The Tampa Bay Rays may not have experienced the sweet smell of success during the 2008 World Series, but the team’s stadium was fragrant. During home games at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., the Rays pumped a citrus scent into the stadium’s eight-story rotunda. Everyone knows that hot dogs, popcorn and peanuts go with baseball, but fruit?

“We wanted to optimize the fan experience across all five senses,” says Eric Weisberg, the team’s manager of fan experience.

Brian McKinley, vp, marketing for DMX Inc., the Austin, Texas-based company that provided the scent technology, says the citrus aroma helps deliver a positive impression to fans about cleanliness. Even better is the potential branding. “It’s providing a memorable scent that’s uniquely tied to Tropicana Field.”

While this is the first Major League Baseball park to work with DMX, The Rays are lining up additional scents for new areas of its stadium in 2009. On deck: cotton candy, bubblegum, suntan lotion and sea spray. –

Courtesy of Tampa Bay Rays, St. Petersburg, Fla.