- The Atlanta Braves
A visit to Turner Field, the Atlanta Braves’ state-of-the-art ballpark, feels like a trip back
to the future. The stadium blends 1940s tradition with 21st century convenience. The
Braves’ marketing campaign reflects the charm and nostalgia of baseball’s past, but it
has a futuristic slogan: “Turner field: Not just baseball: A baseball theme park.”
Fans love the fact that they’re closer to the action at Turner Field. It’s only 45 feet from
either first or third base to the dugouts, with the stands just behind. Besides that, there’s
a Braves Museum and Hall of Fame with more than 200 artefacts. Cybernauts will find
Turner Field awesome because it’s a ballpark that makes them a part of the action. At
the stadium, built originally for the 1996 Olympics and converted for baseball after the
Games, there are interactive games to test fans’ hitting and pitching skills, and their
knowledge of baseball trivia; electronic kiosks with touch screens and data banks filled
with scouting reports on 300 past and present Braves, along with the Braves’ Internet
home page; a dozen 27-inch television monitors mounted above the Braves’ Clubhouse
Store, broadcasting all the other major league games in progress, with a video ticker-
tape screen underneath spitting out up-to-the-minute scores and stats; a sophisticated
communications system, with four miles of fiber-optic cable underneath the playing field
that will allow World Series games to be simulcast around the globe, as well as special
black boxes placed throughout the stadium to allow as many as 5,500 cell-phone calls
an hour.
The marketing of Turner Field is aimed at many types of fans. It is not enough just to
provide nine innings of baseball. Turner Field’s theme-park concept was the brainchild
of Braves President Stan Kasten. In the early 1990s, as the Braves grew into one of the
best teams in baseball, Kasten increasingly became frustrated while watching fans flock
to Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium a few hours before games, with little to do but eat
overcooked hot dogs and watch batting practice.
As Kasten saw it, they spent too much time milling on the club-level concourse and too
little time spending money. What if he could find a way for families to make an outing of
it, bring the amenities of the city to Hank Aaron Drive, and create a neighbourhood feel
in a main plaza at the ballpark? “I wanted to broaden fans’ experience at the ballpark
and broaden our fan base,” Kasten says. “People have no problem spending money
when they’re getting value. We have one of the highest payrolls in baseball, and I
needed to find new ways to sustain our revenues.”
Turner Field’s main entry plaza opens three hours before games—compared to two
hours for the rest of the ballpark—and stays open for about two hours after games. On
weekends, there is live music. Everyone’s invited—186 $8 “skyline seats” are available
for each game—and that buck gets you anywhere, from the open-air porch at the Chop
House restaurant (which specializes in barbecue, bison dogs, Moon Pies, and
Tomahawk lager) to the grassy roof at Coke’s Sky Field, where fans can keep cool
under a mist machine. Interactive games in Scouts Alley range from $1 to $4, and the
chroma-key studios in the East and West Pavilions cost $10–20, where fans can have
their picture inserted into a baseball card or into a photo of a great moment in Braves
history. Admission to the museum is $2. And it should come as no surprise that there
are seven ATMs located throughout the ballpark. One of the Braves’ key marketing
objectives is to help build a new generation of baseball fans. The stadium was planned
so that fans will find something to love and learn at every turn. The minute a fan’s ticket
is torn, that person becomes part of what’s happening at Turner Field.
Turner Field is unrivaled in its blend of technology and entertainment. At all times, fans
are entertained and informed of Turner Field activities through superior sound systems,
the BravesVision video board in center field, the PlazaVision board in the Fan Plaza
and over 500 television monitors situated throughout Turner Field. The BravesVision
video board is 29 feet by 38 feet, weighs over 21 tons and features over 331,000
fluorescent light bulbs. The PlazaVision board is 17 feet by 22 feet. These two huge
boards make Turner Field unique among all sports facilities as two completely different
shows can be produced - one for the seating bowl and one for the Plaza. Inside the
ballpark, fans are prompted to do the tomahawk chop by the 27-foot long "chopping"
neon tomahawk located atop the video board, and are kept informed of the latest scores
around the leagues by the out-of-town scoreboard.
www.atlanta.braves.mlb.com
The task for this assignment.
You are required to complete two tasks for this assignment, a research design
report and an oral presentation to the Atlanta Braves board. Each component of this
assignment is outlined separately next.
Task 1 - Report – 2,000 words (90% of the marks for this assignment)
Whilst the Turner Field stadium is still considered to be state-of-the art for baseball, it
is now 10 years since any money was invested in the stadium. Before they agree to
invest an additional $10 million to upgrade and improve the stadium the new executive
team at the Braves is interested in finding out whether and how important the stadium
identity and its features are to their key stakeholders (fans, corporate and season
supporters, team members and employees such as ticket takers, parking attendants,
ushers, security personnel and so forth) and which features exactly are critical to the
continued support of their stakeholders.
You have been commissioned to design a program of research for the executive team
at the Braves that will help them to answer these questions. Specifically this report
should outline what research design you would recommend and what data collection
and statistical tests, if any, could be useful?
