Fans eager to return to their seats faster after a beer run at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park will get some help from Amazon technology this summer.
The Seattle Mariners and hospitality partner Sodexo Live! announced Wednesday that they will be using Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” cashierless tech and Amazon One palm-scanning tech at the team’s home ballpark in a new “Walk-Off Market.”
It’s the first time both retail technologies will be utilized in a Major League Baseball ballpark. The Houston Astros will be using Just Walk Out in two stores at Minute Maid Park.
Walk-Off Market is slated to open sometime this summer near Section 126 on the Main Level of T-Mobile Park. Fans can enter with a credit card or wave a palm over an Amazon One device to enter, shop and then leave. The credit card they inserted or linked to their Amazon One ID will be charged for the items they took after they leave the store. Fans can register for Amazon One at a kiosk on the spot.
Just Walk Out uses an array of overhead cameras and sensors in shelving to track what customers are grabbing, and the technology was first introduced by Amazon with the opening of Amazon Go convenience stores in 2018.
The new market will feature a variety of beer, wine, ready-to-drink cocktails, soft drinks, snacks, hot dogs, nachos and Mariners merchandise.
“The Walk-Off Market is built for speed,” Catie Griggs, Seattle Mariners president of business operations, said in a news release. From the menu offerings to the store’s layout to Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology, everything is designed to offer fans what they want and get them back to the game as quickly as possible.”
Just Walk Out is also in use in four stores at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena, and debuted there at the start of the Seattle Kraken NHL season. TD Garden in Boston also uses the tech.
But Amazon One ran into a raised hand at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado after the venue scrapped plans to implement the the palm-scanning technology after a campaign by musicians and activists to block its use by ticketing service AXS and parent company AEG Worldwide.
