Major League Baseball Rolling Out Thousands of iBeacons for Opening Day

MLB At The BallparkNext week, Major League Baseball will begin rolling out thousands of iBeacons in ballparks around the country according to a source familiar with the plans who shared them with MacRumors.

The league is looking to have twenty parks outfitted with roughly 100 iBeacons each by Opening Day at the end of March. Boston, Milwaukee, San Diego, LA Dodgers, and San Francisco are among the teams that will have iBeacons installed.

The iBeacon deployment is one of the largest rollouts in the world, aside from Apple Retail's 254-store effort. MLB will be using iBeacons sourced from Qualcomm.

The iBeacons will work with primarily with MLB's At The Ballpark app, demonstrated at Citi Field last fall. The app should be updated by Opening Day with iBeacon support.

Functionality will vary by ballpark, with individual teams having significant input and control over what users will see. There are a number of potential use cases including point of interest information, concessions, loyalty and rewards programs, shopping, and more. Specific scenarios have yet to be determined for each ballpark and teams will share more information as it gets closer to Opening Day.

Separately, the NFL is rolling out a limited number of iBeacons at MetLife Stadium, the Super Bowl venue for this year, and in Times Square. The beacons will mostly be used to help users get to entry gates and to find Super Bowl-related tourist attractions in the area.

At The Ballpark already includes extensive ticketing functions introduced last year. Ticketing is fully integrated in the app and users can see all tickets they own, a significant perk for season ticket holders. Tickets can also be transferred from user to user, allowing ticket holders to send unused tickets to friends and family. With iBeacon, the app will be able to offer ticket holders precise directions to the appropriate gate and to their seats. Users can work end-to-end within the app: buying tickets, showing them at the gate, and then using the app to find their seats.

Ibeacon
The main purpose of the iBeacons, according to our source, is to improve the fan experience -- not make money. The league is taking a "longer range view" and iBeacon isn't designed to drive revenue in a direct sense. "Time is more valuable than money", so MLB wants to make the fan experience "as efficient as possible". It is looking to eliminate time wasters like waiting in line at the will call window, and it doesn't want fans wandering the ballpark looking for their seats.

However, there is a significant revenue opportunity to be found. iBeacons allow fans to signal their intent, whether it's browsing for merchandise, looking for food or something else. It allows ball clubs to be more proactive at fulfilling fan needs and "it's better for you as a fan". At The Ballpark already includes a loyalty and rewards component, but with iBeacons, clubs could proactively send a push notification to fans thanking them for their tenth visit to the ballpark and directing them to a nearby concession stand for a free hot dog.

The precision of the iBeacon's location determining ability varies depending on both use case and subsequent placement of the iBeacon hardware. Determining installation locations for iBeacons within a major league ballpark is a major undertaking. If installed properly, the app will be able to determine things like whether users are physically in a store versus looking in the window, or if they need to move to a different row in a particular section.

MLB is also working to bring reliable Wi-Fi to all thirty ballparks, as well as working with all major carriers to improve cellular reception inside the facilities. Currently, many fans have difficulties using data or making calls, particularly during particularly exciting moments in the game. iBeacons can currently trigger any content -- videos, photos, text -- that are preloaded in the app, but for optional items like video clips triggered by plaques at Monument Park in Yankee Stadium, having reliable Wi-Fi would be a significant improvement to the fan experience.

The Bluetooth LE protocol used by the iBeacons is not subject to connectivity conditions, so users should be able to get directions to their seats or other content already stored within the app regardless of the status of their cellular connection.

Fans looking to get started with MLB iBeacons should download free At The Ballpark app to their iPhone and then sign up for a free MLB.com account to get started. Users need to install At The Ballpark and specifically opt-in to receive messages from iBeacons, preventing unwanted notifications. [Direct Link]

Top Rated Comments

ateslik Avatar
129 months ago
From the screenshots its apparent that iBeacons also improve battery life and cell reception. Awesome!
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
larrylaffer Avatar
129 months ago
Wait, what? According to whom? I've never turned Bluetooth off.

Uh, I did, to extend my battery life, as would anyone else that doesn't use Bluetooth and wants to not waste power.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tooloud10 Avatar
129 months ago
I don't think you're being fair at all.

What was unfair about my response?

I usually have bluetooth off because I don't use a headset nor have a car that uses it. I don't want it on so I can extend my battery life. I think he just wants a little pop up window to tell you to turn on your bluetooth when you're at the park.

But you're essentially describing an infinite loop. You turn off BT because you don't use it, but you want something to tell you to turn it on in case you want to use it. How does that make any sense? The iBeacon system uses BT to provide the service--why would you expect it to work if you've manually turned your BT off?

That is, by turning BT off manually, you've already told the device that you're not interested in using BT. I can't imagine how infuriating it would be to have a window pop up to tell me to turn on BT every time I passed by a BT device.

I don't think you guys are actually thinking about what you're asking for here. To do what you want, you'd have to do one of the following: A) BT could never really be turned off because it needs to be able to accept a request to display a reminder message on your screen, or B) you'd actually have to add an entirely different wireless service to the iBeacon protocol to send a request to display a reminder message, which seems like it would double the level of complication for the service.

I don't think it's unreasonable, nor worthy of your kind of sarcasm.

I'm 100% serious. What part did you think was sarcastic? How is remembering to turn your BT on any different than remembering to do virtually anything else in life? You're asking for a feature that's so advanced that it knows before you do that you want to use it.

Anyway, it's totally unreasonable and starts smartphones down the road of just displaying reminder messages all day long about things that you MIGHT POSSIBLY want to do, which defeats the purpose of the device altogether.

----------

I turn mine off sometimes to conserve battery, but think it is within my meager capabilities to switch it on if need be.

Sure, that's the reasonable solution for me as well. Expecting the device to tell you to do something ("turn on your BT") after you've specifically told it you don't want to do something (you turned BT off) seems antithetical to having a smartphone at all.

It's exactly the same as turning your car radio off but expecting it to automatically turn on if a station happens to be playing a song you like.

Hell, it would make more sense to be able to turn off all BT connections but those from 4.0 devices, but that's not the argument that was presented.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
millerlite Avatar
129 months ago
"loyalty and rewards programs" is the most interesting part for me. In the provided picture it knows that it is your first time at the stadium and offers a coupon. I use foursquare but sometimes forget to open it and never aware of any deals where I am. If this setup would auto detect and send a push notification then that would be nice.

At the Orioles' stadium, the check in feature is linked to Four Square. Check in through their app and you're also checking into Four Square (or Twitter or FB).
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tooloud10 Avatar
129 months ago
So, in order for iBeacons to work, Bluetooth needs to be turned on, but most people don't usually have their Bluetooth on all the time.

Wait, what? According to whom? I've never turned Bluetooth off.

Does anyone know how MLB or the MLB application suggests that people turn on their Bluetooth?

iBeacons is great, but useless if you don't have Bluetooth on...

I'm sorry, but is this what the world has come to? "I turned my Bluetooth off and need to know who's responsible for reminding me to turn it back on."

How do you remember the keys to your home? To check the gas gauge on your car? How do you remember to go to work at the right time?
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
rjohnstone Avatar
129 months ago
You do realize iBeacon works on Bluetooth low energy right and is not specific to Apple right?
There are no applications written for Android to take advantage of iBeacons.
So while BLE itself is not proprietary, iBeacon is.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iOS 16 4 Web Push

Apple Confirms Governments Using Push Notifications to Surveil Users

Wednesday December 6, 2023 5:06 am PST by
Unidentified governments are surveilling smartphone users by tracking push notifications that move through Google's and Apple's servers, a US senator warned on Wednesday (via Reuters). In a letter to the Department of Justice, Senator Ron Wyden said foreign officials were demanding the data from the tech giants to track smartphones. The traffic flowing from apps that send push notifications...
iOS 17

iOS 17.2 Will Add These 12 New Features to Your iPhone

Friday December 1, 2023 12:19 pm PST by
iOS 17.2 has been in beta testing for over a month, and it should be released to all users in a few more weeks. The software update includes many new features and changes for iPhones, including the dozen that we have highlighted below. iOS 17.2 is expected to be released to the public in mid-December. To learn about even more features coming in the update, check out our full list. Journal ...
airpods pro 2 pink

Apple Releases New AirPods Pro 2 Firmware

Tuesday December 5, 2023 11:28 am PST by
Apple today released new firmware update for both the Lightning and USB-C versions of the AirPods Pro 2. The new firmware is version 6B34, up from the 6B32 firmware introduced in November. Apple does not provide details on what features might be included in the refreshed firmware beyond "bug fixes and other improvements," so it is unclear what's new in the update, but prior software releases ...
Beyond iPhone 13 Better Blue

'All-Screen' iPhone Under-Display Camera Enters Development

Wednesday December 6, 2023 2:03 am PST by
Apple's Korean suppliers have begun developing smartphone under-display cameras (UDC), paving the way for the first iPhone with a true "all-screen" appearance. According to The Elec, LG Innotek has entered the preliminary development of the UDC, which sits under the display and does not result in a visible hole in the panel when the camera is not in use. A UDC differs from a typical front ...
iphone se 4 modified flag edges

iPhone SE 4 May Reuse Existing iPhone 14 Battery

Wednesday December 6, 2023 1:17 pm PST by
Recently, MacRumors has received details on the battery currently being tested on the upcoming fourth-generation iPhone SE, and the information corroborates previous findings in relation to the device. The iPhone SE 4, known by its device identifier D59, is expected to use the exact same battery found in the base model iPhone 14. Partially assembled prototypes of the next iPhone SE have been ...
12

Apple to Launch Two iPad Air and Two OLED iPad Pro Models Early Next Year

Wednesday December 6, 2023 9:53 am PST by
To boost falling iPad sales, Apple has a major refresh planned for the iPad lineup in early 2024, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple plans to debut new iPad Air and iPad Pro models, both of which will feature notable changes. The iPad Air will come in two sizes like the iPad Pro for the first time. The smaller model will continue to measure in at 10.9 inches, but the larger version...
New iOS 17

iOS 17.2 Release Notes: All New Features for Your iPhone

Wednesday December 6, 2023 7:17 am PST by
Apple has shared the full release notes for iOS 17.2, which is in the final stage of beta testing and should be released to the public next week. iOS 17.2 includes a long list of new features and changes, including a Journal app, spatial video recording on iPhone 15 Pro models, several improvements to the Messages and Weather apps, a Favorite Songs playlist in Apple Music, and more. iOS...
magsafe blue 2

iOS 17.2 Brings Qi2 Support to iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 Models

Tuesday December 5, 2023 11:04 am PST by
The iOS 17.2 update that Apple is set to release to the public in the near future will bring support for the next-generation Qi2 wireless charging standard to the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 models. Qi2 was mentioned in the release notes for the RC version of the update that came out today. With the addition of support for the new standard, iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 models will work with Qi2...