Rochdale Football Club Top of the League with visiting Press and Media
About Rochdale AFC
Rochdale Association Football Club was founded in 1907. The ground, Spotland Stadium, offers capacity for 1,800 fans and the club currently resides in the Coca-Cola Football League Two.
The club narrowly missed out on promotion to League One for the first time in its history via the play-offs in 2007-08.
The Challenge
Rochdale Football Club had reached a point where they needed to assess the connectivity on offer for journalists attending matches at their ground.
The original means of connection relied on journalists to have their own individual Internet connections and laptops, which caused issues with speed and reliability. Rochdale AFC decided they needed to provide all press and media present at their games with a reliable and stable Internet connection.
The club needed to provide one connection directly into their ground which the media could access to send match reports and images quickly and efficiently. This required a high quality and reliable Internet service from a single service provider with centralised support.
In addition to this, the club had itself become particularly reliant on the Internet for general organisation and e-mail, sponsorship and vital football related activity. The club’s Web site was the first stop for fans and press waiting to get the latest news and results.
The Solution
We supplied two high speed Office broadband connections, one into the press and media area and another into the club office, along with suitable wireless broadband routers. The connections provided downstream speeds of up to 8Mbps, with upstream speeds of up to 832Kbps.
The Benefits
The new connections meant Rochdale AFC were able to offer an enhanced service to visiting journalists. Journalists were still able to connect via their laptops but, by offering wireless connectivity solely through Zen, the service quality and reliability were both greatly improved.
Furthermore, by improving their club office connection, Rochdale AFC employees were able to upload news to the club Web site at a much faster rate. Higher speeds also meant they could now offer video and audio files alongside news articles. On non-match days, the club were also now able to offer reliable connectivity for functions and events – a boost which would bring important, additional revenues to the Club.
Our aim has always been to provide the very best service and resources for the various media outlets visiting Spotland Stadium and our package has been enhanced further still thanks to Zen. The excellent Broadband service we can offer to journalists is the best on offer, leading to the club having a very good reputation for Internet service.
In terms of our office connection, the increased upload speed means that all our online activity is done much more efficiently. From a cost effective point of view, we are now saving time which can be allocated to other tasks, Zen have delivered their promises and we are extremely happy with the service.
Stuart Ashworth, Media Officer, Rochdale Football Club
For further information on Rochdale Association Football Club visit www.rochdaleafc.co.uk.
