Latest / The 5G Podcast with Fexingo: Wireless Networks, Carriers, and Mobile Infrastructure / How 5G Is Quietly Transforming the Stadium Concession Experience
Transcript
- Lucas: If you've been to a big stadium event in the last couple of years, you've probably stood in a concession line that ate up an entire quarter of the game. That might be changing faster than most fans realize. Luna: I've definitely been that person sprinting back to my seat with a cold hot dog. What's actually different now? Lucas: The short answer is 5G — specifically, private 5G networks inside stadiums that let thousands of fans order food from their phones simultaneously, and have it ready at a pickup counter within minutes. Luna: Right, because public cellular tends to get crushed when 70,000 people all try to load the same app at halftime. Lucas: Exactly. That bottleneck is the whole reason stadiums are investing in their own private 5G infrastructure. The poster child for this is Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, home of the Falcons and Atlanta United. Luna: That place is already famous for its fan-friendly pricing. I remember they dropped the price of a hot dog to two dollars a few years ago. Lucas: Right, they've been aggressive on value. But on the operations side, they partnered with a company called Appetize — a cloud-based point of sale platform — and rolled out a 5G-powered mobile ordering system in 2023. Lucas: The idea is simple: you open the stadium app, pick your items from any concession stand, pay, and you get a notification when the order is ready. Then you walk to a dedicated pickup area — no standing in the main line. Luna: And 5G makes that work because of the latency and capacity, right? Lucas: Exactly. When tens of thousands of orders fire off in a ten-minute window during halftime, you need the network to handle that burst without lag. A private 5G network — often operating in the CBRS band — provides dedicated spectrum that isn't shared with general public traffic. Luna: How much did it actually improve the experience? Do you have numbers? Lucas: The team at Mercedes-Benz Stadium published some pretty striking data. Their average concession wait time dropped from about 12 minutes to under 90 seconds for mobile orders. That's an 87 percent reduction. Luna: Wow. That's not incremental — that changes how you plan your entire game-day experience. Lucas: It does. And the business results back that up. Per-capita food and beverage spending increased by 16 percent after the system went live. People are buying more because they trust they'll actually get the food before the next play. Luna: So higher revenue for the venue, happier fans. What about waste? Mobile orders should theoretically help with inventory management too. Lucas: Absolutely. The same cloud-based system gives concession managers real-time visibility into what's selling, in real time. They reported a 23 percent reduction in food waste in the first season. They can adjust prep quantities on the fly based on actual demand data. Luna: That's a huge sustainability win, especially for events where you're throwing away tons of unsold hot dogs and pretzels at the end of the night. Lucas: Exactly. And the private 5G backbone is what makes that real-time data possible. Traditional Wi-Fi can struggle with dense crowds and interference from concrete and steel. 5G — especially with small cells deployed throughout the venue — offers more consistent coverage and lower jitter. Luna: Is Mercedes-Benz Stadium the only one doing this, or are other venues following? Lucas: They're a pioneer, but not alone. SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles has a distributed antenna system that supports 5G, and they've rolled out a similar mobile ordering platform. Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas is testing private 5G for concessions too. Lucas: The pattern is clear: venues that already invested in private 5G for fan experiences — like augmented reality or in-seat video — are now extending it to operations. Concessions is just the highest roi use case because it directly drives revenue. Luna: What about smaller venues? Minor league ballparks, college stadiums — can they afford this kind of infrastructure? Lucas: Cost is coming down. A private 5G network for a mid-size stadium can run in the low millions, but carriers are starting to offer neutral-host models where the venue doesn't have to build it alone. And the return on investment from increased concession revenue typically pays for the network in under three years. Luna: So the business case is pretty self-evident. But I wonder about the workforce side. If people are ordering on their phones and picking up at a counter, does that reduce the number of concession workers needed? Lucas: It's more of a shift than a reduction. The traditional model needs a cashier at every register. With mobile ordering, you still need people to prepare food and stock the pickup stations, but you don't need as many point of sale terminals or the staff to run them. Lucas: Some venues have actually increased staffing in the kitchen and pickup areas while reducing cashier roles. And because the system captures data, workers can be deployed more efficiently — moved to busier stations during peak times. Luna: That sounds like a net positive for the fan, but it does require reskilling for some workers. Not everyone wants to move from cashiering to food prep. Lucas: True. There's a human element that venues need to manage carefully. The early adopters have been transparent about the transition, offering training and shift flexibility. Luna: Let's talk about the tech stack for a second. Beyond 5G, what else is in the mix? I've heard edge computing mentioned in this context. Lucas: Edge computing is critical. The private 5G network connects to a local edge server inside the stadium that processes orders and payment transactions. That means the entire loop — from your tap to pay to the kitchen display — happens within milliseconds, without going back to a central cloud data center. Lucas: If every order had to travel to a cloud server in, say, Virginia, you'd add 30 to 50 milliseconds of latency. That might not sound like much, but when you multiply it by thousands of simultaneous orders, it creates a lag that affects the user experience. Luna: So edge brings the processing close to the action. And 5G provides the high-bandwidth, low-latency pipe to make it all seamless. Lucas: Exactly. It's a classic case of complementary technologies working together. And the same infrastructure can support other use cases — real-time seat upgrades, merchandise ordering, even interactive games during commercial breaks. Luna: It feels like stadiums are becoming testbeds for what retail could look like in the 5G era. You're essentially running a pop-up store inside a crowded, high-demand environment. Lucas: That's a great way to put it. And the lessons from stadiums are already being applied in other high-density settings — airports, concert venues, even large office campuses. The combination of private 5G, edge computing, and cloud-based point of sale is proving out at scale. Luna: Before we wrap up, I want to ask about the future. Do you see mobile ordering with 5G becoming the norm at every stadium within, say, five years? Lucas: I think by 2030, a stadium that doesn't offer a frictionless mobile concession experience will feel as outdated as one without Wi-Fi. The technology is proven, the economics work, and fans expect it. The main barrier is the upfront capital for the network, but as neutral-host and shared-spectrum models expand, that barrier will drop. Lucas: If today's conversation gave you a useful lens on how 5G is reshaping something as mundane as stadium food, that's exactly the kind of insight we try to bring each week. And the reason we can keep doing that without any ad breaks is listener support. Luna: Yeah, it's a small thing that makes a big difference. If you find value in these deep dives, buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo helps us keep the episodes focused and ad-free. Lucas: So back to the stadium — I think the next frontier is personalization. Imagine the app knowing your usual order and offering it with one tap, or suggesting a new item based on your past choices and real-time inventory. Luna: That would be powerful. And with the data from these systems, venues could even predict demand for specific items based on the opponent, weather, or day of the week. Lucas: Exactly. The 5G infrastructure makes that kind of real-time personalization possible at scale. So while the immediate benefit is shorter lines, the long-term payoff is a completely different relationship between the venue and the fan. Luna: All from a hot dog and a beer. It's amazing how a technology like 5G can turn something so ordinary into something much smarter. Lucas: That's the quiet transformation we keep coming back to. Not flashy, but deeply practical. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back next week with another angle on how 5G is reshaping the world around us.