Yesterday we reported that Sprint was teaming up with Niantic Labs for a press event for this morning regarding Pokemon GO. Considering each company’s Chief Executive (Sprint’s Chief Executive, Marcelo Claure, and Niantic’s Chief Executive, John Hanke) was making an appearance, we figured this would be a rather large announcement. So was it? Well kind of.
The announcement was over a new incentive to get customers into Sprint stores by having them hunting for Pokemon inside them. Together the companies have come up with a special game-playing experience which will be inside more than 10,500 Sprint locations around the U.S.A. Not only that, players will be able to charge their devices while inside the stores when playing Pokemon GO.
Anyone not a Sprint customer that makes their way inside a Sprint store (or a Boost Mobile store) will have sale people attempting to get them to switch to Sprint while they are playing Pokemon GO. A novel idea but that may be harder than it sounds. Essentially this means that Sprint stores will become sponsored Gyms. This means players will also be able to collect in-game items such as PokeBalls, Potions, Eggs, and Razz Berries and so on, all while being able to jump into a battle against other trainers while at these Sprint-sponsored Gyms.
The deal? Sprint will be paying Niantic a specific amount of money for each unique visitor that makes their way inside a store. How much that is, and the exact details of the sponsored arrangement, were not released. All of this will begin next week on December 12th, 2016. This is quickly becoming a very big date for Pokemon GO players and not just because of this news. We will go into that in our next article though.
Video courtesy of USA Today
