1. Sacramento, I Choose You!
By, Sean Joseph Grassi II
Trying to be the best, traveling across the land, catching the opportunities that life offers;
either you have found a key to living a diverse, adventurous life or you have been on a complete
binge of nostalgia and gaming with the release of Pokèmon Go. Pokèmon Go was released on
July 7th in the U.S. and July 15th in Ireland and the UK. This mobile game has brought the
immersion to the players while still bring the nostalgia of the days of Red, Blue, and Yellow.
What started as an April Fools’ Day Prank, has turned into a social phenomenon. The
Sacramento Kings who are receiving a new, high-tech arena that will offer the fans new
opportunities with very large amounts of bandwidth including Pokèmon Go events starting in
October.
The owner of the Kings, Vivek Ranadivé, saw the initial popularity of Pokèmon Go and
wanted to ensure had a chance to enjoy this new school spin on this 90’s game while seeing the
hometown. CTO for the Kings, Ryan Montoya, spoke about the expectation of the new
opportunities to connect with the fans, “We want to be able to host eSports, drone racing, and
various other activities like these. For that you need a lot of bandwidth. They can come here,
launch a product, and have it work without any issues.”
With the rapid amounts of new players joining every day, the servers for the Pokèmon Go
have a tendency to crash or lag out. With a stadium being built to allow enough bandwidth to
support VR experiences, host eSports, and race drones through the arena, it will support the
number of people who will want to play Pokèmon Go.

2. The Kings started the trend for other NBA teams to follow like the Rockets and the
Mavericks. The Rockets recently hosted a Pokèmon Go event for all their fans in the Toyota
Center. The Toyota Center may not be furnished with the best technology upgrades like
Sacramento’s new arena, Golden 1 Center, but the Rockets also offered very lucrative discounts
on their products for the fans. With any purchases, the fans would be entered for a raffle for a
team signed basketball.
The Dallas Mavericks had opportunities for fans to come play Pokèmon, catch some
Doduo’s, and collect various items at their PokèStop. The players for the Mavericks came out
with the fans to enjoy some photo opportunities with the wild Pokèmon.
The Kings starting this trend for the NBA isn’t their first go around with technology
trends. Last month, the Kings released their newly designed uniforms by using a 360 degree VR
camera allowing the fans a unique, tech savvy way to view the new look. With the Kings
continuing their stride in being on the forefront of technology for the NBA, the franchise is
ensuring that the fans have a unique, technology experience while trying to build a championship
caliber team.