FC Barcelona has announced the next step in its ‘Espai Barça’ stadium development project, unveiling ‘Mobile Barca’.
The La Liga club has partnered with a New Era Visionary Group (NEVG), a connectivity and infrastructure integrations company, and Orange, a telecommunications firm.
Barcelona plans for the initiative to deliver services to its fans such as mobile plans, data services, fibre optics and others. The club’s Camp Nou stadium will also be equipped with 5G+ connectivity provided by orange to enable continuous connection for attendees.
The club hopes that this will allow some fans to live stream from mobile services. The tech will be further integrated with the club’s systems with the end goal of enhancing operational efficiency.
Juli Guiu, FC Barcelona’s Vice President of Marketing, said: “Espai Barça must be the catalyst for the club’s digital transformation, and having the best connectivity in the stadium is essential to providing a unique match day experience for all our fans and visitors.
“At the same time, the launch of ‘Barça Mobile Services’ with NEVG and in collaboration with Orange will be a major step forward, offering all users a mobile service with a wide range of possibilities and many advantages for FC Barcelona members.”
As stated above, the integration forms part of Barcelona’s ‘Espai Barça’ initiative, a club project carrying the tagline ‘more than a stadium’. The club sees offering connectivity to its fans key to providing a unique experience at the stadium.
The Nou Camp is one of the most iconic stadiums in both Spanish and world football, alongside the Bernabeu of Barcelona’s arch rivals Real Madrid. The stadium has been the focus of development and enhancement efforts by Barcelona in recent months.
Back in August the company partnered with ticketing technology company Fever in a five year deal to enhance online ticketing for Nou Camp fixtures. This followed a deal in June with Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE) to embed cloud-based technologies across the stadium.
