Lions Turn to Wayfinding to Make it Easier for Fans to Navigate Stadium

The team is using Apple’s Indoor Positioning technology to accomplish the feat.

Stadiums can be difficult places to navigate.

With herds of people, confusing setups and crowd flows that don’t work right, getting lost happens to even the best of us.

In order to help mitigate these problems, the Detroit Lions have teamed up with YinzCam to integrate Apple’s Indoor Positioning technology into their iOS app.

As part of the $100 million dollar renovation of Ford Field, the Lions become the first team in the NFL to implement such a wayfinding solution in their app.

By simply accepting the app request for location services, Lions fans will see their current position on the app’s interactive map, identified by a blue dot that moves throughout the venue as they do. An intuitive filtering system allows them to select from a variety of new clubs, bars and popular Detroit restaurants now represented inside the stadium, and even view the menu of local flavors offered. Upon selecting their desired destination, a dotted line appears pointing the way.

The wayfinding feature also recognizes when fans move from one level of Ford Field to the next, changing the view to show their exact location at all times, and displaying the nearest restrooms, merchandise or concession stands. The Lions plan to expand the range of the interactive map in the future to include additional attractions outside of the stadium, such as the team’s tailgate on Brush Street, zip line and food trucks.

“Before we had our map, we had a lot of fans who would ask simple questions, like ‘Where is the elevator?’ or ‘Where is the restroom?’ But this map has everything layered into it,” said Todd Marcy, the Lions’ Director of Digital Operations. “YinzCam’s custom development also provides us with a lot of flexibility, so that we can quickly go in and modify the locations within the map, adding a new concession stand or menu, depending on what type of event is taking place on a particular day.”

While this is a great way to appease fans of the headaches that come with trying to find a certain food vendor during a crowded halftime, we all know that this is just another way for teams to gather more data on their fans, which at the rate people give away their data nowadays, isn’t anything to raise a red flag about.

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