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This is the shape of things to come in baseball.
Major League Baseball announced that it will be tripling the number of stadiums that will start accepting tickets from Apple’s Passbook app, with thirteen new stadiums coming online to enable paperless, Passbook ticketing, an increase from four stadiums that could do so last season.
Teams that will begin to accept tickets through the Passbook app include the Minnesota Twins, Baltimore Orioles, Milwaukee Brewers, Oakland A’s, Pittsburgh Pirates, Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs, with the New York Mets, San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals continuing to accept paperless tickets this way. MLB mentioned that there are three more teams ready to go Passbook, but did not specify which ones.
The MLB-Apple Passbook partnership was one of the first, going live alongside iOS 6 last September. However, while the expansion of the program is great news, it’s not the only connection to iOS that the baseball league can brag about.
Only last week, MLB released the 2013 version of MLB.com At Bat, an app for Android and iOS, which includes live and archival video footage, and new audio access to baseball games. Bob Bowman, CEO of Major League Baseball’s Advanced Media Office, believes that the smartphone “is the first screen, not second screen.” Bowman has pushed for the apps to be slick, “hip, cool, and easy to use,” knowing that the new generation of fans will expect products like this.
So far, iOS users make up 70 percent of the free version of At Bat, while 85 percent of the paid users are iOS fans, as well, parting with $20 a month for access to exclusive, premium content.
Source: GigaOm
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