Two Inning Drink Run

By: katypolansky | Category: Concessions

Proper staffing at a ballpark is something that can make or break a fan experience. I recently attended my first Eugene Emeralds baseball game since the team moved to PK Park on the University of Oregon campus. The park was probably 85% full. I used the restroom twice and didn’t have to wait either time. I bought one fountain soda. It took me two innings to get it.

I can’t come up with a single reason to give the Ems a pass on this kind of crappy service. It is mid-season. Any kinks in moving into a new park should have been worked out by now. It can be difficult to motivate a young staff of minimum wage workers to hustle and care about the consumer. However, as is often the case in business, this is the staff with which game attendees are interacting. The kid who eventually helped me with my order was not super efficient but he was nice enough. The biggest killer to me is that there were a multitude of unmanned cash registers which implies more people could have been working on this particular night. There is 11% unemployment in Oregon, so there are certainly people willing to work at the games. Therefore, I believe management was being cheap and blew game staffing. The silliest thing about this is that a soda in the new park costs around $4. If I had the ability to get a drink quickly I likely would have had at least two. My additional order, as one of the 4,000 people at the park would have paid for half an hour of another staffers time. I’m willing to give the Ems another shot. However, if my next visit to the park also requires a two inning drink run, you can be certain you’ll read about it in this blog.