What Reading Could Learn From Baseball For Matchday Improvements
Seeing as new owner Rob Couhig is keen to improve the SCL matchday experience, Alex bats around a few baseball-inspired ideas...
I recently spent some time in New York and, as part of my sight-seeing expedition, I was keen to go and visit a Mets baseball game. Some recommended reading for the summer while we’re without football: The Bad Guys Won by Jeff Pearlman is a fascinating story about the Mets in the 1980s, so the chance to see a game was one that I couldn’t pass up.
While I was there, it got me thinking about what we may expect to see from our new owners, given that they’ve spoken about wanting to improve the matchday experience. There were certainly some interesting things I saw which went a long way to making the experience of watching baseball (a sport I know nothing about) more interesting than, let’s say, suffering through golf or cricket.
Entering the stadium
It’s worth noting that Citi Field, the new stadium for New York Mets, is not the original stadium where the memories related to the book that I read had all happened. It’s a new arena, built in the car park of Shea Stadium.
However, I was surprised to learn that it opened in 2009. 14 years later, it’s still in pristine condition. This stadium is only 10-11 years older than the Select Car Leasing, and one of them has certainly aged better than the other. First note then – fix the stadium up and give it a lick of paint!
But it doesn’t just end there – the outside is akin to the atmosphere created for the final day of our 2024/25 season against Barnsley. They really made it to be an event – and that was saying something because they were playing a team that, I am reliably informed, are “not very good at baseball”. I might have paraphrased a bit there.
There was a DJ outside playing music. There were club staff members at the entrance handing out Hello Kitty FunkoPop dolls that were wearing the Mets kit. As soon as you walk in there are television screens everywhere, showing footage reels of players posing around while their names bounce around the screen, highlights of them doing impressive things, or reels of old footage.
There were food, drinks and merchandise stands literally everywhere. They really seemed to actively encourage and give reasons to people to want to be there early before the game. Not only this, but the metro stop is connected to the station, so travel there is incredibly convenient.
I also remember that, in the days when London Irish played on the hallowed turf, for St Patrick’s Day they’d set up a big stage in the car park with live music and have people walking round selling drinks. It surely couldn’t be too difficult to get the licensing to be able to do that again, for both pre- and post-game fun?
I think we all have those first memories of walking into Elm Park/the Madejski Stadium/the Select Car Leasing Stadium for the first time and having that intake of breath in that “wow” moment. Imagine having that feeling every time you saw the pitch when you walk in? It’s a special thing to go and see your team play live. Let’s make it feel special.
Pre-game
When the line-ups are announced, the screens all around the stadium made a real show of the player - and let me tell you, the screens were everywhere, even hanging above the rows in-between the stands.
The name is read out, there’s posing and a highlights real. You can just see “Lewis Wing” being read out, followed by a few of his worldies being played on the screen while he stands with his arms folded, or juggling a ball or pointing at the badge. You know the standard footballer poses.
I believe this is a tradition in baseball, but they have someone nominated from the crowd to “throw the first pitch”. Now, I know the rules of football, so obviously that idea hasn’t got any legs... BUT why not get a member of the crowd to take a penalty at the bench ‘keeper? It’s quick, easy, fun and gives the back-up goalie something to do, and it’s a chance to build a rapport with the fans.
The show continues as well. They have cheerleaders and a DJ set, pumping out... well... some of it was music. Some of it was noise.
But the crowd were up, jumping and bouncing around, loving life. It really created an atmosphere in a stadium that was quite literally only half full. Maybe even less so. I am not sure if cheerleaders are seen as appropriate in modern football culture (do I recall Crystal Palace used to have them?), but I should add that this was a mixed gender group of young men and women throwing shapes that would have put my back out.
It’s different, interesting and fun to watch, especially for the kids, who would try to join in.
Food, drink and facilities
As I mentioned before, the food and drink stands were EVERYWHERE. The culture of baseball really inclines you to be expected to have your dinner there at the stadium and wash it down with a couple of $18 beers (not a typo – never again shall I complain about £6).
It’s not just this though – it’s the sheer variety of food and drink that you can choose from. I know Rob Couhig touched on this in his excellent podcast with Ben and Ross, but the currently available range is so, so limited.
While I will always argue that it’s better to have a small range but for all of the products to be high-quality, it would be a quick win to have a larger variety of chocolate bars, crisps, bottled drinks, tea or coffee types, or something not called Heineken. Something for everyone!
The last thing that I loved as well – probably an insight into my sad little mind – was the fact that every seat had a cup holder installed in the back of it. So, instead of putting your drink on the floor, watching the Coke Zero roll away and having to ask the steward for a thousandth time to pass it back up to you, you have a safe location to store your drink.
It literally takes up no space either, as the passage between the seats was the same as the passage between the SCL’s seats and never did it cause an issue.
The in-game stuff
Now, we don’t have the luxury of being able to set up more food stands, because the stadium just isn’t designed that way. But one other novelty that baseball games have is a guy that walks up and down the aisles, offering to sell food and drinks. This would be a good place to insert a YouTube clip of the hotdog vendor that follows Homer Simpson everywhere.
Editor’s note: Ask and ye shall receive.
The point here is that, by having someone do that, surely you could cover the cost of their wages by selling a couple of things, but it could also help the congestion and queue times inside the stadium.
Imagine being able to buy that hotdog from the guy who comes to your row in the 44th minute? Job done, right? And it also would benefit the club by providing more sales opportunities.
Occasionally, in-between plays at baseball games, they would also do light shows. That’s probably not viable for football because a) it’s largely played in daylight and b) you don’t want half the stadium going dark when your centre-back is trying to win a header.
But there are other things like looking for celebrity look-a-likes in the crowd and showing them on the screen. Then they found a Dakota Johnson lookalike, who – guess what – was actually Dakota Johnson.
This probably wouldn’t work for us as there are only so many times that anyone can get excited about Chris Tarrant coming to the stadium, but nonetheless, it’s all about the crowd engagement. They really know how to put on a show and how to get the crowd involved.
It remains to be seen what the new owners bring in, but I’m excited to see the matchday experience freshened up for next season, and if anything similar to the things that I have described here happen, then I think it will make a day out at the Select Car Leasing Stadium one of the best football days out in the country.