Royals and Giants Stadiums to Accept Apple Pay for Concessions During World Series

[MacRumors]

Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City and AT&T Park in San Francisco will accept the new Apple Pay mobile payments program beginning tomorrow with Game One of the World Series in Kansas City.

Fans who attend games at the two participating stadiums will be able to use Apple Pay to purchase food and beverages at concession stands, thanks to a partnership between MLB Advanced Media and MasterCard.

We thank MasterCard for its great involvement in bringing another simple and secure mobile technology to baseball fans," said Noah Garden, EVP, Revenue, MLBAM. "Introducing this service underscores the importance of our on-going commitment to mobile innovations at Major League Baseball ballparks. Being able to build reliable, convenient and authentic technologies on their personal devices is no longer a nice-to-have option for fans. It's central to their experiences."

Enabled today through the iOS 8.1 update, Apple Pay is Apple's new mobile payments service that is accepted at any retail location that supports NFC-based contactless payments. Apple Pay can also be used within select apps that support the Apple Pay API, allowing physical purchases to be made with a single tap.

Major League Baseball is an Apple Pay app partner, which means Apple Pay is being built into the At the Ballpark app. When single-game tickets for the 2015 Major League Baseball season go on sale in November, Apple Pay users will be able to purchase tickets with a single tap using the payments service.

Major League Baseball was also one of Apple's first iBeacon partners, rolling out thousands of iBeacons at a range of different stadiums ahead of Opening Day in 2014.

The MLB At the Ballpark app can be downloaded for free from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Royals and Giants Stadiums to Accept Apple Pay for Concessions During World Series

 

[Salty Pirate]

Go Royals!!!!

 

[Junipr]

I can finally buy an $11 beer with my $649 phone.

It's a dream come true.

 

[heisenberg123]

Mad the Royals beat out my A's but they have been fun to watch

 

[chirpie]

Mad the Royals beat out my A's but they have been fun to watch

I always admire a good sport in sports. Wish us luck! ^_^

 

[gleepskip]

Granted MLB has already been working with Apple, this is the kind of reaction we want in the marketplace. Not the lame responses from banks and retailers who can't specify when -- or even if -- they plan to support Apple Pay.

 

[Deelron]

I can finally buy an $11 beer with my $649 phone.

It's a dream come true.

Only $11 beers? Lucky.

 

[nickm81us]

^^ yeah, $11 for like 12oz, and that's if you're lucky.

So on the other hand, if you were somehow able to afford an over $800-a-seat ticket for Game 1 of the Series here in beautiful KC, I can't imagine you'd have a whole lot of extra spending cash for much of anything, Apple Pay or no. Still nice to have the option though.

 

[tsplaat]

I can finally buy an $11 beer with my $649 phone.

It's a dream come true.

Sarcasm aside... I think the bigger picture that I suspect you're not really missing is that Apple Pay technology will allow you to keep your money out of the hackers hands so you can afford both your $11 beer and your $649 phone. I say this as a victim of one of the many recent data breaches... think Target, DQ, Home Depot, the list goes on and on.

Apple didn't invent NFC, but they are hitting at just the right time to help speed widespread adoption.

 

[Four oF NINE]

Go Royals!!!!

I prefer baseball, Go San Francisco!

 

[macduke]

Go Royals! It has been too long.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Glad to see this change in mobile payments taking on. not that Apple was first to the game, only that they have a name that retailers and banks can get behind.

Google wallet was nice but here in Maryland all I could get was coffee and groceries and that was only at one Starbucks and one Giant Food store.

 

[MyopicPaideia]

Of course - if they've already got the NFC terminals it is a marketing and PR opportunity waiting to happen for Apple and MLB to proclaim that they will be supporting it for the World Series.

Everyone will think they scrambled to make it happen, when it was just a happy coincidence for both parties.

 

[NightFox]

Why don't all these articles just say "XXXXXX to accept NFC Payments" as surely that's all that's actually involved for someone to accept Apple Pay - hence why US cardholders are finding themselves able to use Apple Pay in other parts of the world where NFC payments have been commonplace for some time, but Apple Pay isn't even operational for "native" cardholders as Apple hasn't yet done the deal with any banks outside of the US.

These articles are just adding to the confusion that's leading people to think that Apple Pay has to be specifically adopted by individual retailers. AFAIU it doesn't - if the retailer has the infrastructure to accept NFC payments, he can accept Apple Pay. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[0970373]

Granted MLB has already been working with Apple, this is the kind of reaction we want in the marketplace. Not the lame responses from banks and retailers who can't specify when -- or even if -- they plan to support Apple Pay.

I wonder if this will be something mandated by MLB across all teams or if it will be adopted on a per team basis. I'd like to see it everywhere along with Passbook tickets. Randy Levine and the Yankees seem to enjoy living in the dark ages of technology though. :/

----------

Why don't all these articles just say "XXXXXX to accept NFC Payments" as surely that's all that's actually involved for someone to accept Apple Pay - hence why US cardholders are finding themselves able to use Apple Pay in other parts of the world where NFC payments have been commonplace for some time, but Apple Pay isn't even operational for "native" cardholders as Apple hasn't yet done the deal with any banks outside of the US.

These articles are just adding to the confusion that's leading people to think that Apple Pay has to be specifically adopted by individual retailers. AFAIU it doesn't - if the retailer has the infrastructure to accept NFC payments, he can accept Apple Pay. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.

You are correct. This is probably more of a marketing move by Apple to get people to adopt ApplePay specifically making it synonymous with NFC payments. Boom. More iPhone sales.

 

[JAT]

Baseball still exists?