Hal Steinbrenner will be holding a press conference with Cisco tomorrow afternoon to discuss new technological innovations that will be implemented in the new Yankee Stadium. The press release said that it would center mostly on fan-facing technology which I honestly couldn't find any information on (I may not have looked very hard). However, I was able to find this article from Cisco's website about their vision of the future of sports venues and the profit that they feel will come with it. The press conference will also reveal a new Cisco product offering for stadium and venue operators, Cisco said.
I have no idea if the new Yankee Stadium will have any of this technology that Cisco has written about in this article, but I am sure some of it will be there when the doors open next year.
I have to say, some of it is pretty scary stuff. But hey who am I kidding, I'll sacrifice some consumer habit information for a World Series or two...wouldn't you!?!
On to the creepiness...
Imagine a scenario in which a stadium network can share voice, data, and video capabilities across all business functions. Now, imagine an intelligent network that becomes “smarter” as it learns and adapts to a fan’s personal preferences by displaying favorite menu choices, controlling the luxury suite climate, reserving parking locations, offering tickets to upcoming events of interest, or displaying statistics about a favorite player.
With the growing market penetrations of Near Field Communication technology (a short-range wireless technology), radio-frequency identification (RFID), and the proliferation of personal devices such as cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) -- the possibility of deploying digital signs that “recognize” individual fans and display personal advertising or promotional content is both real and potentially very lucrative.
Today’s dull, concrete concourses -- with their stale, static advertising, forgettable directional cues, and single-channel closed-circuit TVs - can instead evolve into personalized shopping malls, interactive information hubs with rotating advertising content, and dynamic video-rich extensions of the live action. Not only does advertising and sponsorship space significantly increase, but the ideal of one-to-one marketing becomes attainable, far exceeding what can be done today.
Hmmm...sounds an awful lot like Minority Report to me. Hopefully when all this is finally implemented into a stadium we are all driving those bad ass Lexus'.
