Chiba Lotte Marines

Founded in 1949, the Chiba Lotte Marines are a professional baseball team in Japan's Pacific League, steeped in tradition and success. With a proud history of winning the Nippon Series four times and the Pacific League Championship five times, the Marines are a testament to the enduring allure and competitive nature of Japanese baseball.

Home games are played at the ZOZO Marine Stadium (officially called the Chiba Marine Stadium). Since opening its doors in 1990, the seaside venue in Chiba welcomes up to 30,000 spectators per game. 

Behind the scenes, Isamu Naitoh (IT Manager) and his team of seven are the unseen champions working to create a safe and enjoyable environment for fans. Together, they ensure the smooth operation of the stadium along with the safety and comfort of over a million visitors each year. 

The Challenge

Before Verkada, the team faced significant hurdles with their previous camera system. Naitoh reflects on the limitations that hampered their efficiency and security efforts, "Our existing cameras can only get us so far. We needed a video monitoring solution that we could rely on, use, and expand as needed.”

Why Verkada?

The quest for a scalable and user-friendly security solution led Naitoh and his team to Verkada’s hybrid cloud solution. The hybrid cloud cameras strengthen security while simplifying management, allowing footage to be retained both onboard the camera itself for up to 365 days and saved to unlimited cloud-based archives.

“We can view footage from anywhere at any time, easily find what we need, and share the footage with the team or law enforcement in seconds.”

Dynamic Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) Cameras

“The PTZ cameras in the stadium have been a game-changer. Seeing how smooth the camera operations are, we already want a few more.” 

With 360-degree pan and 220-degree tilt capabilities, the CP52-E pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras help ensure the safety of guests and capture crisp visuals of the field, seating areas, entrances, exits, and other critical points. Outside of event hours, the team can place the camera on autopilot with Sentry Mode, which automatically scans the space for unauthorized access, loitering, and suspicious activity during idle periods.

Actionable Insights and AI Analytics

“The stadium is protected after-hours with real-time alerts.”

Edge-based video analytics enable ballpark management teams to make informed decisions across the stadium. They have insights into occupancy trends to improve crowd management along with safety measures through loitering detection and Person of Interest (POI) alerts. "The analytics can also give us a better understanding of foot traffic and retail trends.”

Ease and Speed of Incident Resolution

Naitoh highlights the ease and speed that Verkada brings to incident resolution, supporting his team's ability to maintain a safe and secure environment, "We can share footage in one tap of a button.” 

The centralized video management platform, Command, is built with an intuitive software interface. Finding footage takes seconds with smart search filters for attributes such as people, vehicles, and motion. Live camera feeds and footage can be quickly shared through email, SMS text message, or a direct web link. The ease of use improves internal and external collaboration, while enabling faster response times.

Looking Ahead

With Verkada, Naitoh empowers his team with the tools to simplify management and secure one of Japan's most beloved baseball stadiums. He looks forward to the continuous innovations, which are deployed through automatic software and firmware updates over-the-air.

 "Like magic."

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