The first thing a fan returning to Oriole Park at Camden Yards will notice is the new videoboard. The gigantic panel lords over center field like an automated billboard, which, in essence, it is.
But a slew of less obvious technology upgrades are also making their debut this year that will affect the fan experience from the first pitch to the last out.
“As the views at home have gotten better we have to give people a reason to come out to the ballpark,” said Don Rovak, the Oriole’s chief revenue officer.
Five “just walk out” stations, for example, use artificial intelligence to speed up the purchase of beer by eliminating the attendant. And the sound system – which won plaudits when the park opened in 1992 — has been re-tooled with 900 new high-output speakers.
The TV monitors that fans relied on while waiting in line at the concourses have all been replaced by an “internet protocol TV” system that links 600 monitors. These can be programmed to show game replays and real-time stats. They also display the menus over concession stands and can be updated in real-time when hot dogs run out.
The changes are all part of a busy offseason. Maryland lawmakers in 2022 approved $1.2 billion in funding to modernize stadiums, to be split between the Orioles and Ravens. The Ravens got a jump on the work, but the Orioles are catching up.
“We did a ton of work this offseason,” said Catie Griggs, the Oriole’s president of business operations. More work will be accomplished in coming years, such as upgrading club-level washrooms.
The five just-walk-out stations look like small bodegas stocked with beer and surrounded by hip-high swinging gates. Fans enter by swiping a credit card or tapping an app. When exiting, their selections – and those of companions who followed them in — are recorded through an AI system developed by Amazon and charged to their credit card.
The system employs computer vision and “sensor fusion” but not facial recognition. The idea is to speed up transactions.
“As game times speed up we want to keep up,” said Thomas Horvath, vice president of hospitality and strategy for Levy Restaurants, the team’s concessionaire.
The mammoth scoreboard is two-and-a-half times the size of the previous one, though some of that growth was accomplished by eliminating side panels so the overall footprint isn’t that much bigger. It features more than 16 million pixels. It and 1,125 feet of LED ribbon board and other 4K video displays will be operated from a “unified control room” that is twice the size of the old one.
A “game presentation team” is scheming ways to take advantage of the new technology. The team promises elevated “in game entertainment.”
The hot dog race will never be the same.
Teams across sports have figured out that fans don’t come to ballparks just to watch games anymore. Oriole Park’s latest upgrades include the addition of several “social spaces” around the park.
There is a new area below the scoreboard that is available for groups to rent. Despite being named after the team’s sports-betting partner, PureWager, it won’t be accepting bets. There are also new bars at either end of the club level for skybox, club seat and Birdland Club members with enough points.
A wrap-around bar open to all fans is scheduled to open mid-season on the Flag Court above right field, already a popular gathering spot.
Making room for all this socializing meant scrapping 10 skyboxes and thousands of seats. Capacity this season is 42,455 – down from 48,876 when the park opened. The press box has also been shrunk and moved down the third base line to make way for a $15,000-a-year membership club.
The team’s landlord, the Maryland Stadium Authority, has issued $305 million in bonds for Oriole Park improvements. The first phase cost $135 million. The rest will be spent on future phases.
“With a long-term agreement in place, we look forward to our continued collaboration with the team on future projects,” the stadium authority said in a statement.
More state money will be available for future renovations as bonds are paid off, chiefly with lottery funds. But it is tied to lease extensions, an innovation designed to keep the team happy and the ballpark up to date.
The lease signed in 2023 commits the state and team to negotiate the development rights to property adjacent to the stadium, including the warehouse and Camden Station. If a deal can’t be reached by the end of next year, the team will have the right to shorten its lease term from 30 years to 15 with the option to extend it later.
Griggs declined to talk about the progress of those talks. “I’ve been focused on this,” she said as the team showed off the stadium upgrades to the media on Tuesday.
Also on the tech front: text alerts will be available for fans signing up to receive Orioles news. And a new Orioles game center for cellphones will use AI-powered digital gaming with Crossword, Trivia, Word Search, Lie Detector and other amusements via the MLB app.
The adoption of new technology seems like a logical evolution for a stadium built before the iPhone. But fitting it into a park that exudes 19th century charm wasn’t so obvious.
“We know that we are already in one of the most iconic and most special ballparks in baseball,” Griggs said. “The goal of this offseason was to make sure we took all of the things that make this ballpark so special and make sure that it’s special for years to come.”
