I had the chance to go to the ASU / Morgan State game Saturday night. A good friend of mine has season tickets, and we were excited to see how ASU would look to open the season.
We knew we'd see a lot of new faces on the team. What we didn't expect were the other new additions to gameday.
The first surprise came when we tried to park. Usually the surprise is how much the rates went up from last year. This was something different. The parking garages no longer take cash or card. You have to scan a QR code and pay through your phone. Nobody around us seemed to know that going in, and the instructions on-site weren't exactly clear, so most of the lot was standing around confused about what to do. We looked at each other and had the same thought: what if you don't have a smartphone?
Then, once we got past the parking, ticket entry had changed too, and it was its own version of the same mess.
I know digital tickets have been the standard for most events for a while now. But I don't think I've ever felt like it was the only option before. This time it was. No paper backup, no cash backup, nothing. If you don't have a smartphone, you are basically out of luck if you want to go anywhere.
Maybe that sounds a little naive to admit. You always know this stuff is coming eventually. It's still a bit of a jolt to realize it's already here.
I got home and looked into it a little, and it turns out this wasn't just an ASU thing. Their official policy for the season has every Sun Devil venue on mobile tickets only, with cashless concessions across the board. More than seven in ten major stadiums worldwide have gone fully cashless at this point, so ASU is just following the pack.
What actually surprised me is that I'm apparently not the only one bothered by it. There's a bill working its way through the Arizona legislature right now, HB2555, that would force businesses to accept cash again for purchases under $100 and let customers sue for up to $5,000 if they refuse it. It's not law yet, it's only made it partway through the House so far, but it cleared committee 9 to 1 back in January. So somebody else in this state felt exactly what we felt in that parking garage Saturday night, enough to actually try to do something about it.
Which brings me to the chip. It still sounds dystopian to say out loud. But some stadiums have already moved past scanning your phone to scanning your face, Amazon's palm and face recognition system is live at ballparks like Coors Field, and a few NFL stadiums use facial recognition just to get through the gate. Once that's tied to your ticket, your food purchases, and where you walk around the building, that's a full profile on you that you never agreed to.
Overall, it was a great night for ASU, and a beautiful night to watch a game, so I'm not ready to fight the power just yet. But with everything going on these days, you really start to question the direction of society as a whole. I'm curious if this was just us Saturday night, or if you've felt the same thing creeping in somewhere else in your week too.
