At least 60 percent of at-home NFL viewers were looking at another device while watching professional football games, according to an NFL executive quoted in a 2014 GeekWire story.
“You can literally see the spikes in tweet traffic that are perfectly coordinated with interesting moments in the game,” Dick Costolo, then Twitter CEO, said in the story.
Richmann, the Marion Hawkeye fan, has missed only two UI home football games in 29 years. He likes to text with friends watching the games at home to tell them what he’s seeing in the stands, celebrate a great play or commiserate about a blunder. Other fans post selfies or pictures of the kids posing with Herky.
“We see that sort of behavior between classes,” Fleagle said about people pulling out their phones during short spurts of downtime. “People use their screens frequently.”
The UI has been trying to improve wireless service at athletic venues for several years, signing a contract with American Tower Corp in 2013 to develop networks at Kinnick and Carver. The UI terminated the deal in 2015, saying ATC failed to finish the project on time. The company sued the UI and the Board of Regents for breach of contract. That trial is scheduled for Jan. 22 in Polk County.