USA Today
Sports, Page 2C - Tuesday, October 02, 2001
Rich Sherratt laughs about getting a ticket in Detroit's old Tiger Stadium right behind home plate, then showing up to find he was right behind a pillar. Now Sherratt, chief executive of Ballena Technologies in Alameda, Calif., shows such pillars online via seats3d.com, which offers rotating virtual views of what you'd see from each seat before you buy your tickets and actually have to sit in it.
Teams or venues pay a $30,000 base price to let people virtually sit in any seat, and virtual views of everything from parking lots to concession can be produced for extra fees. Ballena, creating its views from architectural renderings and blueprints, can take sponsors inside luxury suites and show them how their ad signs will look, even in sports venues that haven't been built.
 |  |