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Washington Redskins kick off the season with digital signage Virtual Field Goal Challenge

Digital signage brings fan engagement to the football field in the new Social Media Lounge at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland.

October 6, 2014 by Christopher Hall — w, t

The NFL's Washington Redskins kicked off a new Social Media Lounge at FedEx Field that features an interactive gaming wall that allows fans to attempt a virtual field goal via interactive digital signage.

Sponsored by Bud Light and developed and deployed by MVP Interactive, the Lounge features MorphingStations (screens that take pictures of fans and transform them with face paint or football helmets, etc.), Virtual BobbleHead tablets (tablets that take pictures and transform fans into virtual bobblehead dolls), and a UHD 4K Interactive Gaming Wall with the Virtual Field Goal Challenge.

"The Redskins are always looking to provide the most cutting edge technology to help enhance the game day experience for our fans," Washington Redskins CMO Mitch Gershman said in a blog post on the MVP website. "Our social lounge accomplishes just that while also providing value to our partner, Bud Light."

MVP Interactive, a technology, marketing and software company specializing in in-venue interactive audience engagement, called the deployment its "most expansive single-venue activation" in the blog post. The Lounger launched at the Redskins' home opener on Sept. 14, and will be active for each of the team's home games over the course of the next two seasons, the company said.

"The debut of the Redskins' Social Media Lounge marks an exciting milestone for our company as it enables us to showcase all of MVP's fan-engagement capabilities in one place," said James Giglio, CEO and founder of MVP Interactive, in the announcement. "NFL fans typically arrive to the stadium several hours before the game and often linger once the game is complete. The Lounge offers these fans a fun way to demonstrate their love for the Redskins and provides our sponsor, Bud Light, with yet another fan touch point."

MVP has outfitted the Lounge with two MorphingStations, freestanding kiosks embedded with cameras and morphing technology that transforms fans into a virtual, "Super Fan" bobblehead adorned with team colors. Fans can choose from a variety of virtual eyeblack and team logo options in Redskins colors and team helmets. Once the transformation is complete, fans can post their image to social media or input their email address and have the image sent to them directly. In addition to the MorphingStations, fans can also transform into Super Fans using one of the multiple Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Tablets running the Virtual BobbleHead technology.

The center point of the Lounge is MVP's Gaming Wall, a 4K ultrahigh-definition multiscreen touch display featuring both a virtual field goal experience and a live social media tracker. Leveraging the Microsoft Kinect gesture technology embedded in the Wall, fans can take a shot at kicking field goals in the Lounge while tweets using #Redskins, #httr, #BudLight and #upforwhatever are posted in real time on the wall.  

During the first two games of the season, MVP said, its audience measurement software registered nearly 5,000 fan impressions and lengthy engagement times. The Lounge captured more than 500 unique email addresses during the hours in which it was active, while social media postings of user photos resulted in hundreds of social media shares. 

Watch a video about the Social Media Lounge and Virtual Field Goal Challenge below:

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