Banshee, Little Buster, and I had the opportunity to see the Ravens-Steelers game live this past Sunday night. Given the Ravens poor play down the stretch, the highlight for me was the pre-game extravaganza.
In a bid to make the in-person game day experience special, the NFL is trying to turn the game into a multimedia spectacle, not unlike what you might see at night at one of the Disney Parks. In recent years, the Ravens have added fireworks, smoke machines, ultra-high def mega screens, and sharks with frickin’ laser beams (well, maybe just lasers :-)). However, on Sunday night, they did pulled yet another trick out of the theme park extravaganza playbook.
Upon entering the stadium, fans were given a wristband somewhat reminiscent of a MagicBand+. I say “somewhat” because it was a cheap plastic white case and secured to your wrist with a ribbon. The case contained a set of colored LED’s that sync’d to the pre-game show and other “special moments” during the game. Not that there were a lot of special moments for the Ravens that evening.
All joking aside, I do have to say that the effect was really cool. Since most of the crowd followed instructions and wore their bands, the color really popped! I would imagine that this isn’t something that could work during your typical 1pm day game, but for prime time match-ups, I could see them continuing doing this.
I wish I took a picture of the actual wristband, but I didn’t have the forethought. However, you can see a couple of pictures that below that I took of the pre-game show. My favorite was the purple effect… Ravens purple!
One nice thing was that they had recycling bins for the wristbands as you exited the stadium. Unlike Disney’s MagicBands this was not something that can be reused. Nor was it of high enough quality to hold onto as a keepsake. But it had one job, and it did it well.
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