National Basketball teams the Brooklyn Nets, Sacramento Kings and Detroit Pistons are rolling out in-application features that encourage consumers to upgrade their seats for discounted prices.

The teams are working with Pogoseat to integrate the feature into their stand-alone mobile apps. Besides upgrading seats, there is also an opportunity for the teams to crank out more interactive components within apps for promotions.

“Our whole goal is to upgrade the experience,” said Jen Schuman, marketing and public relations manager at Pogoseat, San Francisco.

“Whether it’s seat upgrades or a team wants a promotion for a pre-game event, it’s something that we’re working with the teams to build out features that reward their fans,” she said.

How it works
The technology integrates directly into the apps and integrates with Ticketmaster.com and Tickets.com to show in-stadium fans additional information.

For example, consumers who download the Brooklyn Nets app will see a link prompting consumers to upgrade their seats.

From there, consumers can pay for the seat upgrade and a mobile copy of their new ticket pops to show employees.

The idea is to drive sports fans into venues and then serve up discounted time-sensitive deals encouraging them to upgrade their experience.

Unlike other aggregator-based sports apps, what makes the technology appealing to sports teams is that all content remains within the organizations’ own branded apps to increase loyalty.

Oakland, CA-based Golden State Warriors were one of the first NBA teams to push the feature within its mobile app last year, and a similar feature is being used in the Major League Baseball’s At The Ballpark App for San Francisco Giants fans.

Stanford University, the University of California Los Angeles, the PAC-12 conference and the Arena Football League will also load up their mobile apps with more interactive features that are powered by Pogoseat.

Data goldmine
According to Pogoseat, the Golden State Warriors were able to take the data from the app on how may consumers were upgrading their seats to create more solid leads to help in selling season tickets because the team knew which section of the stadium were most desirable to fans.

Many sports organizations view the in-stadium experience as the next big thing with mobile to let consumers do everything from order food to receive contextual-based advertising.

Since launching last year, this is the first big push from the company to deploy the technology at the beginning of basketball season.

“Now everyone has their mobile devices in their pockets and everything happens on a mobile basis,” Ms. Schuman said.

“Having the mobile technology there makes it that much easier for fans to interact with a team,” she said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York