Photo by afagen

With tens of thousands of fans jammed in last October for post-season baseball, Nationals Park was buzzing with enthusiasm for D.C.’s first playoff-bound team in nearly 80 years. It was also a hive of wireless data activity, with practically every person in attendance carrying a smartphone, and many of them attempting to tweet to the world their presence at games.

Of course, as anyone who’s ever been in a massive crowd in the era of smartphones knows, that many people simultaneously trying to access the wireless networks can result in a lot of communications difficulties. Nationals Park has a wifi network for spectators, though it, too, quickly gets overloaded. So the Nationals are getting an upgrade to their broadband Internet subscription that the team hopes will help fans stay online throughout games.

Nationals Park is getting an ethernet dedicated Internet line from Comcast, capable of supporting up to 1 gigabit of data per second, the cable company announced today.

“When we first opened the ballpark in March 2008, our fans were not utilizing our wifi network to the extent that they do now during an average game, which is why we needed to increase the bandwidth supporting our Internet service,” Jason Zachariah, the Nationals’ chief technical officer, says in a press release.

Part of the upgrade is so that the team can start selling concessions to fans who order from their seats using their phones. But adding a system through which people can buy beers and hot dogs and other snacks without having to amble up to the concourse required a stronger data network.

The upgrade is also intended to help out journalists covering the game. As the team has improved and the number of platforms covering the games has increased, the press box has also needed a bit more juice. But with the upgrade, things are running more smoothly, says Tom Bridge, who covers Nationals games for We Love DC.

“Last year we were frequently struggling to stay connected as the network was pretty saturated up there, but so far this year, it’s been a pretty seamless experience for us,” he writes in an email.