Custom App Gives San Francisco Giants Innovative Stadium Tour

by Sam Laird

The San Francisco Giants are introducing a powerful custom tablet app that should give them the most advanced stadium tour in professional sports.

The Major League Baseball franchise has ordered 60 Android tablets and commissioned the custom app to enhance its popular behind-the-curtain tours of AT&T Park with audio, photos and video that use mobiletechnology to connect visitors more richly to the stadium’s history and character. The new additions are slated to be put into use next week.

When visitors check out the home dugout, for example, they won’t just get to see the team bench, home plate and infield grass.

“Now they’ll be able to watch video of Barry Bonds walking out of that same dugout for a curtain call after he hit his [MLB record] 756th home run,” explains Jens Weiden, marketing manager for Giants Enterprises.

With a waterfront location and intimate feel, AT&T Park is among the most-well regarded stadiums in the major leagues and a popular attraction for visitors to San Francisco. In 2011, Weiden says, 30,000 people took the tour, which is offered twice daily unless there is a game scheduled. So far, 2012 numbers are on track to exceed that number.

When Weiden visited the Roman Colosseum during the offseason, he was impressed by iPod Touch devices powering self-guided tours. Further research into the ways museums are incorporating technology spurred the Giants to action. The only widely known tour app in the American sports world is at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, where visitors can download an app to help them enjoy the works of art on display there.

The Giants’ custom app is different. It doesn’t focus on just one aspect of the stadium, looking instead at the ballpark’s history since it opened in 2000 and the people who make game days successful from behind the scenes. For now, it will exist only on the team’s tablets, which visitors can rent for $7.50 to augment the regular guided tour, which costs $17.50.

Users will operate buttons to call up multimedia features during breaks in the guided tour. There are 10 tour stops featured in the first version of the app (see photo), with each stop offering multiple options for additional content.

The app is being built by RiverKey Creative and the Giants are using long-time partner Box to populate it with content that will be updated throughout the season with features such as video and photo of special moments and radio calls of big plays.

Weiden says future possibilities for the app include developing a self-guided version parents can use for restless kids during games, and adding QR Codes for accessing information.

Do you think stadium tours featuring tablet apps are something more sports teams should adopt? Let us know in the comments.