Cards' front office hits home run in ad sales

It takes more than a baseball team to fill a stadium. Area businesses are working to get their names in Hammons Field through various business-to-business partnerships.
Kirk Elmquist, vice president of sales and marketing for the Springfield Cardinals, said there are a number of companies taking advantage of the stadium’s advertising opportunities for the Springfield Cardinals’ inaugural season.
“We’re building integrated marketing programs to meet the companies’ needs,” Elmquist said. “We’ve got bat day, hat day, inaugural ball day, cheer stick day, pennant day, (and) water bottle day.”
Cardinals General Manager Matt Gifford said the cost of advertising in the stadium can vary widely, depending on what the advertiser wants.
“If somebody wants to come and spend $200, we can find something for them, and if they want to spend a million dollars we can find something for them,” he said. “It just all varies depending on what kind of elements they want in their package. If they want signs, if they want promotional items, if they want DiamondVision, if they’re looking for radio or TV – there are just so many different ways to skin the cat.”
Participating advertisers include Great Southern Bank, Ozarks Coca-Cola/Dr Pepper Bottling Co., CoxHealth, Thousand Hills Resort, Wil Fischer Distributing, Hiland Dairy, Nixon & Lindstrom and St. John’s, which also is the Cardinals’ official sports medicine provider – a contract that provides injured Cardinals players rehabilitation work at St. John’s Sports Medicine Center and St. John’s workers reduced prices on select tickets.
Elmquist said those companies and others are using the wall and concourse signage opportunities as well as having features on the new video scoreboard in center field. Team officials declined to disclose advertising revenues.
Advertising isn’t the only revenue source for the stadium. The stadium also features 28 luxury suites, which all have been sold, a fact Elmquist attributed to the attractive features each box offers.
“They have a three- or five-year lease,” he said. “There are between 18 and 25 seats per suite. (Box owners) have access for all the Cardinals and (Southwest Missouri State University) Bears games. They can entertain clients, they get the ability to purchase special parking passes with them, they have a TV in their suite, and there are many other features as well.”
Springfield’s Partnership for Economic Development is among the suite tenants. The partnership comprises the city of Springfield, the Springfield Business and Development Corp., the Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, Greene County and City Utilities.
Greg Williams, the chamber’s senior vice president of economic development, said the suite comes in handy for his organization.
“We use that strictly for business purposes – site selection consultants that come into town, prospective business or industry officials, that type of thing,” he said. “It’s not one of those situations where you’re going to see staff and their families in there. As a partnership team, we felt compelled to use that for marketing and relationship building and business development.”

Price of luxury
Suites sell for approximately $37,000 a year, a portion of which pays for a suites kitchen chef.
Officials with Sportservice Corp., Hammons Field’s concessions and retail services management company, recently hired former Chateau on the Lake chef Steve Jacobson to head the kitchen.
“We interviewed and tested several chefs from around the country for this position,” said Mike Amsler, Sportservice general manager.
Gifford said Buffalo, N.Y.-based Sport-service has an existing relationship with Busch Stadium in St. Louis. Sportservice holds management contracts with more than 50 ballparks, arenas and stadiums in the United States and Canada.

Catering options
Amsler said there are several different catering options in the suites and other areas.
“There’s an all-inclusive ticket in the Redbird Roost, which includes standard concession fare – all you can eat – and the suites kitchen will be providing the food for that,” he said. “Then there are five ‘dugout decks’ – the Cardinals don’t want to call them party rooms, but in our industry that’s what they’re called – and there’s several different packages of catering that you can purchase with those. And there’s also catering out in the bullpen patio out in right field.”
Two dugout decks are behind each dugout and one larger deck is behind home plate.
The sections are aimed at bringing in groups for single games.
“They’re a sectioned off area – they seat anywhere from 20 to 30 people, and then the home plate deck holds 30 to 40 people,” Gifford said. “There are some permanent seats in there, and there’s also going to be a drink rail with some high-backed bar chairs in there.”
Dugout deck group tickets are $14 each.
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