Mark This! Podcast, Episode 8, Season Opener: MLB Talk
Host: Heather Dotchel, Corporate Communications
Guests: Alison Birdwell, President and CEO, Sports + Entertainment and Joel Nash, Regional Vice President, Sports + Entertainment
It is time to Mark This!, podcast in which we peel back the curtain to reveal the cool and innovated people, programs, and projects that are happening all over Aramark's varied lines of business.
I'm Heather Dotchel. As a member of Aramark's Communications team, I see and hear about all of the amazing things that are happening across our company. These remarkable initiatives happen because we have remarkable people behind them, building opportunity, building innovation, and building community. Mark This! provides a space in which we can explore these initiatives with our audience.
Are you ready for the country's favorite pastime? Aramark Sports and Entertainment is the award-winning partner of 10 Major League Baseball stadiums. And for the 2023 MLB season, Aramark Sports and Entertainment introduced a variety of brand-new ballpark menu offerings and chef collaborations across its portfolio of clients. In addition to launching Seasons Inning Stretch, a limited time food and beverage program that will introduce new seasonally inspired culinary options in the spring, summer, and fall.
At the end of March, we were joined by Alison Birdwell, president of Aramark's Sports and Entertainment Business, and Joel Nash, Regional Vice President for Sports and Entertainment, who also just happens to work with the current World Champion Astros.
Welcome to you both. Alison, let's begin with you. Can you introduce yourself to our audience please?
Sure, Heather, I'd love to. My name's Alison Birdwell. I've been with Aramark for 20 years, all on sports and entertainment, and this is my 20th Major League Baseball season. So I have lots of insights and memories and exciting facts and information about what we do in baseball.
Joel, how does it feel to be part of the World Champion Astros and how did you get to your current position?
Yeah, I would tell you, being a part of the World Champion Astros creates an immense sense of pride, to be very honest with you. And it really lets our team feel a sense of huge reward for the work that they've put in through the course of an entire baseball season. I've been with the organization just over 23 years, and most recently was promoted into the Vice President role right during COVID. So I had a very interesting time transitioning into this role, but have had some great mentorship with Alison and the folks within our leadership group to get me where I am today.
What is it about baseball that you love, Alison?
So I think baseball's very unique. If you think about there's 81 games in a season, without post-season, you've got a lot of opportunities to really hone in on some special different promotions, changing menus up, and really connecting with fans, especially season ticket holders. So it's not like NFL where you just have an eight game or nine game season where you've got nine times and that's it. I really enjoy the season, the length of the season, and then really fans get out of their seats and wander around the building and really look into everything that we do and take the time to really examine the food options. And really it's a social gathering as much as it is a game sometimes. So just really like the whole atmosphere and what it allows us to get done as concessionaires and providers of food and beverage and catering in general.
Speaking of that atmosphere, Joel, how is the energy of opening this year as compared to years when an Aramark client isn't the reigning champion?
Well, I would tell you that the energy is always at peak level, regardless if you're the champion or not. But I would tell you this year in the city of Houston, it is something that is absolutely invigorating as we work to plan for what will be just an amazing 2023 season with the Houston Astros. But even more importantly in the city of Houston this coming weekend we've got opening day on March 30th, but then just right the next day after that, we'll be hosting the Final Four at NRG Park. So the energy around the city is just absolutely amazing. And the great thing is that when you come off of a championship season, that energy just kind of seems to ride itself through the entire year and is something that lets our team really look forward to putting on an amazing show for that 82-game run.
Alison, as we're looking at the beginning of this season with home openers, but then stretching into the first few weeks as our audiences, our community participants come pouring into the stadiums, what kind of preparation is happening right now all over the country, behind the scenes?
So preparing for opening day, which is usually, hopefully in most cases a sellout, or pretty close to sellout game, is a big deal. And really when you think about the buildings in all of our accounts have been dark for some period of time, we were lucky enough to have two teams go all the way to the World Series. So they've had a shorter off season than most, but preparing to get open for the season is a very large undertaking. And people often ask me, "What do you do for the other 200 and whatever days a year because you're just working 81 games and that's it." And that couldn't be further from the truth. It takes literally months to ensure that our equipment is working right, that we've got all of our concepts and menus and training and all of the product is loaded into the stands or the areas where we'll be serving.
There's just so many aspects of getting ready so it all comes together. And I would tell you, this week, which is three days, two days now, from opening day for four of our accounts is probably a very frenetic, most frenetic, time of the year as we look to put the finishing touches on what we're doing. We've got a lot of new employees who we're making sure know how to get to work and where to go. We've got, in many cases, brand new menus and we're training on those. We may have new uniforms, so there's just a very, very busy time with lots of details and making sure that we're fully ready for the big day. And then obviously opening day is generally followed by a home stand of several games. So the festivities don't stop after that first day. We've got to be ready to keep going and get through that home stand.
Alison, talk to me about your teams. How many people nationally does it take to pull this off?
So it's quite an undertaking, Heather, and when you think about all the aspects of what we do both front and the back of the house, you've got culinary doing all the food prep, you've got warehouse placing and receiving orders, you've got a lot of behind the scenes things happening while you're maybe standing in front of a cashier or a server that maybe is not always considered. So most of our ballparks, we have rosters of well over 1000 employees at each one. And obviously opening day is a big day for each one of those. So combined total, that's nine or 10,000 people that are committed to our business every day. And I can tell you that without them, or having even the right team, we would not be able to do what we do today. I would say that our people and what they do every day to make us successful is the most important part of our operation.
And the leaders in all of our accounts really drive our business to go where it needs to go in amazing ways. And the level of attention to detail and follow up and commitment and long hours it takes to get not only the ballparks up and running, but the stamina of continuing to work 81 games, some of them are seven or 10 days in a row, and you've got to convince people to come back to work every day and flip the building and get it ready for the following game? It's quite an undertaking.
And everywhere from up in Toronto at the Blue Jays, where we have Margaret Hennessy and Jason, we've got Derek and Tom Horvath at Fenway, we've got Mark Wallace at Oakland, Al Wolfe and Richard Hesse in Colorado with the Rockies. We've got Troy McKenna in Kansas City. We've got Kevin Tedesco right here in Philadelphia. Peter Matra in Citi Field in New York. We've got Brian Hediger in Pittsburgh and Jimmy Coatsworth in Houston, who really are incredibly accomplished leaders who make this happen for us every day. And without them we would certainly be dead in the water. So I can't speak highly enough of them, their teams, and their efforts.
Joel, what are your favorite ways that our stadium teams make the fans feel at home?
What I would tell you is there's a couple of ways. And quite frankly, I think we're always the challenge is we're competing with people being at home, and we've got to make sure that when they are in our stadiums that they feel that they're a part of our family. And it starts with, honestly, our overarching approach to hospitality, and the way at which we engage our employees and train our employees to deliver what we call that world class service each and every day. And in baseball, we have 82 times to really have that kind of personal impact with each and every one of our fans.
And it's great that as you progress through the course of a baseball season, as you're walking through accounts on an ongoing basis, and you'll actually begin to see fans engaging and interacting with our frontline staff as if their personal friends. They'll be calling them by name. Fans will seek out our employees each and every game because they make that personal connection with them. And I think that's important. I mean, you've got to become part of our family to really feel at home when you're at a baseball stadium.
But I would also say that the other piece, and one of the things that I think COVID taught us and the ways in which our industry has changed immensely, is how we use tech and how we've evolved our use of technology to get our fans back to their seats. And one of the things that fans come for is to watch the action on the field, and our job is to get them back to that action as quickly as possible and we have done an amazing job through our entire line of business and developing, testing, implementing, and then really broadly deploying technology to get our fans back into their seats as quickly as possible.
And then I say the third way is really we've got to have food and beverage that resonates with our, options that resonate with our fans. It's got to hit home for them. It's got to be food that they want to eat. And that really kind of brings back that sense of baseball nostalgia for them. And today everybody's a foodie and so we really work to develop menus that can speak to each and every single one of our fans, again, over that 82-game stretch of a baseball season.
Well, let's dig into that third point a little more, on that food and beverage resonance. Joel, how do you develop a signature or a special food or drink at the stadium? What do you look for to connect there?
Yeah, so I think every one of our teams takes just a little bit of a different approach, depending on their culinary teams and the way they want to do it. But I would tell you that we've got a great design and development group that works with us, and they really start by giving us the idea, the impetus for the way at which we want to approach creating these specialty items. And every year we take a different approach at how we pull together what we want to call our specialty menu item for the year.
And then I look at it like this. I look at it as the menu creation then becomes like a work of art. It becomes like freeform conversation. And one of the favorite parts of my job is when we do these brainstorming sessions, and I will tell you, there are times where you will be in tears laughing, coming up with some of the craziest ideas on how we want to pair food together. But I will tell you that's where the best ideas come from, when we're sitting in a large room with our chefs, with our operators, and really trying to come up with what might be seem really crazy, but yet in the end becomes something that really resonates with our fans.
And then it's all about eating. I will tell you the amount of food that we eat and the times that we cook and taste test and cook and taste test, that's where you get down to a product that I think is what sets us apart in the industry, when we create these types of programs. And I will tell you, there's an example out of Kansas City just last year where we had a barbecue Reese's pulled pork barbecue sandwich. And it became an internet sensation. I will tell you, there were folks on one side of the fence that absolutely hated it. And then there were folks on the other side of the fence that thought it was the best thing and most creative item that we've ever come up with. And that's what we're looking for is just to have those items that are created that create just that, I think that you want the internet sensation behind it, but when fans come into the building, you want them to seek those types of items out to understand how creative we are from a culinary perspective.
Yeah, I love that. And as somebody who grew up just off the border of Canada, I have to say that the poutine hotdog this year, I would've volunteered to taste test that for you.
I'd like to revisit the World Series though. Alison had just mentioned that not only were the Astros our team, but the Phillies were too. Alison, what kind of opportunity does that lead to when we have the biggest game of the season and they're both ours?
Yeah, it's been a while since that's happened. So it was really, really exciting. And for me personally, I lived in Houston for over 20 years and moved during COVID to Philadelphia. So I felt really torn because both of those teams were really kind of like my hometown team. So for me it was even more extra special.
But from the standpoint of the Phillies, who are great partners by the way, and the whole kind of South Philly pride and vibe really came to the top of everyone's mind. The staff were just so excited to come to work. It's been, I think the last time we were in this position was in 2008, so it had been a while and everyone was more than ready to experience it again. And I can tell you, I think the first game was pretty chilly. I mean, you've got to remember, we were end of October, even beginning of November, as these games went on and there was no one seemed to even notice that it was cold out. They were just so worked up and fired up to be there. And the noise and the whole atmosphere in Citizens Bank Park is really, really unique.
I think that just got everybody so excited and stoked up. And I will tell you that we operate in an environment in Philadelphia where we share employees among the venues down in South Philly with Lincoln Financial Field and Wells Fargo Center. And everyone pulled together from all those three venues to be part of the action and volunteered and showed up. And it just became such a great collaboration and a feeling of teamwork and respect throughout the entire set of accounts down there. And I would imagine that not just our employees felt that way, our managers, our fans, the sense of pride was just huge. So I think going into the season, I had the pleasure of spending some time with the Phillies clients last week at Spring Training. And I can tell you that Spring Training attendance and excitement has been bigger this year than ever. And I know that as we go into the season, that will continue to be the trend. We're really excited for next week when the Phillies open up.
Did you have a favorite moment that you can point to from the series last year?
I remember when they clinched going into from the playoff round into the World Series round and everyone from our team, we were all standing there, the leadership team from the Phillies, the leadership team from Aramark, myself, and that last play, everyone was just incredulous. They couldn't believe it actually happened. And I will tell you the emotion, from our team especially, and just watching the pride and how hard they'd worked and it all coming to fruition, I think we all cried several tears that night. So that I think hands down is my favorite moment.
Joel, I'm not sure that the Phillies clinching their series position was probably your favorite. So what was your best moment from the series?
Yeah. No, obviously clenching was my favorite part, but I would tell you similar to Alison, this was my first World Series win, after 20 plus years being with Aramark. And I've been a part of a couple World Series in the past. So as the Astros clinched, I took a step back and I watched our team, and I watched all of our frontline employees as we walked the building. And to Alison's point, the pride that these folks felt for just what had been accomplished on the field, but it's the fruits of their labor that they were celebrating as well, because we are an integral part to any baseball operation and the way a game day comes to life.
And just watching folks celebrate with themselves and their team members, but then those that had their family there, and watching them actually celebrate with their family members at the end of the game knowing that they had just put in nights and weekends and countless hours of work, it was amazing. It made you feel really proud to be a part of this organization and a part of a championship organization like the Astros.
Well, thank you for sharing all of this with us. Before we close out, for some fun, I'd like to ask each of you what your favorite go-to food items are to order at the ballgame. Joel, you want to kick us off? Are you a traditionalist or are you going for the innovative new concept? What are you ordering when you step up?
If you ask anybody that's ever been to any sporting event or any concert, I'm a traditionalist. I go for the hotdog no matter where I am at. Even last night, I was at AAA baseball game last night for the Sugar Land Space Cowboys, and they played the Astros in a game, and I probably had three hotdogs during my walk.
But what I will also tell you is that I absolutely go for the new innovative concepts. I taste test more than eat the whole thing like I do a hotdog. But really the greatest part of our job is you end up eating a little bit of everything as you tour a stadium. And so putting the 10 to 20,000 steps in a night is absolutely needed after the amount of food that we typically consume on any given night in one of our ballparks.
What's your favorite for the new concepts for this upcoming season?
So I'm going to reserve judgment until I get a chance to try them live and in person. So I will try Kansas City's on Thursday and I will try the one in Houston on Friday, and I will reserve judgment until then. I will tell you I have a favorite, but I'd like to see it live and in person and go from there.
Very diplomatic. Alison, how about you? What is your go-to food at the ball game?
I am not a traditionalist. I like to try anything new and different. And I already have a list of what I'm going to be trying in the next two weeks. And in case I already didn't need to lose some weight, I'm going to definitely need to lose some weight after I get round the ballparks. To Joel's point, I will be offsetting that by doing a lot of walking.
But some of the highlights that I am dying to see and taste, the avocado fries at Fenway Park, very intriguing to me. We have a brand-new renovation of various concession areas at Rogers Centre in Toronto, and we've bought in some local world flavors there. And I know that we have a bahn mi chicken sandwich that I am really looking forward to seeing along with those renovations. Mets and Citi Field, we've got a bunch of new partners there for this season, and I don't even know where to start there, but I know that there are Pat LaFrieda, who's our butcher partner there, has some porchetta and some other meat items that I'm really looking forward to. And then I think the other big one is the fried green tomato BLT at PNC Park. I will let you know how all of those things are plus specialty items from the rest of our venues after I waddle home on about the 12th of April.
Well, that all sounds absolutely marvelous.
Are you ready to head out to the old ballgame? Visit our newsroom on aramark.com to access more information. Alison and Joel, thank you so much for joining us today. And as always, I'd like to thank our listeners for tuning in to Mark This!
