And there’s a deeper business lesson here for IT leaders. The stadium didn’t just add more access points. The team performed a total technology overhaul. They combined their sound systems, LED screens (including the world’s largest outdoor 4K video boards), and production systems into a single, brand-new Cisco data center. This is the “One Cisco” approach I’ve written about before—breaking down silos to create a unified, observable environment. While there are many vendors that offer products to stadiums, Cisco’s platform approach addresses all aspects of stadium operations.
Security and networking in tandem
One of the most impressive aspects of the Levi’s Stadium tour was seeing how the Secure Networking vision has come together. George Griesler, senior director of cybersecurity for the NFL, provided some specifics of the deployment while giving a tour of the security operations center.
The Super Bowl is considered a Tier 1 event, meaning it’s a high-value target for threat actors. To get ready for this, the NFL and Cisco have deployed a massive overlay network that acts as a frontline defense for the Super Bowl. A Joint Operation Center (JOC) is active 24/7, combining NFL security teams, stadium IT, and Cisco experts to monitor for incidents. Security teams are seeing a ramp-up in attacks, primarily consisting of short-lived malicious domains, credential compromises, and phishing attempts using the NFL logo.
The team uses a blocking attack philosophy—proactively stopping threats via firewalls, Cisco Umbrella (DNS), and XDR (extended detection and response) before they can disrupt game operations or human safety. Griesler shared these statistics as a snapshot of activity over a 7-day period leading up to the game:
- 27,000+ active clients on the network
- 400,000+ firewall connection attempts blocked
- 47,000+ malicious DNS queries blocked via Cisco Umbrella
The stadium network runs ticketing, medical services, and millions of dollars in concessions over the same wires, so stopping breaches is imperative.
Griesler talked about the impact if a breach were to happen: “If a threat actor takes over a scoreboard or a digital sign or takes control of a PA system, we would have pandemonium and panic in the stadium. I’m not saying breaches won’t occur, but now we have the playbook to react.”
