Battling a Better In-Home Viewing Experience, Stadiums Address One of Their Biggest Issues
On each sports team there are players that have particular skill sets that contribute to the team. With stadiums, the same can also be said. Besides being a vessel for sports enthusiast to congregate in, stadiums can bring communities together due to a common interest. Attendance at NFL games averaged 67,405 people, but as the in-home watching experience improves, teams and stadiums are having to create a more unique situation to ensure fans still see the value of spending money on tickets.
All those sports fans dished out some serious cash to attend events at stadiums and venues. Costs for such things as parking, tickets, seating, sports memorabilia, and of course, the number one pet-peeve of many, overpriced food and drinks, add up quickly.
Customers in 2018 attending Major League Baseball (MLB) games were paying on average, roughly $11, just for a hot dog and beer. When folks are paying the extra dollar on just about everything, patience can at times be lost during the transaction.
Commonly in the past, patrons would try to get their food and drinks before the game starts and during half time. During this 15-minute gap, customers would be forced to wait in tension-charged lines behind hordes of people.
One company is changing that by cultivating a point of sales system (POS) that was intended for short time frames, large amounts of inventory, and dollars exchanged.
Bypass, an Austin, Texas-based company founded in 2010 by Brandon Lloyd, is offering stadiums and venues POS systems that put the community of fans and their wants, first.
Tal Vinnik, Director of Content Strategy at Bypass, described the company, its mission and goals.
“In the sports world, Bypass focuses on concessions and how that fits into—and transforms—the overall fan experience. It’s not just about getting your beer and burger, but about how you can order it, how fast you can pick it up (or have it brought to you) and how seamless paying for it should be,” he said. “To enable venues and the concessionaires that service them, we offer a range of solutions so fans can just get through a line as quickly as possible, but even avoid the line entirely with things like self-service kiosks, in-seat mobile ordering and locker pickup.”
The Bypass mobile POS system enables fans to pre-order their food and pay for it, receive their receipt, all while still in their seats.
“Fans can use mobile and even loaded tickets so that they can order, pay and get a season-ticket holder discount without ever taking out their wallet,” Vinnik said.
Fans and concession stand employees gain a major essential factor by using this system: Speedy efficiency.
“Concessionaires have a lot to worry about during a game, so all our solutions are built to give them back time while they build out their revenue.”
This approach cuts down on wait times in line, loss of revenue and most importantly unease that not only fans feel but those working behind the counter experience as well.
“It’s about giving fans options to get the food they want the way they want so they don’t miss a second of the action on the field,” Vinnik pointed out.
According to its website, the company has been providing their seamless service to over 300 venues including the Barclays Center in Brooklyn and the Rose Bowl.
“For fans, we offer a range of integrations that make getting concessions as frictionless as possible, including mobile payments, loyalty programs, apps and ticketing providers. For concessionaires, those integrations lead to a faster speed of service, which results in measurable revenue increases in peak periods like halftime,” Vinnik said. “But we also offer a full management suite for things like inventory, menus, employee management, cash room tracking, and overall business insights.”
Companies large and small can use terminals with tablets that are backed to a cloud-enabled open configuration platform that can handle a full spectrum of needs and give insight on future requirements.
“The company has deployed thousands of devices at a cost, pace, and ease of integration never before possible,” he said. “Our approach helps accelerate their profit, efficiency, and guest experience well beyond the levels achieved with legacy solutions.”
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