It’s fall which, at my house, means football.

So far this season, we’ve been enjoying watching our Oregon Ducks take down their opponents from the comfort of our chips-and-queso-dotted couch, but man, those stands at Autzen Stadium look good. Going to a game – the noise! The camaraderie! The tailgating! The collective breath-holding! – has long been the ultimate experience of a sporting event; sitting at home or even cheering in a bar with a hundred of your closest friends pales in comparison to being there for the real thing.

But now, our expectations for viewing an event are changing. What we care about about in sports and how we watch sports is changing. It seems that social media and our attachment to our internet-enabled phones are simultaneously enhancing and interfering with the game.

A year ago, some friends and I watched the Saints take down the Cardinals in the Superdome. One of my friends was glued to his phone the entire time, his audible reactions incongruent with the game on the field. He was, of course, keyed in to what was happening with his fantasy team – a multibillion-dollar industry – and was repeatedly updating his app and lamenting both its poor interface and the slow connection in the stadium. To be fair, New Orleans isn’t his team and the game was a bit of a blowout, but you would think the excitement of being in the Dome would be captivating enough for a big sports fan like him. No, the fake game was more exciting than the real one.

Were he watching at home, he wouldn’t be paying $90 for a nosebleed seat – we were literally in the top row – and $9 for a beer, and thanks to DIRECTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket, he wouldn’t have been missing all the other games. And, perhaps most important, he would have had good internet.

So when the game is no longer good enough, when we can no longer focus on one thing at a time, you better believe the league takes notice.

The San Francisco 49ers’ brand-new, $1.3 billion Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara included a $125 million technology budget. The stadium will have super-fast internet as well as beacons throughout to help attendees locate nearby concessions and restrooms. College stadiums too: across the country they are making upgrades, hoping to compete with the at-home experience of clean restrooms, easy access to food, fast internet and free parking.

Teams are also developing apps that allow game-goers to order food right from their seats and that reward season ticket-holders for loyalty. Loyalty points, which can be earned by doing things like “liking” team content on social media, can be redeemed for upgraded fan experiences – sideline or tunnel access, cheerleader meet-and-greets, etc.

Social media also brings us closer to the players, allows us to see our friends and family tailgating or engaging in game-day rituals, gives us easy access to stats and updates, and extends the conversation around big plays and much bigger, farther-reaching topics in sports like racism and sexuality. It shows us the agony of Brazil’s fans during the game against Germany. It lets us loop Michael Sam sacking Johnny Manziel as many times as our little hearts desire.

I like to tease my husband, a lifelong Portland Trail Blazers fan, about his childlike worship of – okay, man-crush on – Damian Lillard. He follows him on Facebook and YouTubes TV spots he’s in, and we both had to open up all internet browsers on all our devices to vote for him for his two ESPY nominations.

This spring, Samsung partnered with LeBron James to create LeBron, an app that works exclusively on Samsung phones. LeBron is known for going social media radio silent during the NBA playoffs to avoid distraction and naysayers. (Oh right, were we talking about social media getting in the way of the game?) But anyway, this app gave fans access to him for those 40 nights and they were able to “connect” with LeBron over more than just sports – the app included a radio station with his favorite songs and updates about his charity work and family life (and about what he’s eating and wearing).

The celebrity of athletes is nothing new, but the intimate access we have to their lives off the court is. In this way, we get to “spend more time” with them. We feel like we know them better which, in any real life situation, would mean we care more.

We’re at the same time more and less connected to and concerned with the athletes and the game before us.