Cisco plans to enhance the Yankee Stadium ballpark experience with lots of tech.
Cisco, which seems to have settled on wiring ballparks as a potent marketing tool, today announced that the new Yankee Stadium, set to open April 2009, will outfitted with Cisco technologies, giving New York Yankees fans the most wired, connected and video-enabled stadium in all of baseball. A new Cisco technology called Cisco StadiumVision will provide fans with the most technologically advanced game-day experience in baseball, while maximizing the great historical tradition of the Yankees organization.
Much of what Cisco proclaims as being "revolutionary" is already being done at many MLB and MiLB ballparks, like closed-circuit broadcasts on the concourse and other spots throughout the ballpark, so we won’t bore you with all the details. Instead, we’ll focus on what’s unique in Cisco’s installation, such as:
- Along with the live game broadcast, monitors will be capable of simultaneously providing up-to-date sports scores, Yankees trivia, news and weather from a single viewing screen. At the conclusions of games, these monitors will allow the Yankees the ability to direct patrons to the nearest exits and provide up-to-the-moment traffic information. In the event of an emergency, all stadium monitors can be immediately and uniformly mobilized to display evacuation instructions. On non-game days, these same monitors can be used to display customized content and information for special events such as conferences, weddings and other group activities.
- Premium luxury suites will be outfitted with touch-screen Internet Protocol (IP) phones that will allow fans to order concessions and Yankees merchandise for delivery to the suite.
- Down the road, the Yankees will be able to support fan use of mobile devices for ordering concessions from their seat, viewing instant replays or chatting in real time with friends inside and outside the stadium. In addition, the stadium has the capability to allow fans to communicate with players before or after the game using interactive video-based technology.
As we snarked earlier, most of this isn’t really revolutionary; the Mets are also instituting an integrated IP network at Citi Field, and we’re guessing the Twins are planning some similar things in their new ballpark. Mixing technology and baseball is a challenge once you get past the scoreboard; fans never seem too interested in using their handhelds or mobile devices.