Atlanta Hawks Strike Deal With Comcast Business

ATLANTA -- Comcast Business announced that the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Atlanta Hawks have selected Comcast Business to upgrade the team’s data, voice and video services at Philips Arena, the team’s home court and the top sports and entertainment venue in the southeast. The Hawks will move away from managing multiple vendors for different services and instead consolidate their data, voice and video services under Comcast Business. The new agreement calls for a new, high-capacity Internet connection and faster speeds, thereby reducing the possibility of service degradation and outages that can impact fans and the team’s front office.

“Internet connectivity impacts all aspects of our operation, from enabling the media to circulate their coverage, to supporting the coaching and front office team members with everything from scouting to ticket sales,” said Andrew Steinberg, executive vice president and chief revenue officer, Atlanta Hawks and Philips Arena. “When we decided to upgrade our technology, we wanted to simplify our communications using a single provider that offered a diverse portfolio of services, a reliable network and the necessary scalability as our needs grow. Comcast Business provided all of those solutions.”

Steinberg said the Hawks needed a reliable, high capacity Internet connection that could support the needs of Philips Arena on game night, along with local and national basketball media using the Internet to file stories and blog posts, send photos and videos, and update fans on social media. To deliver the bandwidth needed, the Atlanta Hawks turned to Comcast Business for a 100 Mbps Ethernet Dedicated Internet connection over fiber to Philips Arena. In addition to Ethernet, Comcast Business is providing PRI Trunks over fiber and Comcast Business TV.

"Most enterprise IT managers don't have to worry about thousands of people suddenly showing up at their office and riding on their network, but that is a near daily occurrence for the Atlanta Hawks’ IT team," said Cleve Lewis, VP of Business Services for Comcast. “In the business of professional sports, it is absolutely a given now that fans attending games, and the media covering them, expect fast, reliable service, which our advanced Ethernet delivers.”

Comcast Business