Padres should make Petco Park tech friendly

I was giving Padres marketing a hard time earlier in the week because I didn't like their ideas for adding value for fans. I just couldn't get excited about "Breakfast Town" or special concession lines for Season Ticket Holders.

I was just reading about the technology at San Francisco's ballpark and this is something I could get excited about.

AT&T Park leading the way in digitally enhanced baseball

For AT&T, moving people to a Wi-Fi network saves precious space on the cellular network and gives speedier connections to users accessing everything from video highlights to player statistics, closed captioning of PA announcements for the hearing impaired and even a "food finder" application that provides information on nearby food booths. After AT&T began supporting the feature earlier this month, the number of people accessing the park's network nearly doubled over night.

We were so jealous of Seattle's Nintendo DS technology at the ballpark last year, but now San Francisco seems to have them beat.  I don't even have a smart phone, but I would have to get one if the Padres offered cool technology like this.

via www.coolest-gadgets.com

I think my favorite part is the fact that they show video replays on your phone even if the play is controversial.  Finally we can riot when there is a bad call on the field, knowing that there are facts to back up our riot!

How cool would it be to look at the menus of all the restaurants and concessions so you don't have to decide when you're in line?  

The possibilities are endless.  They could connect the Pad Squad to GPS so that you can track them during the game.  "Where's my Pad Squad Andre? Oooh there's my Pad Squad Andre!"  Then you could tickle his likeness on your screen, which would in turn communicate that to a tickling device that he's wearing.

Okay, I got off track there, but seriously Petco Park barely even has Wi-Fi coverage and we are behind the times in technology.  This is some value added I could get behind!