The Ballpark Stadium of the Future

thejrwr writes to mention a CNN article about the ballpark stadium of the future. The new Cisco stadium for the Oakland A's will be a paragon of the company's technologies, with cellphones carrying personal data used for advertising and identification purposes. "Cisco, which makes the routers, switches and other devices used to link networks and direct traffic on the Internet, is trying to shed its image as solely a maker of networking infrastructure gear. The company also hopes to capitalize on products and services that utilize the network. One example is TelePresence, a technology similar to video conferencing that Cisco introduced last month that aims to deliver a three-dimensional feeling that the participants are all in the same room."

Comments

Technology advances...

[Duncan3]

Ad technology that is.

The best part is you cannot leave the stadium until you buy at least $100 worth of advertised product, but you get to do it with your cellphone! Yay, how cool! Go Cisco!

People really still drag themselves to a stadium through all that traffic when HDTV exists?

.

Re:Technology advances...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Cisco, which makes the routers, switches and other devices used to link networks and direct traffic on the Internet"

It looks like CNN needs more knowledgeable technical people.

Re:Technology advances...

[Kangburra]

People really still drag themselves to a stadium through all that traffic when HDTV exists?

Yes, social interaction, atmosphere, making friends etc.

It's not just about the game, there's more to it than that.

Re:Technology advances...

[cptgrudge]

Actually, yes. Nothing quite like sitting several rows back from third base and having to actually watch a baseball game to make sure you don't get a foul ball delivered to the upside of your head. Makes the game much more exciting to watch.

Re:Technology advances...

[uvajed_ekil]

Ad technology that is. The best part is you cannot leave the stadium until you buy at least $100 worth of advertised product, but you get to do it with your cellphone! Yay, how cool! Go Cisco! People really still drag themselves to a stadium through all that traffic when HDTV exists?

Last time I checked, HDTV in my living room can't duplicate the amazing feeling of a ballpark. I say screw the over-commercialization of baseball, but I still love going to a ballgame (sometimes alone, so I can really watch the game, and I even keep scor once in a while, though I don't go home to my my mom's basement afterward, sorry), and having history happen right in front of me. If you're actually at the game, you can avoid looking at ads by watching the game!

If I had to choose between either baseball or the internet being allowed to survive a nuclear cage match, I'd have a hard time deciding. Besides, even though HDTV is becoming common, I still don't have an ABHCD (Authentic Ballpark Hotdog Cooker and Dispenser).

Re:Technology advances...

[Jerry Smith]

Besides, even though HDTV is becoming common, I still don't have an ABHCD (Authentic Ballpark Hotdog Cooker and Dispenser).

Should've stayed at your mom's basement then, shouldn't you :p

Re:Technology advances...

[MojoStan]

People really still drag themselves to a stadium through all that traffic when HDTV exists?

People really still go through the "hassles" of getting laid when HDTV POV porn exists? (Should I post this comment anonymously?)

I'd guesstimate that over 90 percent of HDTV telecasts show the game from the center field camera. Most of the time, you see nothing but the pitcher, catcher, batter, and home plate umpire from a behind-the-pitcher point of view (no porn joke intended). When the ball is hit, the camera follows the ball. Sure, those are usually the most important things happening at the moment, but a lot more is going on off-camera. Also, the limited view of any camera shot does not give a good perspective of the amazing speeds, distances, and skills displayed in a big league ballgame.

Some of the things you miss when watching a game on HDTV instead of at the ballpark:

• A perspective of just how shallow Mark Kotsay (Oakland Athletics) positions himself in center field (to prevent bloop singles) and how skillful he is when running down a drive hit over his head (he actually takes his eyes off the ball and finds it again before the ball comes down).
• A perspective of just how tall and intimidating Randy Johnson is (6'10", 95-100MPH) on the pitcher's mound (10" high, 60'6" away from home plate).
• The beauty, coordination, rhythm, and skill of both middle infielders working together on a 6-4-3 double play (the tv camera follows the ball and shows one player briefly at a time).
• The off-camera action when a hit-and-run is being attempted: runner(s) going as the ball is being pitched, a middle infielder (which one depends on the batter and the pitch) covering second base, a weakly-hit ball going through the infield area vacated by the infielder covering the stolen base attempt.
• The sound and mood of an entire impatient New York ballpark when Alex Rodriguez ($25 million salary) boots yet another ground ball at Yankee Stadium.
• An HDTV center field camera does not do justice to the sight (and sometimes sound) of a 100MPH Rich Harden (Oakland A's) fastball and a swing that's quick and accurate enough to hit it. At the ballpark, that pitch looks impossibly fast. A swing that can hit it looks like an optical illusion.

I guess you have to be a baseball nerd to appreciate some of these things. I also notice a lot of "business-related entertainment" attendies at AT&T Park (S.F. Giants) that seem to ignore about 90 percent of the game. They enjoy being there for other reasons I can't relate to (not that there's anything wrong with that). MLB in the Silicon Valley should attract a good mix of baseball nerds and "suits" trying to impress business clients.

Re:Technology advances...

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember this is NEWS FOR NERDS~! what Social Interaction?

Re:Technology advances...

[drsquare]

Yes, social interaction, atmosphere, making friends etc.

Not to mention, being able to look at any part of the field you want, not the very small section the director wants you to look at, or a closeup of some celebrity in the crowd, or some commercials, or an irrelevent replay from ten minutes ago, or some talking heads, or any other crap that gets in the way which is avoided by actually going to the game.

You can have the biggest resolution TVs in the world, it still won't count for anything until they invent a technology which allows you to see the entire field, all the time, completely uninterrupted. And no announcers.

Re:Technology advances...

[Anonymous Coward]

And drunken fans, (for some teams) gang members/hooligans, overpriced concessions, uncomfortable seats, bathrooms from some inner circle of Hell and general filth, all for the joy of watching whiney, papmered millionaires play a child's game. Whee! And don't forget the fat heat attacks in waiting shouting "*WE* won" afterwards as if their beer swilling and gravitational inertia had anything to do with it. Joy!

And I can't socially iinteract with friends in front of an HDTV? If we need the stadium atmosphere, we could always fart a lot or piss on the carpet.

Good for Cisco

[robinesque]

But it seems like the users of the ball park are going to need a lot of specialized gear to fully utilize the park... Will it degrade gracefully?

Spooky

[AKAImBatman]

Okay, that's just spooky. I get done watching the season finale of Eureka in which one of the characters uses a holographic phone from Cisco to communicate with the mysterious bad guys. And what do I find on Slashdot?

One example is TelePresence, a technology similar to video conferencing that Cisco introduced last month that aims to deliver a three-dimensional feeling that the participants are all in the same room.

Am I going to start hearing the twilight zone music or something? :P

Re:Spooky

[Anonymous Coward]

or they use ideas based on reality?

Re:Spooky

[Anonymous Coward]

TV producers get paid megabucks by the big corporations to insert product placements into their TV programs.

If Star Trek were made today, they'd probably have found some devious way to work brand names like Cisco into the plot somehow.

Re:Spooky

[Ninjaesque One]

It's called the holodeck; did you even watch Star Trek?

Re:Spooky

[WilliamSChips]

Product placement like in Eureka doesn't really bother me that much. It gives them a little bit more money and it's not like they're saying the name of the product repeatedly. The only thing that bothers me is that someone like Samantha Carter would use a Dell.

Re:Spooky

[Anonymous Coward]

Telepresence is very sweet. I was able to get a demo of it when I was visiting Cisco last week, and it really does seem like you're sitting at the same table as the other people. They have a round conference table, split in half. Half is in one room, the other half is in the other room. To fill in the missing half, there are 3 very large seamless hd sets (1080p), forming the other side of the circle. In front of every seat is a microphone, so when someone speaks, the sound actually seems to come from them. It's pretty damn sweet, but expensive as hell (it's sold as an entire product; screens, cameras, desk, chairs, etc.).

If our company could afford it, we'd be installing them in a heartbeat.

Waste of taxpayer money

[portforward]

Look, I have nothing against sports, or sports fans. If they want to go cheer whomever they want, that is fine. Just pay for the building yourself, don't use my tax dollars. Case in point - my hometown Seattle. Apparently nobody liked it because it wasn't new enough or old enough. (the problem with the ceiling tiles was fixable for less than a half billion dollars) So, they tore down the Kingdome to make room for two half-billion dollar buildings. (I heard that there was still three years left on the bonds for the Kingdome - the county hadn't finished paying the mortgage!)

One of those buildings is perhaps used 14 days out of the year. In it, the second richest man in the world pays 50 odd men multiple million dollars a year a piece to play a child's game. As a tax payer and potential fan, I have to pay a lot of money to see the inside of a resource that I pay for.

I don't buy the "increased tax revenue" bit- people would spend their money in other ways. It isn't like I can tell my friends, "hey let's go down to the stadium and play football on the grass". This is a pure taxpayer takeaway, and it sickens me how city after city falls for it. If they want to conduct a business, they should have to pay for the facility just like any other business.

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[MichaelSmith]

the problem with the ceiling tiles was fixable for less than a half billion dollars

Did you skip three orders of magnitude or where they really expensive tiles?

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[portforward]

I was being facetious. I have no idea how much it would have cost to replace the tiles, but it certainly would not have cost as much as demolishing one facility and then building two new state-of-the-art facilities (I guess by an order of three magnitudes).

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[Aqua OS X]

Well, you can argue that a new stadium is an investment in the city. It can revitalize an area of town and attract new business.

Case in point, PacBell/SBC/AT&T Park has been a contributing factor to completely revamping the Embarcadero in San Francisco. That said, although SF contributed a few million dollars in tax abatements, the stadium has been privately funded.

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[jlarocco]

Well, you can argue that a new stadium is an investment in the city. It can revitalize an area of town and attract new business.

Bullshit. I could say that about any building. "If you build this new Intel fab for us, it will revitalize the area and attract new businesses. It's an investment." Every other business is lucky if they get tax breaks when they build a new building. They sure as hell aren't paid for with tax dollars. Why should sports stadiums be any different?

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[britneys 9th husband]

Agreed, and this is just the tip of the iceberg of government waste. If we took all of the money being spent on the war in Iraq and redirected it towards building baseball stadiums, we could build a new ballpark (at a cost of $250 million) EVERY SINGLE DAY. Or if we built nicer $500 million ballparks we could put one up every other day. Imagine, your kid could play little league in a real 50,000 seat baseball stadium when he's 11 instead of being blown up by some militant in some godforsaken desert when he's 20.

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[kfg]

I don't buy the "increased tax revenue" bit- people would spend their money in other ways.

It's the Fallacy of the Broken Stadium.

KFG

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

I am in the same boat as you. I love baseball, football, basketball (SF Giants, 49ers, and Sac Kings) but I still think it is a joke that the public needs to help finance stadium/arena deals for billionaire owners. The only thing a city and its residents should be doing is providing unused land. I live in Sacramento, and the arena deal here was just shot down big time by the voters. The owners are casino running billionaires but still need the public to finance just about every cent of their arena? The Maloof brothers have always claimed that Arco Arena doesn't have enough luxury suites, which doesn't help much with their revenues, etc, etc.. The cost of going to a game (family of 4, food, parking, etc) has gone up dramatically in Sacramento (and probably elsewhere too), but by making a $500 million arena it is somehow going to get cheaper or stay the same price? Hell no. What a great investment for the city taxpayers. Pay for an arena that will get increasingly harder to attend games at! One thing that I found hilarious too was that right before the election (a month or so?) the Maloofs did a commercial for Carls Jr. where they are sitting around in Vegas eating some gross fast food burgers, and having 25 year old bottle of Merlot (or some shit). The $6000 burger. What a great commmercial to do right before you need to pass a screw-the-citizens-in-the-form-of-a-sales-tax-hike measure on the ballot.

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[damsa]

They didn't tear the Kingdome to make two different buildings. The baseball park was built along side the Kingdome, it was only when the football stadium was built that the Kingdome was demolished. The increase in revenue also comes from higher property values and increase in the number of residential homes in the area. But anyways your point is invalid as it applies to the Oakland/Fremont park, as that park is privately financed.

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[legallyillegal]

One of those buildings is perhaps used 14 days out of the year. The Seahawks aren't the only tenants.

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[jahudabudy]

I have no idea if the "increased tax revenues" really offset the cost of a half-billion dollar stadium, but the fact that people will spend their money in other ways isn't the point. the fact that people will travel to Seattle to spend their money for a baseball game that would have spent that money somewhere other than Seattle is the heart of the argument. Sports stadiums are tourist attractions.

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[MojoStan]

One of those buildings is perhaps used 14 days out of the year.

The Seahawks aren't the only tenants.

You are correct. In fact, that building the GP was referring to ("14 days out of the year") is hosting 17 "events" (2-day events counted twice) this month alone.

That's not the only information the GP left out (I'm not from WA, so please correct my mistakes). I'm now replying to the GP:

Just pay for the building yourself, don't use my tax dollars. Case in point - my hometown Seattle...

...the second richest man in the world pays 50 odd men multiple million dollars a year a piece to play a child's game...

...This is a pure taxpayer takeaway, and it sickens me how city after city falls for it. If they want to conduct a business, they should have to pay for the facility just like any other business.

You say your tax dollars, but it's unclear how much of your tax dollars payed for the stadium. According to the Washington State Public Stadium Athority's FAQs, the tax dollars used came from "Washington State Lottery; King County sales tax; King County Hotel/Motel tax; deferred sales tax in King County; and stadium and exhibition center parking and admissions taxes."

More importantly, neither the Seahawks nor Paul Allen own Qwest Field. Qwest Field is owned by "the public" (the state of Washington). If the stadium is going to be owned by the state of Washington, shouldn't taxpayers pay the vast majority of the cost? The public "only" payed $300 million for a stadium, event center, and parking garage that cost at least $430 million. The private sector (mostly Paul Allen) payed the remaining $130 million plus cost overruns (anybody know how much?) for that stadium owned by the state of Washington.

Sure, that stadium might be a waste of money, but it's their (state of Washington's) stadium. Sure, you'd expect the team (or in this case, the owner) to chip in since the team is a major beneficiary. But I can't recall any team or owner contributing anything close to $130 million for a publicly owned stadium and also pay an annual lease to use it. Washington might be lucky to have such an uber-rich uber-sportsfan that's willing to contribute that much for a stadium he pays to use and doesn't even own.

As a tax payer and potential fan, I have to pay a lot of money to see the inside of a resource that I pay for.

(WARNING: BAD COMPARISON FOLLOWS)

As a tax payer and potential student, you'd have to pay a lot of money to "see the inside of" Washington State University, which you payed for. I know, that's an awful comparison. I think my point is that you don't use some of the things you paid for with your tax dollars and you need to pay to use some of the things your tax dollars payed for.

I'm sure the Seattle Cooks!! expo didn't pay an unreasonable amount of money to use Qwest Field from November 3-5. If you want to hold a big event in Seattle, you now have a great big attractive venue to hold it in. Maybe you didn't need it, but "your" stadium isn't just for the Seahawks.

As for that other stadium next door (Safeco Field, home of the Mariners), the state of Washington didn't get such a good deal. I'm pretty sure it was all publicly funded and I remember huge cost overruns when they rushed its completion so that it wouldn't need to compete for attention the next season, when other new ballparks were opening.

Also, the proposed new stadium in TFA is dissimilar to the stadiums in Seattle. It's going to be privately funded and privatel

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine, your kid could play little league in a real 50,000 seat baseball stadium when he's 11 instead of being blown up by some militant in some godforsaken desert when he's 20.

This is why he should have worked hard in school, right Senator?

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[BoberFett]

Minneapolis/Hennepin County/State of Minnesota is screwing us over in the same way. I feel your pain.

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[isaac]

Look, I have nothing against sports, or sports fans. If they want to go cheer whomever they want, that is fine. Just pay for the building yourself, don't use my tax dollars. Case in point - my hometown Seattle.

Yep. That's why voters in Seattle approved Initiative 91 requiring the city to receive a "fair value" cash profit greater than or equal to the rate of return on a 30-year U.S. Treasury Bond in exchange for any subsidy. It was approved by a 3-1 margin (74%-26%), I think accurately reflecting how fed up people are state subsidies for billionaire team owners (Allen, Schultz).

I call this a ray of hope.

-Isaac

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[Aqua OS X]

You're honestly comparing a intel fab to a ball park?

Once again, case in point, AT&T Park. The SF Embarcadero an industrial area, much of which sat under a freeway until it collapsed in '89. It was a land of warehouses sprinkled with crack heads and liquor stores. That's really not the case any more, and I would argue AT&T park has played the biggest role in initiating that change. It bought tourists, which attracted restaurants and, gasp, stores. You can actually buy food of the non-funion variety now.

  It also raised property values which made it feasible for a lot of local warehouses to sell and relocate. That area has become one of the nicer places to live in SF. I highly doubt a new industrial building would've had the same effect.

That said, it was one of the few stadiums to be primarily -privately- funded. Moreover, tax breaks for revitalization initiatives are not uncommon. In the San Francisco Bay Area they're more common then sour dough bread, useless cable cars, and man on man action.

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[Biff Soupbone]

Why do you hate our troops?

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[WilliamSChips]

Democratic Senator Kerry says a single tactless statement and the conservative media screams about it for weeks. Republican Representative Foley molests little kids and the conservative media tries its hardest to scrape it off. And they say the media has a liberal bias?

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[jdelisle]

A professional athletic team is much more valuable to a city than you might think. The stadium alone is a source of revenue and advertisement for the city, not to mention the benefits of hosting many other activities (high school sports, monster trucks, professional wrestling, concerts, etc) that benefit citizens. Most stadiums also come with gigantic convention centers that are an additional source of income. If these things weren't making money and benefitting the city, they wouldn't continue to be built.

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

When the next big earthquake hits PacBell stadium will collapse into the dust if it is built on filled land. Candlestick Park is built on bedrock which is why it stayed up during the '89 earthquake.

Re:Waste of taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

Not according to my mother. She lived in San Fran when they built Candlestick. According to her it was built on a garbage landfill and at first smelled so bad the locals called it "Candlestink Park."

terminology change

[cucucu]

pitch: ping
home run: tracert
out: ttl expired

you say...

Re:terminology change

[hadhad69]

and if your losing.. ipconfig /flushdns

Re:terminology change

[hadhad69]

I suck at spelling. -1

Or they could just make the game more exciting....

[antifoidulus]

I haven't watched baseball in a while(I'm from Pittsburgh, so maybe that explains why :P) but on a recent trip to Japan I was in Hiroshima and heard that you just HAVE to see a Hiroshima Carp game. So I plunked down the 2000 yen to get a pretty good seat on a bench(there are security guards there whose job it is to find people seats) and was amazed at just how much fun baseball really could be. From the cheers to the fast pace of the game(9 innings only took 2 hours and some change IIRC) it was an environment I had never seen in the US. It was organized chaos.

Granted, the players in the US are probably better than the Japanese players, but damn the Japanese games are much more fun to watch.

The design makes no sense

[Prototek]

Look at the picture in the article. There are stands in the middle of outfield and they look like they block the football field too. The baseball/football field stadium makes for a bad seating arrangement.

Re:The design makes no sense

[Aqua OS X]

Watch sports much? That's Oakland Coliseum. It caters to the Raiders, the A's, and or whatever else books that stadium. It has retractable seating.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&safe=off&cli ent=safari&rls=en&sa=N&resnum=0&q=Oakland%20Colise um&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=wi

Tickets

[cnorrisjr]

if your ticket was on your cellphone, you would never lose your ticket. BUT. if your cellphone is stolen, there goes your game, if not the whole series. And what if you wanted to sell your tickets or give them to a friend. would my friend have to take my cell phone?

Re:Tickets

[gatesvp]

And what if you wanted to sell your tickets or give them to a friend. would my friend have to take my cell phone?

Not an issue, nobody wants you to transfer tickets. Customers want to do it all the time (especially if you have season tickets), but the ticket sellers want nothing to do with it (probably something to do with scalpers). So ticket sellers just kind of ignore that transferring of tickets even exists.

Advertising Overload

[poormanjoe]

Ad technology that is.
I agree although it probly won't be as obvious to an average person as it is to us that loath advertisments.

People really still drag themselves to a stadium through all that traffic when HDTV exists?
You can easily make it to Wrigly Field by way of "The L." Location is everything in bussiness.
  From the article:and pay to show them on the Jumbotron.
For the /.er's who aren't baseball fans thats the equvilent of paying someone to boost your XBox Live score. If you want to get on the Jumboscreen you bring kids, a funny sign, paint your face, and just be a good fan. Paying does occur already for marriage proposels, but special occasions are different than some rich drunk slob who's just going to kiss a clients ass.

Corporate Dollars

[wanax]

First of all, I'd like to point people to: http://www.fieldofschemes.com/ which details how sports teams use public money. Although the editorial is certainly against stadiums, the numbers are about the best you can find.

Since I've been following the A's stadium on the site mentioned above for over a year, I can tell you that it is by no means a done deal. Among other things, there aren't enough police to regulate games, and who's to pay for the increase necessary for that is absent in the current deal.

Why we should all hate baseball

[mikeal]

The A's are a perfect example of why we all should stop watching baseball. First they threaten to leave Oakland, so the city dumps money into them on the condition that they sell last minute tickets at a price Oakland residents can actually afford. Then a year or so later they complain they need more money and that selling tickets people can actually buy is cutting into their profits and they also want more money to pay off more players because the MLB doesn't have salary caps on players or teams. So Fremont opens their checkbooks and buys the team, and Cisco comes along and to create a new field that will insure nobody from Oakland or Fremont will ever afford a ticket. In a couple years the A's will just pull this crap all over again.

I'm not a football fan, but the NFL has price caps on teams and players. The teams tend to care more about where they play and the fans follow with them even if the team is doing terrible. The A's don't have a lot of people forking out money because nobody can be proud of a team that keeps threating to leave in order to grab more money. In the same city of Oakland you can go see a packed Raiders game in the middle of one of the worst Raiders seasons in the teams history. If you're coming through the Oakland Airport you'll see a huge line of Raiders fans after the game flying home. Even when they don't live here anymore they still love the team and will pay plane fare and ticket fair to see a loosing team.

We should just start boycotting baseball entirely, there is nothing there to respect anymore.

Re:Why we should all hate baseball

[daemonenwind]

You come close, but then veer so far off.

Baseball truly does need a salary cap to keep things competitive. I live in Milwaukee, where we recognize that the Brewers are essentially an expensive minor-league team, and so we never expect another season like the pennant run in 1984. If you're expecting a good won/lost figure, the smaller-market teams will never have it. And, if they ever get close, their rosters will be torn apart by actual big-league teams throwing money at their players.

And of course, the idea that a professional sports franchise somehow deserves locally-generated welfare is stupid. Just tax each MLB millionaire half his salary for each building project. I bet those overpaid nancy-boys will find they can actually play ball in a stadium more than 10 years old.

However, the cost of a ticket isn't what keeps people out of baseball. Checking the A's website, I find that I can purchase an advance ticket for $10, and fairly nice seats for $30.

Tickets for the Raiders start at $26 for a small zone up high. And, for decent seats (comparable to the $30 for Baseball) you're looking at $61. And you admit yourself that most of the people going to games are from out-of-town.

The problem isn't cost, it's being able to believe that the show is worth seeing.

Re:Why we should all hate baseball

[MtViewGuy]

(getting on soapbox)

Personally, I blame soon-to-be former Mayor Jerry Brown for the A's leaving Oakland. The A's had an excellent, privately-financed plan to put up a new stadium just north of Jack London Square that would have literally transformed Oakland, since having some 80 games there per year would attract a lot of development around the ballpark, which would have strongly revived the economy of the city since the stadium would be so close to downtown and Jack London Square (I believe it would have been located on the waterfront, which meant you could even get to the game by ferryboat). But Brown wanted housing development in that area instead, and as such the A's decided to use that land in Fremont owned by Cisco Systems for the park instead.

Brown obviously didn't learn the lesson of the San Francisco Giants, where the construction of (now) AT&T Park at San Francisco's China Basin literally revived the South of Market area and also transformed much of the Embarcardero area, too.

(getting off soapbox)

Re:Why we should all hate baseball

[ackatack]

You should also remember that Lou Wolff, the A's newest owner, is looking to build a "baseball village". This village has a number of condos that Wolff is planning to sell to "finance the rest of the ballpark". I see this as his greed overwhelming any sense of compassion for the loyal fans that have been going to the games for decades. Furthermore, this new baseball village will lack any sort of public transit access as BART's currently closest stop is 5 miles away and their planned extension only shortens that distance to 2 miles. If only the Raiders had stayed in LA, then the Oakland Coliseum wouldn't have the ugly Mt. Davis and the City of Oakland wouldn't feel like sports had ripped them off.

Re:Why we should all hate baseball

[Reziac]

For me, the new stadiums have no soul. I'd rather see a game (whether live or on TV) in a beat-up old stadium that feels like home, and is part of my team's character, than in some state of the art stadium that feels like "generic commercial team".

And I agree about the salary cap -- it's one thing for a bigger market to attract more money overall, that's just economic reality. But the salary inequity is so great that the smaller markets can't compete with their peer teams on anything like an equal footing. Especially since we don't have lifetime-with-one-team players anymore.

"I'm the most loyal player money can buy." -- Don Sutton

Re:Why we should all hate baseball

[cnorrisjr]

"However, the cost of a ticket isn't what keeps people out of baseball. Checking the A's website, I find that I can purchase an advance ticket for $10, and fairly nice seats for $30" That is the going rate. It's between $8 and $35 bucks for a seat at comerica park. If baseball didnt have so many mid-afternoon games, id consider season tickets some day.

Mod parent up!

[Lord Aurora]

That's beautiful. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have the new Zero Wing:

has brought upon into a sling unless And the Bazaar be treated

Of course, I have never When I stood for. How about it? Give the AC wordbot a hand.

Lies

[stunt_penguin]

Oh come on....... everyone knows that the future of sports stadiums is...... cube shaped!

Yes, Cisco is best known for...

[spineboy]

making the tubes that the internets use.

You what ???

[sane?]

So, lets get this straight. The local government pays for team stadia in the US? That's insane. In the UK not only is it private money, often the teams will have to bribe the local council with roads, housing etc. to be allowed to build in the first place.

Sounds like someone is missing a trick

Re:You what ???

[Anonymous Coward]

Not always. For example, Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts was payed for by the owner of the team two football teams (American and Association), Robert Kraft, the hockey rink/basketball court was payed for by the owner of the hockey team, Delaware North, and the baseball stadium is 94 years old and has been rehabbed at least half a dozen times, always by the owners. Mostly it tends to be the cities that are afraid the team will leave (and thus harm the cities' reputation, apparently) that pay for the stadiums - in fact, it is often only after a team has left the city that they tax funds will be released.

Re:You what ???

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

So, lets get this straight. The local government pays for team stadia in the US? That's insane. In the UK not only is it private money, often the teams will have to bribe the local council with roads, housing etc. to be allowed to build in the first place. Sounds like someone is missing a trick

Indeed. As an American, I can tell you exactly how this happens. Team A announces that it will leave unless it gets a new stadium paid for by the city where the team plays. Other greedy cities, fooled by nebulous studies that tout the "economic benefit" of professional sports teams on city revenues and "job creation", offer to build a stadium for team A if its current city refuses. Fanatical supporters of the team (we have just as many here in the US for our teams as you do in the UK for your football/soccer clubs) unite and say that the city must pay any cost necessary to build the stadium so the team won't leave. A few times a city will decide that it just isn't willing to pay the cost to get a professional sports team. Portland, Oregon had a very good chance at getting the Montreal Expos (baseball) when it was announced that the team would move from Montreal to another city, but the city government decided that it couldn't afford to build a stadium for the team when they were having problems funding the local schools. The only benefit that a city gets out of a stadium is that if they have to pay for it, usually they can get the concession money, which can be quite substantial. Over 20 years ago, the Atlanta Flames (hockey) moved to Calgary, Canada because the city of Atlanta received 100% of the concession money since they paid for the arena where the team played. The team's owners foolishly agreed to this deal and eventually the team had to be sold and moved because the team was unable to turn a profit without the concession money. The owners said that even if every game sold out, they would still lose money without the concession money.

It's rare, but a few times owners will pay some or all of the costs for a stadium and in exchange, they get some or all of the conession money. However, with so many cities desperate to have a professional sports team from our highest leagues, there's always going to be some city who will make any deal just to get the team. I don't know of any examples where this has happened, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a team or two somewhere in the US who got a stadium for free and managed to get a large portion or all of the concession money too.

Re:You what ???

[el_gordo101]

Kraft too was ready to move the team to Hartford Connecticut (scroll down to "2000-present") because Massachusetts would not pay to upgrade the infrastructure around the existing stadium. Eventually Massachusetts loaned Kraft the funds to upgrade Route 1 in and around Foxboro and to improve the surrounding infrastructure. Kraft then built the new Gillette Stadium with his own funds on the same site as the old stadium. The loan is being payed back through parking revenue.

So how much is all this going to cost?

[The Creator]

Give me a ballpark figure.

That's not the future...

[CPMO]

...but its in the same ballpark

Sounds pretty small

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like a pretty small stadium, especially for a country with such a big population.

Here in Australia, stadiums start from 50,000 and range up to 100,000. Average attendances to AFL games are in excess of 30.000, which makes it one of the most-attended sports in the world.

And with The Ashes starting soon, we're going to see the MCG sold-out (about 100,000) for five days straight!

C'mon Aussie, c'mon!

I think that part of the difference

[jfinke]

between the two models is that in the US, teams always threaten to leave the city.

Many of the contracts are written such that if attendance and profit drops below certain levels, the team is free to shop elsewhere. Also, the city tends to own the stadiums, since they pay for it, not the owner of the team.

Can you imagine Man U moving to Liverpool? Or Arsenal moving to Manchester to take their place?

It happened in the NFL several years ago when one of the oldest franchises literally snuck out of the city and moved from Cleveland to Baltimore.

Re:I think that part of the difference

[Crayon Kid]

Can you imagine Man U moving to Liverpool? Or Arsenal moving to Manchester to take their place?

No, because there's tradition and history involved, not just money. Plus, they'd be beaten to a pulp by an angry mob of inhabitants from both the old and the new city. We take soccer seriously in Europe.

Re:I think that part of the difference

[Tombstone-f]

Don't you mean "It happened in the NFL several years ago when one of the oldest franchises literally snuck out of the city and moved from Baltimore to Indianapolis."?

A thief called "the city" is still a thief

[argoff]

Ya know. Imagine that a thief busted into your house, put a gun to your face, and demanded 10000 dollars. You pay, then a few months later the thief comes back and promises to split 10200 between all your friends and family - and takes full credit for it. The mroal is....

Technically on paper, the group is better off financially, but in practice you are all far worse off because you have all lost the right to determine how you sepnd your money and resources. Not to mention that the reputation and credit that deserves to attributed to you is now attributed to a thief. In practice, it was more of a wealth transfer from you to soneone else than an investment, and in practive even if a thief promises that its value will be paid back - in the real world it never does because if the thief had a honest and compelling argument that this was the best investment to make - he would not need to stick a gun to your face would he?

Well the same is true with city governments when they use the coercive power of government to spend your money on grand projects. Technically speaking it might bring more business to the city or whatever, but in practice it doesn't, and in practice even if it did the people who flipped the bill are still worse off.

Yum

[Slyfoot]

I'm probably tired, but my first thought was that in the ballpark stadium of the future, hot dogs will be made of Soylent Green.

Re:Yum

[Anonymous Coward]

A: So what's it taste like?
B: It varies from person to person.

Cell phones...

[b0s0z0ku]

Presumably they'll have normal paper or smartcard tickets as well. Not everyone has a cell phone in 2006 - I highly doubt everyone will in 2011. And what about people who lost their phone a week before the game and are waiting on a new one? Let's not turn possession of a cell phone into a "living license..."

-b.

Big Bother

[thejrwr]

Just goes to show you that big bother is going to find very odd ways to sell things to people

Looks like it was an easy sell

[KeithH]

The mayor is quoted as saying:

"It's fabulous -- the technology is something else. It went over my head. It only takes about 10 seconds to go beyond me when you're talking about technology. I can't say I understand it all, but it's going to be quite a ballpark."

He didn't understand it so the default answer was sure go ahead. What an irresponsible idiot. He committed to spending a bazillion tax dollars (and likely forcing people to spend another bazillion) in order to let Cisco and others abuse his citizens' privacy and turn the "game" into a three-hour commercial.

Gross.

"Will" is a strong word

[Anonymous Coward]

"Fans will swipe electronic tickets stored on cell phones. Bleacher bums will view instant replays at their seats with laptop computers. And digital advertising displays will be able to switch images based on the buying habits of the people walking by through data embedded in their cell phones."

In Soviet Cisco, Big Brother watches you watch Big Brother!

Dumbest. Ideas. Ever.

[StikyPad]

It seems like the SSDD. Targeted advertising? Come on, this has been a pipe dream for years. Targeted advertising is about as useful as it is desirable -- which is to say, not very. Sure, it works for Google... because people are actively seeking something. Nobody goes to the ballpark to find out about a new car.

Tickets on a cellphone? This is obviously change for change's sake. Two peices of paper are just fine as it. You can put them in your shirt pocket, give one to a friend, or sell them when you can't make a game. Why in the hell would I want to tie that to my cellphone? Even if it worked exactly as intended, it would be less functional than the existing solution. There's a reason e-books haven't caught on.

Paying to show your face on the big screen? This has got to be the worst idea ever. Any and all excitement related to seeing yourself on the large display is directly related to the serendipity of the event (aside from those morons who propose at baseball games). People who don't want to pay will resent it, it will be abused by morons, and it's not like it couldn't be done just fine with existing technology. Call or log in up to a week in advance, give your seat number and CC#, and congratulations! You're on TV.

Watching instant replays? Everybody who wants this feature carries a small TV. If you're going to go digital with this, how about streaming the entire game in HD to the internet at large. I bet far more people would be interested in that than there are people who want to watch laptops in the stadium.

In short, adding a few new features that nobody wants and changing a perfectly working process would make this the Windows Vista of stadiums.

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Technology advances...Lucas Oil Stadium.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's bounce this off and see if it sticks? How about a walk-through model of Lucas Oil Stadium? Kind of like you do through a FPS without all the shooting.

Re:Or they could just make the game more exciting.

[Anonymous Coward]

You should check out the J-League (Japanese professional soccer/football league); similar fun atmosphere, very organized fans, quite impressive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._League

Stadium of the Future Demonstration Video

[constandinos]

Watch the video of John Chambers demonstrate the converged IP network along with

• HD Telepresence videoconferencing
• e-commerce
• ballpark security
• Digital signage

http://www.stadiumofthefuture.com/