Vissel Kobe fans’ in-stadium experience enhanced with 5G technology

Rakuten’s J.League soccer team Vissel Kobe is raising the bar again for enhancing enjoyment of the total game experience: At the team’s home ground of Noevir Stadium Kobe, spectators have had the opportunity to take part in a number of futuristic trials utilizing 5G technology, with the support of Rakuten Mobile and its partners.

Augmented reality: A new way to spectate at the stadium?

In the age of the internet, watching your favorite sports team has never been easier. Online services offer live broadcasts and on-demand recordings of games, from which information like match stats and analysis are just a tap or a click away.

Vissel Kobe teamed up with Rakuten Mobile to turn Noevir Stadium Kobe into a cutting-edge AR playground.

Yet nothing quite compares to the experience of being there—making noise and showing support alongside an entire stadium of fans.

Rakuten Mobile thought it could combine the best of both of these worlds. During one match in November 2021, fans were able to experience the future of spectating through augmented reality.

Vissel Kobe teamed up with Rakuten Mobile to turn Noevir Stadium Kobe into a cutting-edge AR playground through the use of 5G mmWave. This high-speed, high-bandwidth and low latency implementation of 5G can make technologies like AR more seamless than ever.

The technology can utilize the full power of 5G to send data from the user’s camera almost instantaneously to a remote server, which then recognizes the features of the stadium and calculates the exact location of the spectator’s seat.

Spectators could download an app and point their smartphones (or AR-capable smart glasses!) at the pitch to see a live AR overlay with match information such as team formations, match stats, and ongoing developments.

The trials pushed exciting new frontiers for marketers as well. Tapping a player not only brings up official J.League stats, but also gives users direct access to the J.League’s official store on Rakuten Ichiba to purchase related items such as the player’s jersey.

The realm of professional sports is very important for advertisers, and so the next frontier of personalizing certain media such as stadium signs is an exciting challenge.

With an AR overlay, the possibilities seem endless: Advertising can be more personalized and adapt in real time to ongoing match events.

Some TV broadcasters are already using virtual advertising tech to digitally insert ads into stadium advertising space that only their viewers can see, but the 30,000+ spectators filling the stands still all see the same notices.

With an AR overlay, however, the possibilities seem endless. Not only can advertising be more personalized and adapt in real time to ongoing match events, it can also be displayed over areas of the stadium previously unavailable to advertisers.

Cutting-edge positioning technology enabled by 5G

The trials were made possible through an exciting new kind of positioning technology. Rakuten partnered with Finnish spatial mapping company Immersal to implement a Visual Positioning System (VPS) which can pinpoint the precise location of a spectator using the app without the need for AR markers.

The technology can utilize the full power of 5G to send data from the user’s camera almost instantaneously to a remote server, which then recognizes the features of the stadium and calculates the exact location of the spectator’s seat.

This precise positioning is hugely important for displaying an accurate AR overlay, and is a particularly impressive demonstration given the enormous size of the venue, which has over 30,000 seats in which a spectator could be seated.

Immersal, who provided the VPS technology, is a member of the Rakuten Mobile Partner Program, a project through which Rakuten Mobile aims to develop new services that leverage 5G in partnership with other companies and governments. Rakuten Mobile is planning to make the 3D point clouds used for the system available to other members of the program, with a view to seeing it utilized in more stadium scenarios in the near future.

Using 5G to avoid the crowds? Alleviating network and traffic congestion

So you’ve just watched Lincoln score his first J.League goal to secure the win for Vissel Kobe, and your AR display shows the score: 4-2! The final whistle blows, and thousands of other Vissel Kobe fans bask in collective glory. But alas, the match is over, and now it’s time for everyone to go home.

Anyone who has been to a packed sporting event has felt the pain of trying to leave as the event wraps up, only to find themselves stuck shuffling their way along an impossibly long queue out of the stadium. Do you try to get ahead of the rush, and leave before the final whistle? Or do you wait around a while? (What’s the hurry, after all?)

The issue extends beyond the limits of the stadium. Event venues like Noevir Stadium Kobe attract large crowds on match days, leading to irregular spikes in traffic through nearby train stations and local roads. Crowded public transport is a particularly important issue in the age of COVID-19, and congestion solutions are in high demand.

Rakuten Mobile teamed up with Kobe University and Denso Ten to respond to an appeal from Kobe City for ideas that use the power of 5G to mitigate overcrowding in infrastructure around event venues. As part of the ‘University-created Urban Innovation Kobe’ project, Kobe University (with whom Rakuten has worked previously in opening a groundbreaking mass vaccination center at the very same stadium) was able to apply their expertise on behavior patterns.

Over several match days in October and November, spectators were able to download an app to check congestion levels and see a prediction of how long they would need to wait for public transport at a given moment.

The app, developed by Denso Ten, also provided taxi pickup services from less crowded areas, along with live video feeds of high-traffic areas around the stadium captured by several Rakuten Mobile smartphones and beamed over its 5G network. Using smartphone cameras to capture the footage also brings the additional benefits of reducing the cost of system deployment by removing the need to install dedicated cameras.

The measures were intended to encourage stadium visitors to stagger their movements, leading to a smoother flow of foot traffic. As a further incentive, fans who downloaded the app could engage in light entertainment such as fan quizzes, and were awarded points depending on how long they waited in their seats after full time.

The points could later be redeemed around the stadium or exchanged for coupons to be used at nearby shops and restaurants. This not only eased the load on public transport by encouraging more people to stay around the neighborhood longer, but also served as an incentive to spend at local establishments and contribute to the local economy.