3-D Web site helps fans find their seats
Those headed to Reliant Stadium in Houston for the first time might want to check out the "seating chart" at Superbowl.com. Type in your seat location and the 3-D color-coded interactive map simulates the view you'll have during Superbowl XXXVIII.
The product that makes this possible - without bothersome downloads for both dial-up and broadband Internet users - is Seats3D from Ballena Technologies.
Ballena CEO Richard Sherratt first envisioned such a service after purchasing what he thought were excellent seats to a Detroit Tigers baseball game, fifth row behind home plate.
"There was a pillar in front of me," Sherratt recalls. So, in 1999 the successful entrepreneur who once ran a sports management agency founded Ballena, which is the Spanish word for "whale."
After signing the University of California at Berkeley, the Alameda, Calif.-based company landed its biggest client: International Speedway Corp. From there, it lined up four NBA teams, a Major League Baseball team and the NFL's New England Patriots and Houston Texans. Since the latter plays at Reliant, it made sense for the NFL to sign on as a client - at least for this year's Super Bowl.
Ballena is giving Superbowl.com visitors 384 different views of the football field from 220 different sections of seats at Reliant.
So what do virtual stadiums have to do with large sea creatures? "We're a very creative group," Sherratt said. "When thinking about naming the company we looked outside the window, and Ballena is the name of the street we're on.
By Paul Bond
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