The ever-loyal fans of the Buffalo Bills football team are in for some game-day rewards this season thanks to the technology upgrades to the fan experience coming at the new Highmark Stadium.
Shaun Handley, IT Infrastructure Project Director for the Buffalo Bills, joins us on the Stadium Tech Report podcast to outline the technology upgrades visitors will enjoy when they visit the new Highmark Stadium during the 2026 NFL football season. In our conversation, Shaun talks about the internal process for determining the scope of the stadium technology deployments in the new venue, and how fan feedback played a crucial role in prioritizing technology decisions. Only on the Stadium Tech Report podcast!
The NFL’s Buffalo fans get a new team home
The newest NFL venue, the new Highmark Stadium, opens this year right next to where the old venue was. But when fans enter the brand-new building, they will find not just a new protective overhang roof, but also a lot of underlying new technology that is all aimed at improving the game-day experience by eliminating friction and making tasks easier to accomplish.
“We looked at where we fell short, where we could excel, and what our fans wanted us to do to make it better in the new stadium,” Handley said.
Tops on that list, according to Handley, was improving the wireless fan connections, both on cellular networks as well as Wi-Fi.
“Previously, our fans had issues connecting,” Handley said. “They would go in and out of service. So that was one of the biggest things that we needed to address.”
Hyper-directional antennas for both cellular and Wi-Fi
Buffalo fans got a first look at the new venue this past weekend, when the team held an open practice at the new venue.
One of the architectural features in the new building is an extensive overhang roof, one that keeps the stadium open to the elements but covers a majority of the bowl seating.
In addition to providing some shelter for fans, Handley said the overhang also provides a perfect mounting space for the new type of hyper-directional communication antennas, which can provide connectivity from longer distances than previous equipment. According to Handley, the Bills used hyper-directional Wi-Fi antennas from Cisco and cellular antennas from MatSing to provide better coverage to the entire seating bowl, as well as to field-level seating for concerts and other non-football events.
According to Handley, the new Cisco CW9179F hyper-directional Wi-Fi 7 antennas were “a perfect fit” for under-canopy use, allowing the Bills to provide better overall coverage while reducing the need for under-seat antenna deployments.
“We chose Cisco for a full network infrastructure,” Handley said. “We had great experience with them in the past, and we wanted to continue that success in the future.”
On the cellular side, the Bills are working with Verizon to implement a full neutral-host distributed antenna system (DAS). Both the cellular and the Wi-Fi fan-facing networks, Handley added, will extend out beyond the stadium walls to parking and stadium approach areas. Part of that strategy, Handley said, is to make sure that fans who come to the stadium have great connectivity even if they don’t have game tickets.
“I can confidently say that we have the best fans in the league — the Bills Mafia is unrivaled,” Handley said. “We will have fans that will come to games and won’t even come into the building.”
Faster security, faster concessions
Two other new technologies the new Highmark Stadium will add include walk-through security scanners, and concession stands with checkout-free technology. According to Handley, the security system will be CEIA’s Opengate technology, and the concession stands will use checkout-free technology from AiFi.
“We had some challenging times with concessions, especially during halftime,” said Handley of operations at the previous stadium. “It [the checkout-free technology] just gets fans through so much faster and once they continue to use it more, it’s a real time saver.”
Now the next best moment for Handley and the Bills operation is to watch fans come in to the new building, and reap the game-day benefits new technology deployments can bring. “We are extremely excited to unveil the stadium to our fans,” Handley said. “It’s been a long time coming. I personally can’t wait to stand there and watch the faces of everyone coming in for the first time to see their new home of the Buffalo Bills.”
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