Having made a steady start to the 2026/27 season in Germany’s Bundesliga, Bayer 04 Leverkusen, one of the country’s leading professional football clubs, has also seen goals scored in connectivity after selecting Extreme Networks to deploy the first Wi-Fi 7 network in a German football stadium at BayArena.
Founded in 1904 by employees of pharmaceutical company Bayer AG, Leverkusen spent the vast part of its early history in the lower levels of German football until it was promoted to the Bundesliga in 1979.
The club has been successful at home and abroad, winning the Uefa Cup in 1988, the DFB Pokal in 1993 and 2024, the German Supercup in 2024, and most notably, the Bundesliga itself under the management of former Liverpool and Real Madrid legend Xavi Alonso, also in 2024.
A new era for the BayArena stadium began at the start of its rebuild in 2007. The club believes its modern arena represents “a state-of-the-art sports venue [that] has arisen out of the little gem of a ground”.
The network upgrade is another part of this, designed to deliver increased performance, enhanced security, higher throughput and lower latency, and ensuring the club can support seamless wireless connectivity on its biggest matchdays when just over 30,000 fans fill the stadium.
The deployment will see more than 400 Extreme Wi-Fi 7 access points provide coverage across the stadium bowl, training facilities, concourses, pitch-side areas, lounges, VIP spaces and hospitality areas.
As regards what Extreme would describe as “seamless” stadium connectivity for fans, the Wi-Fi supports experiences from the stands to the back office. It is said to be able to keep fans engaged with instant replays, live stats and personalised mobile offers, while ensuring digital signage and audiovisual systems operate reliably throughout the venue.
In addition, the network delivers centralised management, giving the club visibility and control from a single platform and simplifying day-to-day operations for Leverkusen’s IT team. The team can also segment the network, keeping different types of users and traffic separate so payments at concession stands, staff communications and other critical systems are separate from fan Wi-Fi.
As well as inside the arena, the club’s wireless network extends approximately 30 metres beyond the BayArena gates, giving fans access to digital tickets even when cellular networks are under pressure. This has been a major challenge for the most modern connected stadiums.
Andreas Hinder, head of IT at Bayer 04 Leverkusen, said: “BayArena has hosted countless legendary matches, and the technology behind it needs to keep pace with the game. Extreme Wi-Fi 7 gives us the connectivity to support more fans and staff with a significantly higher number of devices and more data, while keeping critical stadium operations running reliably, from Bundesliga matches to international competitions.”
Thomas Mehrfort, head of sports and venues for EMEA at Extreme Networks, said: “The need for high-performance connectivity across the stadium has never been greater. With Extreme Wi-Fi 7, Bayer 04 Leverkusen is building a smarter, more resilient venue where the network creates a foundation for richer fan experiences and enables the next generation of live events.”
In addition to Bayer 04 Leverkusen, Extreme powers venues across Europe, including German football teams Borussia Dortmund and Borussia Mönchengladbach, at the Olympiastadion Berlin, and stadiums within Essma.
