The NFL Installed A Bunch Of iBeacons In New York City For The Super Bowl

Craig Ruttle/ApImages

Just in time for the Super Bowl, the National Football League installed a network of iBeacons in New York City's Times Square and the MetLife Stadium.

The plan is to serve up personalized ads and alerts to people through their smartphones during the Super Bowl.

For now, The New York Times reports, the alerts are mostly limited to "practical news" like the nearest entry gate or promoting in-store sales.

"The power of this is it really is able to connect the real world, the brick-and-mortar world, with the virtual world with a level of granularity that hasn't existed before," NFL's general manager of mobile Manish Jha told The Times.

Beacons are a small, low-cost piece of hardware that relies on Bluetooth to transmit messages or prompts directly to a smartphone or tablet. Already, every consumer with an Apple product running iO7 is poised to receive and transmit Beacon messages.

More From Business Insider

• How To Find Out If Your Gmail Was Hacked
  

• Why Amanda Knox Is Completely Innocent And The Italian Justice System Is Utterly Insane
  

• The Colleges With The Most On-Campus Drug And Alcohol Arrests
  

• This Girl Offers A Random Guy A Bud Light Only If He Agrees To Be 'Up For Whatever Happens Next ...'
  

• You Won't Be Able To Watch Live Streams Of The Super Bowl In The Stadium