1. What are the key elements of the Turner Field marketing effort?
2. What aspect of the planning of Turner Field, home of the Atlanta Braves, may have been influenced by research using secondary data?
3. What role should business research play in a sporting organization such as the Atlanta Braves, both in making capital decisions and in supporting everyday operational maters?

A visit to Turner Field, the Atlanta Braves’ state-of-the-art ballpark, feels like a trip back to the future. The stadium blends 1940s tradition with 21st century convenience. The Braves’ marketing campaign reflects the charm and nostalgia of baseball’s past, but it has a futuristic slogan: “Turner Field: Not just baseball. A baseball theme park.”
Fans love the fact that they’re closer to the action at Turner Field. It’s only 45 feet from either first or third base to the dugouts, with the stands just behind. Besides that, there’s a Braves Museumand Hall of Fame with more than 200 artifacts. Cybernauts will find Turner Field awesome because it’s a ballpark that makes them a part of the action. At the stadium, built originally for the 1996 Olympics and converted for baseball after the Games, there are interactive games to test fans’ hitting and pitching skills, and their knowledge of baseball trivia; electronic kiosks with touch screens and data banks filled with scouting reports on 300 past and present Braves, along with the Braves’ Internet home page; a dozen 27-inch television monitors mounted above the Braves’ Clubhouse Store, broadcasting all the other major league games in progress, with a video ticker-tape screen underneath spitting out up-to-the-minute scores and stats; a sophisticated communications system, with four miles of fiber-optic cable underneath the playing field that will allow World Series games to be simulcast around the globe, as well as special black boxes placed throughout the stadium to allow as many as 5,500 cell-phone calls an hour.