In the United States, the sports industry is a ponderous economical beast of ginormous proportions—besting even the prominent automobile and movie industries in size. Of its components, advertising checked in as the fattest source of income, contributing approximately $27.43 billion, 14.1% of the total industry (1). Cisco Field, the Oakland Athletics’ state of the art ballpark slated to open in 2011, is an interesting example of how advertising continues to drive the long-term prosperity of sports’ place in our economy.

Cisco Field stands out as an anomaly among sports arenas. It will only seat an estimated 35,000 spectators, a capacity far smaller than the stadium of any of the other 29 teams in Major League Baseball (2). Instead of size, Cisco Field will offer the integration of cutting-edge technology. While most corporations seek to expand their prominence merely by affixing their name to a stadium, Cisco Systems has additionally signed on to imbue the venue with their stadium technology, aspiring to convert the Athletics’ new home into a showcase of the company’s offerings.

Spectators will be able to use personal devices to take advantage of a substantial wireless network, upgrading tickets at a moments notice, watching instant replays of the action even as it continues to unfold on the field, ordering concessions from their seats, keeping track on their own scorecards, or accessing real-time statistics. Fans outside of the stadium will take advantage of increased options for media captured by the audio and video networks within the stadium. These added amenities will no doubt attract more fans and profits—yet the added cost of installing and maintaining them will take their toll. Boosted ticket charges may help in the matter, but in the end excessive increases, with tickets pricey already, would discourage attendance.

Thus, ultimately, Cisco Field reflects the sports industry's emphasis on advertising. For each of these additional services, there are additional opportunities to target promotions. Aforementioned functionalities based on personal devices would facilitate the ease of making purchases and, furthermore, created additional chances to flaunt further services. If permitted by users, in theory, digital advertisement panels could respond to tags embedded in handheld devices to shift between displays customized to the individuals walking by. People using the internet to access additional media would present further opening for marketing.  All in all, Cisco’s vested presence in the ballpark itself serves to promote its networking and technological capabilities to the world on a prominent stage.

It is easy for us to decry the absurd earnings of the sports world—like Tiger Woods, he of some $97 million (3) in income this past year—in light of the substantial good such wealth could catalyze elsewhere. Yet, in the end, sports is a business, just like any other industry, and the practice of amassing profits hardly occurs in athletics alone. While we can continue to ponder professional sport’s negative social implications of gambling and fantasy sports, among others, the alluring marketing pull of sports is undeniably a firmly entrenched component of our economy. Cisco Field—expected to be a technological marvel largely for the ultimate purpose of increased advertisement—is merely evidence of that.

(1) http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.feature&featureId=43
(2) http://www.ballparks.com/baseball/
(3) http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/more/specials/fortunate50/index.html