The Nationals, playing their home opener today, have expanded their relationship with the U.S. division of London-based customer management outfit Fortress GB to install radio frequency identification (RFID) technology at Nationals Park. Building upon the club's online fan loyalty effort introduced last year, the Red Carpet Rewards Program, the latest effort will seek to tie together ticketing, concessions, merchandising, parking and the rewards program into one unified computerized system. "We'll now have a full, 360-degree view of the fan, and more to the point, we're looking to redefine the concept of what a ticket is," said Nationals COO Andy Feffer. "Instead of just point of access to an event, we're now seeing the ticket as simply the beginning of a whole, integrated relationship with the fan, with all those touchpoints tied together digitally and in real time." The most visible change fans will see today at the ballpark is the installation of a new series of turnstiles with barcode readers. Instead of fans handing their tickets to ushers for scanning and entry into the ballpark, they will scan their tickets themselves, a shift that should quicken each fan entry from eight to 10 seconds to less than three seconds. The new turnstiles are able to scan a ticket in any form, whether it be printed on paper, cardstock, or on a smartphone or tablet. Approximately 300 Nationals season-ticket holders have been delivered their tickets in the form of a smart card with an RFID chip, a pilot program toward a much broader rollout next year. Those smart cards are loaded with the account holders' tickets that are fully transferrable, stored value for concessions and merchandise, parking privileges and their Red Carpet Rewards Program data. The new system will also be able to incorporate near-field communications (NFC) technology once it becomes more commonplace as a means of payment at retail. The Nationals' effort is conceptually in line with the leaguewide push now happening toward digital ticketing. But since the Nationals are basing their efforts around RFID technology, as opposed to credit card magnetic stripes, they are not using the new MLB FanPass brand. "We believe we've taken this a step further," Feffer said. The Rays have also partnered with Fortress to install RFID technology at Tropicana Field.
