In a world where sports is dominant, major leagues and stadiums across the country are coming up with different ways for fans to stay connected and engaged during games.

To kick off the NFL season this year, AT&T recently extended its partnership with the Dallas Cowboys with a 30-year agreement running to 2055. But the company also rolled out new features at AT&T Stadium to make game day more interactive and personalized for fans. 

Reception Connection is a new mixed-reality game where fans can play and test their skills against quarterback Dak Prescott for a spot on the leaderboard, while the Starbase Connection Feature highlights fan-submitted photos into AI-generated custom hype videos across stadium boards.

AT&T also introduced digital wayfinding, which embeds interactive mapping directly into the Cowboys app and at eight physical entrance kiosks to help fans navigate the stadium. 

Behind the augmented reality and digital games lies a large engineering undertaking.

The stadium has more than 261 miles of fiber and nearly 1,000 antennas throughout the venue, which manages network traffic for a full house, such as the 93,188 fans who attended the home opener against the Washington Commanders.

Zee Hussain, head of global enterprise solutions at AT&T, said connectivity is no longer just about having a high-speed connection, but rather, it’s an invisible thread holding the entire game day operation together, whether it’s to access tickets on apps like SeatGeek and Ticketmaster or powering the checkout counters and digital concourse signs.

“The connectivity experience is so closely tied to what you experience when you go to the venue,” Hussain told Fast Company .

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