we use Cisco‘s portfolio. “Cisco is the official cybersecurity and network infrastructure partner of the NFL, including for international games in London and Munich, and in 2025 in Madrid and Berlin,” Amendola explained.
Terabit data and the New York Command Center
When asked how many gigabits the fiber network could support, Patel laughed and replied, “We should be talking about terabit speeds.” The reason why this speed is necessary can be seen by looking around the stadium, where the large trucks of the TV networks broadcasting the game to the United States are parked. No one talks about full HD anymore. UHD, or 4K, broadcasting is now standard.
Why is so much preparation needed? In fact, Munich’s Allianz Arena is one of the most modern football stadiums in Europe. It is equipped with a solid IT infrastructure, including the latest Wi-Fi, a license plate recognition system in the parking lot, and an electronic access system.
Patel said shared infrastructure is in practice at stadiums like the Allianz Arena. Allianz Arena’s data center also includes 19-inch racks permanently installed in the stadium and several half-sized portable racks. However, the IT infrastructure requirements of American football and soccer are different. Amendólia explained, “In American football, the camera location is completely different from that of soccer, so the existing infrastructure cannot be utilized.”
Another feature, Patel noted, is that “the NFL also needs to quickly connect to the command center at Art McNally GameDay Central in New York.”
On the sideline is a small blue trolley containing a tablet. Using the tablet, referees can analyze unclear game situations in detail in VR/AR and consult in real time with colleagues in New York. IP phones controlled by Cisco Call Manager are also deployed, allowing team coaches to contact the analytics team in the backend in real time.
Core network and edge computing
Another reason the NFL has its own infrastructure is security. Network designer Patel emphasized, “In terms of IT, an independent core network is needed to ensure smooth operation of the game even if it is disconnected from the outside world.”
For this purpose, Patel adopted an edge computing approach. The network for the match itself operates with small mobile data centers, while all other services, such as TV broadcasts, are handled at the edge.
“We separated the network from the rest of the infrastructure, starting at the physical layer,” Patel added. Additionally, the network must operate reliably without unexpected load increases or interruptions. The NFL has measured loads of up to 20 Gbit/s on guest Wi-Fi networks within stadiums.
Additionally, the core network is subject to strict endpoint controls, and devices can only log in with two-step authentication. Amendólia emphasized the importance of a strict security policy through the Super Bowl held last February. “At that time, 39,000 security-related events and 354,000 connections to blacklisted areas around the world were blocked,” he explained.
Amendolia trusts NFL partner Cisco and its cloud-based security portfolio, using Cisco Umbrella, Cisco XDR, Cisco Firepower, and Cisco Secure Malware Analytics. He added that he does.
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