Over
these last two days, I have shadowed in two different fields at Progressive
Field. The first of which was in Merchandising and Distribution with Bob
and Justin. It was a very hectic day, seeing as the crew of about ten men
were boxing and loading up over seven thousand items that needed to be moved to
their certain locations throughout the stadium. The warehouse sits
underneath the stadium and consists of aisles and aisles of bats, jerseys,
t-shirts, pens, pencils, magnets, hats, bobble heads, mugs, etc. Each box
goes to a certain location throughout the store and there are always a few that
go to each location. Only certain items and select amounts of each item
go to individual locations. This is based off of past sales and statistics
that are pulled from each location. This would end up taking all morning
and into the afternoon. On Friday, I spent the day with Rich Dorffer in
Finance. Throughout the day Rich guided me through ticket sales, budgets,
and walked through comparisons of the Indians and other Major League teams in
order to understand how much each individual on average was spending at each
game and to try and boost sales in concessions and merchandise. We also looked at complaints filed by former
Indians players and the money they were trying to get to cover their injuries. I was also able to step into the draft room
and see what the scouts were doing to prepare for the upcoming MLB draft in
June. The advance touch screen monitors
combined to allow the scouts to look at all 800 players that the Indians are
considering. These past two days have
been interesting and incredible and I can’t wait to spend next week in Ballpark
Operations with Seth Cooper while the Indians are actually in town.
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| a small, unfortunately sideways, portion of the merchandise warehouse under the stadium |
Hey Kevin!!! Your project sounds awesome. It provides a unique opportunity to go behind the scenes of the Indians and learn about what needs to get done for the team and its facilities to be maintained. As you probably have seen, there is a lot that goes into the upkeep of the stadium and the management of the team and its players. I am sure you are learning a lot and gaining skills at the same time. I am interested to see what else you have planned for the next few weeks and what you plan on doing with all that you are discovering through your project.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds great Kevin! I have never really thought about the behind the scenes jobs that occur for the Indians, as I imagine most people haven't, but this sounds like a very interesting project. You get to see all different elements that a major league team must think about and they aren't even in baseball season yet! I look forward to hearing more about your excursions at Progressive Field and have already learned a lot about how an MLB stadium operates.
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