Poe the Raven
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- Mar 16, 2019
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At the moment, only one team in the NFL is operating on game days without cash.
It might not be long before the biggest game is played without long green.
Via Daniel Kaplan of TheAthletic.com, the emerging trend of cashless sporting events could include the Super Bowl.
“Doing a lot of research now and contemplating cashless Super Bowl,” Dolphins president and CEO Tom Garfinkel said. Miami hosts the 2020 Super Bowl, which seems soon for a technology that hasn’t been widely adopted yet..
The Falcons are the first team to go cashless, making the switch official at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in March. The new Tottenham Hotspur stadium in London, which will host NFL games, opened cashless in April, and others could be following suit soon.
“We will look at it very hard for the 2020 season,” Ravens president Dick Cass said.
Cass said the advantages of fans using only cards or payment apps are “the concession lines would be faster, once people get accustomed to it. And I think the more and more technology improves, cashless transactions will get faster.
“It’s inevitable at some point that we will have almost all cashless transactions,” Cass said. “That’s just the way. I mean, when you go into Starbucks now, not that many people use cash, and when they’re using cash and people are sort of grumbling to themselves, ‘Why is he using cash?’ Right?”
That’s a problem for those without bank accounts, but Atlanta has countered with reverse ATMs, which provide a debit card for purchases for those packing cash.
Companies will ultimately latch onto whatever saves or creates money — they’ve increased revenues by 15 percent at Atlanta United games since making the switch) — and team apps seem like the natural next step.
The downside for fans will be a loss of privacy, as teams will have precise data about what you buy and when, allowing them to target with greater precision (and to know exactly how many hot dogs you bought).