More Than A Game: From Mile High To Desert, MLB Fans Expect Entertainment, Social, Food/Bev Experiences At Palatial Ballyards
ADVERTISEMENT
Shop at Jay’s Market at 190 East Flamingo Road at the Koval Lane intersection east of the Strip.
ADVERTISEMENT
By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
DENVER, Colorado — Brad Webb sipped his $3 Coors beer from a plastic cup at a bar perch called the Rooftop high above in the right field stands at Coors Field and talked about what a modern baseball stadium has to offer to keep fans strolling through the turnstiles.
“If it’s a team I like, I don’t care about the stadium,” said the 39-year-old Webb, a Denver resident who grew up rooting for the A’s because he watched them play at spring training games at Phoenix Municipal Stadium back in the day. “But if I don’t care about who wins the game, I want to have a great atmosphere with a nice view of the surrounding city.
Webb was chatting before Wednesday’s Rockies-Mets game at Coors Field, where Webb wore a Mets sweatshirt because he moved to New York from Phoenix before migrating back west to Denver to work for Gates Corporation as a recruiter.
It’s another down season for the Rockies, firmly planted in last place in the National League’s West Division.
Yet, the team that has called Coors Field home for 29 years drew a robust crowd of 30,673 on a pleasant Wednesday evening in downtown Denver’s LoDo section.
But Webb, an Arizona State graduate, still remembers his Athletics roots from those days watching A’s spring training games at the Muni Stadium in Phoenix.
“I fucking hate the A’s moving. I don’t like it,” Webb said. “The fans have done a great job protesting. It breaks me heart.”
*
The A’s say they are done with Oakland. The American League charter franchise plays its final game at the Coliseum this season.
A’s owner John Fisher said the Athletics will play in a Triple-A baseball stadium in Sacramento in 2025, 2026 and 2027 while a new $1.5 billion, domed stadium is built on the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue on the Strip.
After receiving $380 million in government assistance in Nevada to help build the 33,000-seat Strip-based stadium, the A’s plan on opening the venue for the 2028 Major League Baseball season.
Compared to the Strip, It’s hard to find a more different setting for a baseball stadium than Denver’s LoDo, a former blighted warehouse district on the edge of downtown that has blossomed into a 24-hour residential and commercial section of downtown.
Rockies owners built McGregor Square as a bricked gateway to the ballpark where the buzz of attending a MLB ballgame can start percolating even before a fan walks through the turnstile.
What’s fascinating about Major League Baseball stadiums is that no matter where they are located they are packed these days with a points-of-sale array of swanky clubs and restaurants with nachos stands next to beer concessions next to souvenir stores next to car sponsor activations next to kids’ playgrounds.
It’s the secret sauce behind a team like the Rockies that sport a dismal record of 42 wins and 73 losses but still drew more than 30,000 fans on both Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
Below the Rooftop where beers flowed for three bucks a pop before the game and over in the right field corner was the Mountain Ranch Bar and Grille, where a buffet was a mere $32 — much less than the buffets of the Strip.
“You can’t beat that price,” observed Rolland, a friendly usher near the elevator that took fans to the Mountain Ranch eatery that offered these views of the Rockies-Mets games.
Besides the $32 buffet space, the Rockies also created two levels of premium seating area where fans buy season tickets in full or partial season plans and enjoy the feel of the game thanks to retractable window glass that closes when the temperature gets down to 50 degrees, Kahn said.
Here’s a look at the buffet seating on the left and the season ticket holder area on the right.
To understand the strategy behind how Coors Field adapted to changing fan trends and created new revenue-generating fan amenities, LVSportsBiz.com interviewed Kevin Kahn, Colorado Rockies vice president of ballpark operations.
Interestingly enough, Kahn has a strong Oakland past. He grew up in Oakland and worked for the Athletics on stadium operations from 1981-1993 before starting with the Rockies in Denver in 1994 — a year before Coors Field debuted in 1995.
The Rockies stadium was designed originally for 42,000 fans, but after the team drew about 65,000 a game at Mile High Stadium in 1993 and 1994 the Rockies bumped up the ballpark capacity to 50,000, Kahn explained.
And after Coors Field opened, fans’ wants changed over the years — and the Rockies responded to those new trends.
“The experience of watching baseball was very different. It used to be you bought your hot dog, drank your beer and scored the game. The social aspect has changed what people expect and changed how ballparks function,” Kahn said.
It took only five years before the Rockies installed 160 premium seats behind home plate where fans are closer to home plate than players in the dugouts.
Fans in these seats eat here:
Over the years, the Rockies management has changed with new trends.
To create the Rooftop gathering space, the team removed 3,000 seats and installed the open area where fans quaf Coors beers before games for a mere $3 in 2015.
The team noticed a younger demo was moving into the neighborhood, so the Rooftop is suited for that trend of young people who wanted to socialize. The Rooftop was an idea that came out of a master plan created by the team’s architect in the 2000s.
The Rockies also carved out a healthy chunk of the press box to create the PNC Press Club, which provides seating for 89 fans.
On the suite level, nine suites were converted into three “super suites” with retractable windows, where groups and businesses can hold meetings across the hallway and then have about 60 people stroll into the mega-sized suites.
On the club level that accommodates 5,500 fans, an open patio area was enclosed with an upscale, comfortable feel.
The Rockies have not necessarily created more premium seats. Instead, the team has reconfigured the space, Kahn said.
The A’s stadium for 33,000 fans on the Strip is planned to have the highest percentage of premium seats in the majors, A’s President Dave Kaval told LVSportsBiz.com a few months ago.
Kahn made a point tying the two very different stadium settings together by observing both markets have many tourists looking to catch a MLB game even if they’re not a Rockies or A’s fan. He noted he has spoken to Kaval about nuts-and-bolts issues like stadium board and capital maintenance topics.
Longtime Denver baseball man Ed Henderson, a Colorado baseball advocate who provided administrative support for the former Denver Baseball Commission in the 1980s, said he recalled attending an A’s vs Rockies game at Coors Field and 30,000 fans were in the venue.
“It was a meaningless game in the standings and it wasn’t a promotion night. But you had 30,000 people,” Henderson told LVSportsBiz.com before a Mets – Rockies game this week. “People come here not just for baseball. They’re here for the entertainment and the amenities.”
Henderson elaborated: “Let’s say attendance is 30,000. Ten thousand are hardcore baseball fans, a good percentage are the other team’s fans and the remainder might be on a business trip, looking to be entertained. In terms of finding ways of getting people in here, they nailed it.”
The Rockies used a sales tax approved by voters in Denver and five surrounding counties to pay for the public share of the stadium construction cost. The bonds were paid off early and then the sales tax money being collected in the six-county district began paying off the public debt on the NFL Denver Broncos stadium.
Fisher said his family is prepared to pay $1 billion for the A’s stadium on the Strip if investors do not step up to help finance the venue. The $380 million in public assistance includes $120 million in Clark County bonds, with a new tax district created to impose fees and charges on items bought in that stadium entertainment district on the Strip.
To make way for the A’s stadium at the old Tropicana hotel-casino site, the Tropicana is scheduled to be imploded in the autumn with a stadium groundbreaking in 2025 before a 31-month construction period. Kaval told LVSportsBiz.com that the A’s stadium in Las Vegas will be a baseball entertainment funhouse, with a stage similar to the one at Vegas Golden Knights games at T-Mobile Arena built inside the baseball stadium.
“A lot of people go to Vegas as a vacation,” Kahn said, “and they might say. “Let’s go to a ballgame as an experience.”
And as a former Oakland guy, he’s saddened by the A’s move but can understand the financial bottom line driving the decision.
“Oakland was always the stepchild to San Francisco and Oakland rallied around its sports teams,” Kahn said. “It makes me sad. From a business standpoint, I totally understand why they’re doing it and why they need to do it.”
