Atlanta-based company Experience has "become a go-to player for pro and college sports teams seeking to enhance in-stadium happenings in order to compete with HDTVs at home," according to Tim Tucker of the ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION. The three-year-old company "has deals with 160 sports and entertainment properties, including 19 MLB teams, 11 NFL teams, eight NBA teams and 23 college football programs." Experience Founder & Chair Tripp Rackley "operates in a partnership with Cox Enterprises," which last year announced it would invest $250M in start-up technology companies, "including Experience, founded by him and his team." Rackley said, "That was our No. 1 goal: How do we make everybody feel like a rock star when they go to the events?" Braves Exec VP/Sales & Marketing Derek Schiller said that about 40% of the team's season-ticket holders "opened the Experience technology this season and, on average, 1,000 to 1,500 ticket holders per game used it to upgrade seats." There is "significant revenue potential for teams." The company said that fans nationally, on sales of seat upgrades through Experience, pay on average 60% "more than for their original non-premium ticket." The Falcons have brought Rackley, Experience President Ben Ackerman and the umbrella company for Rackley’s businesses, Kenzie Lane Innovation, "into planning for the new retractable-roof stadium slated to open" in '17. The team’s senior execs "meet with the company quarterly to discuss technology." The Falcons last month also tested technology "being developed by a Rackley start-up called KnowMe," which uses "signals from smartphones to identify season-ticket holders as they approach the stadium." When they arrive at the gate, they are "identified on a screen, welcomed by name and allowed to enter without producing a ticket of any kind -- rock-star treatment" (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 9/7).
