Use Of Green Screens In Baseball Stadiums example essay topic

Introduction Baseball is considered to be America's favorite pastime and has become popular all over the world. This sport is watched by millions of people every time there is a game played. People will go to the stadiums to watch and a lot of fans will watch the game on television. Since there are so many people watching these games, advertising has become more and more apart of every baseball stadium due to the amount of exposure a company can receive by using the many types of ads found in a baseball stadium.

The stadiums use billboards, fences, green screens, merchandise, airplanes, names of stadiums, and scoreboards as all different ways to advertise a company's product. Billboards Billboards play a huge role at ballparks because they are usually surrounding the entire outfield and can be seen by everyone. Billboards are very effective in reaching your target audience because of the frequency they are viewed by people watching on television and by people who are actually at the game. They are also very visible when you enter a baseball stadium because of their large size and are a great form of advertising due to them being so big that people can tell what product or service that is being offered from clear across the ballpark. Also, billboards are in a great location lining the outside of the stadium because that is generally where the fans eyes tend to wonder because they like looking out at the scoreboard. While they are checking the score their eyes scan these advertisements on the billboards.

If you are watching from your home you also get exposed to these billboards because throughout the game the camera pans in and out on the scoreboard and all around the ballpark so you can catch a glimpse of all of the different products and services that are being advertised during the game. Another important thing about billboards is the fact that they are very colorful and eye catching to the fans. For example if a fan sees a red, blue, and white circle on a billboard in the outfield they know that it is for Pepsi. Colors are very important because people recognize certain brands by their colors and if the billboard is to far away to read the fans can recognize the product or service by that companies colors alone. Fences The fences in every ballpark all over the world use the fences as a tool to advertise products to fans. Fences are always being looked at during a game due to people watching the game.

It is the background of the outfielders and whenever a ball is hit out there or someone wants to look at the scoreboard, people have to look at the outfield and have really no choice to look at the advertisements on the fences. GAP Inc. really benefited from company's putting there ads on the fence, because left-center field and right-center field are called the "gap" in baseball leaving a lot of stadiums to use GAP as their advertisement in that area on the fence. Fences are really useful due to how visible they are throughout an entire game. Green Screens Technology is making advertising much easier in baseball stadiums and the use of green screens is really starting to take off. Greens screens are only visible to fans watching the game on television, but are very useful due to how easy it is to switch an advertisement during an inning of the game. The green screens are usually located behind the umpire on the backstop to left of batter's box for left-handed batters.

This is not a distraction to pitchers or infielders, because they use a green screen which is similar to the center field sitting area. This area never sits any fans and is either black or green in a stadium so that the batter is not distracted when a pitcher is throwing a pitch. Marketers like the ads because they dominate the background behind the pitcher-hitter confrontation, which is the central image in a baseball telecast. Plus, if an advertisement takes place during a home run or an important strikeout then it will be played for free on ESPN's "Sport center" and other newscast all over the country.

FOX and TBS are two national stations that first started implementing the use of green screens in baseball stadiums, which give marketers the chance to reach a national and local target market. Merchandise Merchandise is probably one of the most common forms of advertising in a baseball stadium. First you have the souvenir shops inside all of the ballparks that sell shirts and hats with the team's logos and the stadiums name on them. This makes the fans a walking advertisement for the stadium and team.

Food is the next form of advertising in baseball stadiums followed by beverages. These two go hand in hand with one another because when people buy a hotdog they usually want to wash it down with an ice cold beer. Hotdogs and beer have almost become a tradition in the fact that when you go to ballparks those are the top two items fans purchase the most. Lastly you have the vendors walking around yelling out the name of beer they are selling along with hotdogs and peanuts.

For example, Wrigley Field is known for their Old-Style beer so when the vendor is yelling out get your ice cold Old-Style they are advertising for the beer company and giving them good exposure throughout the game. Airplanes Airplanes are another way marketers reach a large crowd at one time by using fly-by advertisements. These were more effective and used a lot more before technology began to take over. Planes are able to pull a large sign behind it with a phrase written in a banner style, which limits what a marketer can put on the sign. Usually these ads include a special deal, the name of the place / company, and a phone number for the fans to read.

Blimps are also used at major league baseball games and they are great exposure for a company. For example, the GOODYEAR blimp might be at the world series and the blimp will be seen by millions of people all over the world. Some will see it on television, while others might be outside their house while it is flying to its destination giving more exposure to GOODYEAR. However, Congress passed a bill in February 2003 that limits the use of airplane advertisements at sporting events. The bill only allows planes to fly up to one hour before game time and not till one hour after the game is over. Plus, the stadium must have at least 30,000 fans present to use this type of advertisement.

Finally, this type of advertisement is becoming outdated and can be hindered if all baseball stadiums ever decide to be domes. Names of Stadiums Stadiums have become a very popular way to advertise in baseball. There are a lot of baseball stadiums named after products or services. For example some names of baseball stadiums are Busch, Miller Park, Minute Maid, Coors, PETCO, and U.S. Cellular stadium. A lot of other sports are starting to use product names for their stadiums too. Like the Staples Center where the Los Angles Lakers play and Alltel stadium where the Jacksonville Jaguars play their football games.

This helps to get the products name out to the public so the fans start associating the products name with the service they provide. The name of the stadium is constantly being used by radio and television announcers when they come back from a commercial the announcer will say welcome back to Wrigley Field or they might say it is a packed house here today at Coors field. So the name of the stadium is being used on a continuous basis throughout the entire game. Another way that stadiums advertise their names is by printing their name on every single ticket that is sold. This is very effective because a lot of people keep their tickets as collector's items and they will always have the name of that stadium right in front of them at their disposal. Scoreboards Technology is constantly changing and the scoreboards in baseball stadiums are becoming a great marketing tool for companies to use.

Scoreboards are able to change from one advertisement to another very quick and easy with the use of computers. Using scoreboards is very effective in advertising in baseball stadiums due to spectators constantly looking at the board to see what is happening with the game. Advertisements can be local or national and they change from inning to inning or batter to batter or pitch to pitch. Scoreboards are becoming the main marketing tool in baseball stadiums all over the world. Conclusion One of our suggestions for advertising in baseball stadiums would be to keep using all of the techniques that they are already implementing because they seem to be very effective ways of advertising. One thing that we thought might be a possible advertising medium in the near future is grass and dirt advertisements.

This form of advertising is kind of like the NFL's yellow line that indicates where the first down is located. Only we want to take it a step further by using it as a form of advertising in the outfield or in the dirt by projecting an image of a company's logo or slogan on the field. This way it would not distract the players and would get a lot of exposure from fans viewing the game by television. Our last suggestion is to use the bases as instruments to advertise, although this has been frowned upon by baseball fans recently, it might gain popularity and be an effective way of advertising in the near future by simply placing logos on them.

Sources Adams, David. "Baseball Fans Strike Out As Stadiums Widen Net For Ads", The Times (UK). May 7, 2004. Goetz l, David and Pet recca, Laura. "Ad Pitches Head For Home Plate", Advertising Age.

August 14, 2000. Lords, Eric. "Congress Sends Bill Banning Aerial Ad-Towing to Bush", Detroit Free Press. February 15, 2003.