Arizona State University (ASU) started promoting the use of smart phones for sports social media engagement at its 44-23 victory over USC on Saturday, and plans to continue the program at Oregon, Colorado and California home games.
Among other tactics aimed at driving smart phone use, ASU is running contests on its video boards during timeouts that allow attendees to participate in contests. The application involved is called Fanatic Fans, and it uses a check-in function similar to Foursquare. Once fans have checked in, their location is tracked and they are given the opportunity to interact with other fans at the game, or receive promotional offers based on stadium location.
The ASU launch marks one of the most aggressive moves to date by a major college athletic program to mirror sports social media innovations occurring in the NFL, particularly at Miami Dolphins home games.
To make its smartphone strategy a reality, the Sun Devils partnered with location-based application developer Calibrus. This is another step toward widespread adoption of these types of applications at sporting events, which Mobile Sports Report expects the practice to be widespread by the end of 2013.
Anyone know if there is a Wi-Fi network at ASU’s stadium like the one AT&T is putting in at Stanford?