Major League Baseball has expanded its “Go-Ahead Entry” facial-authentication ticketing program for the 2024 season, with the San Francisco Giants, the Houston Astros and the Washington Nationals joining the Philadelphia Phillies in the MLB-program aimed at speeding up fan entry to ballparks.
Using gate technology from NEC, the MLB program allows fans to verify ticket information by simply walking by the gate pedestals and looking at the camera. Fans must pre-enroll in the system via MLB’s Ballpark app by taking a selfie picture and linking that to their ticketing account. Once at the game, fans can use the Go-Ahead Entry lanes and have tickets validated just by walking past and looking at the pedestal’s camera. Multiple tickets on the same account can be verified with one look, allowing groups of family or friends to enter at the same time.
Facial authentication technology for ticketing validation is a process that is starting to take off, with several NFL teams and one MLB team (the New York Mets) already using such systems powered by technology from a startup called Wicket. While MLB did not reveal the provider of its system’s technology, industry sources (as well as several LinkedIn posts by NEC executives) confirmed that the large pedestals used for Go-Ahead Entry deployments came from NEC.
According to an MLB spokesperson, at the trial deployment of the Go-Ahead Entry at Citizens Bank Ballpark in Philadelphia last year, fans were able to get through the Go-Ahead Entry gates 68 percent faster than regular ticketing gates. MLB also said the Go-Ahead Entry gates could handle 2.5 times the throughput of a regular ticketing gate. Though MLB has not provided any actual statistics to back up their claims, the consensus among teams and venues who have deployed such systems is that they are much faster than traditional ticket scanning at pedestals or by staff using hand-held scanners.
For the start of the season, at Minute Maid Park the Astros will have the technology available at five gates. At Nationals Park, the Nationals will have three gates using the Go-Ahead Entry system, while the Phillies will expand to three gates total. Oracle Park in San Francisco will have the systems at two gates. According to an MLB source, more MLB teams are expected to add the systems as the season progresses.
Since MLB has not yet provided any financial or operational information about the program — namely, as to whether the league or the teams are paying for the systems, or whether there is some kind of joint ownership/operational agreement — it’s hard to tell whether or not the MLB program will be more beneficial to venues than buying such systems from another provider. In the past, MLB has helped teams with the costs of deploying stadium wireless networks by building “consortiums” of providers who offered such equipment at discounts.
From what we can tell from photos, the NEC pedestals look like they are solidly built, most likely to withstand elements like rain and heat. They also apparently come installed with wheels to allow for deployment outside any previous structural entry gates, a flexibility that fits the desire of many venues to expand their ticketing and security perimeters away from actual stadium walls. The cameras on the pedestals also look large, much bigger than the cameras embedded in off-the-shelf tablets used by the Wicket system. NEC has a long history in providing biometric and face-recognition technology for security purposes.
Having the system run through the Ballpark app allows fans to be able to register once and use it at any participating stadium. However, it’s not clear whether or not MLB plans to integrate its facial authentication program with other stadium functions like concessions or merchandise purchases. At the Cleveland Browns Stadium, fans can enroll once in the team’s “Express Entry” program and also add additional information that allows them to use their face to validate age and payment information to buy beer by looking at a tablet.
