Pro sports teams are always looking for ways to generate more revenue and at the same time offer fans a better experience. By taking advantage of Apple’s ibeacon bluetooth technology, the Golden State Warriors appear to be doing just that. It is a technology that most teams in major league baseball already use, but the Warriors would be the first team in the NBA to use it. What is it you may ask? Hit the jump.
@IamJoeSports
Thanks to our resident technology king @Tatwza I can explain to you guys what the ibeacon’s are capable of doing. They are Sensors that use low-energy Bluetooth signals to communicate with any phone that has the team’s app installed…. Sonic Notify, the company that installed several dozen 2-by-2-inch beacons in Oracle Arena (where the Warriors play) says sports franchises are the ideal businesses to use this kind of technology. So lets say you have tickets to a game but you aren’t thrilled with your seats, if you have downloaded the teams app and you have the bluetooth on your phone turned on, you may receive exclusive deals directly from the team about upgrading your seats that the general public would not know about. You do have to be within a certain proximity for it to work, but if you are already in the arena you can’t get much closer than that.
The main issue with teams using ibeacon technology is persuading fans to download the app and to also remind them somehow to keep the bluetooth power within their phone on. The company who installed the ibeacons said that on average less than 30% of people who have bluetooth equipped phones keep it on regularly. But in this case if you are a Warriors fan who likes to attend games, I have a feeling once more word gets out about this you will stay with the bluetooth on. Nothing better than expecting to sit in the nosebleeds at a game and wind up upgrading to a much better seat for a fraction of the price other fans paid.
