Big League Thinking
Athletes are rich, spoiled, and as distant from their fans as movie stars. Ticket prices are sky-high. Wealthy owners try to squeeze money out of taxpayers to build or upgrade their ballparks.
Not exactly the stuff of sandlot dreams.
Yet this is the business Andrew Berlin would like to be in. Berlin, 52, is the chairman and CEO of Berlin Packaging, LLC, a company that makes bottles, cans, tubes, drums, and just about anything else you can think of that holds anything else you can think of, from Downy detergent to Turtle Wax.
For years now, Berlin has been a limited partner in the White Sox. He wears a World Series ring. But he longs to be more than limited. He'd like to be the man in charge, and if he can't acquire the White Sox, he'd consider trying for another team in the Central Division of either the American or National League-anything within driving distance of Chicago.
At the moment, though, no clubs are on the market. So, last year, when Berlin was approached about investing in the South Bend Silver Hawks, he asked the owners if they'd consider selling the whole team.
They jumped at the offer.
Now Berlin owns the team-a Class A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks-and he's finding that it's a very different operation from the big leagues, mostly in good ways.
To see what he bought, and to hear how his first season was going, I drove on a hot July night to meet him at Coveleski Stadium in downtown South Bend, Ind. As fans walked through the gates, Silver Hawks players were there to greet them, handing out free programs.
About 4,000 turned out to see the team on the night of my visit. Kids in bathing suits ran through a newly installed splash pad in right field. Others rolled down a grassy hill, also in right. Beyond the left-field wall, kids shot baskets and played on a three-story-tall inflatable slide, their parents shelling out an extra five bucks for the privilege.
It was a Monday night-a Belly Buster Monday, in the team parlance-which meant $12 would get a fan all the hot dogs, hamburgers, popcorn, and peanuts he or she could eat. There's some kind of promotion every night in South Bend, but the most popular by far is Flat-Screen Fridays, when the team gives away a flat-screen TV every inning, extra innings included.
That's the thing about minor-league baseball, as Berlin has discovered. Sometimes the baseball seems incidental-an excuse for people to come out and eat, drink, and play. But in South Bend, that's a big deal. There are 700,000 people living within a 45-mile radius of the stadium, Berlin said, and there are not a lot of family-oriented entertainment options.
"You have to earn this business from your customers," he said, showing me around the ballpark. He is a broad-shouldered man with thinning hair and a boyish smile. Soon, his parents would arrive from Michigan. It would be their first time seeing the team, and Berlin seemed eager for everything to be just right.
"Fifteen percent of all fans at minor-league games will leave without knowing the score," he said. Which means that Berlin's job is more marketing and entertainment than sports. The baseball decisions are entirely out of his hands. The Diamondbacks send him players and coaches. Berlin can't fire the manager or decide who should bat leadoff. But he does determine almost everything that takes place off the field.
Berlin won't say how much he paid for the team, but he does say that he agreed to invest $2.5 million of his own money in the ballpark. The city of South Bend chipped in $1.75, in addition to another $7 million they had already spent. Berlin signed a 20-year lease with the city.
His willingness to invest his own money in the park helped neutralize potential criticism about having an out-of-town owner, said Joe Kernan, a former South Bend mayor, former Indiana governor, and former managing member of the LLC that previously owned the Silver Hawks. "He's been active and accessible, all the things you'd expect from a local owner," said Kernan.
South Bend has had the franchise since 1988. Big Leaguers including Brandon Webb, Justin Upton, and Mark Reynolds have played for the team.
On opening day this spring, Berlin went to the hardware store to buy brooms to help sweep the stadium concourse. On the night I attended the game, he rearranged furniture in the gift shop. His email address is printed in the team's program, and he tries to answer every note he gets from fans.
So far, the results have been good. Though the Silver Hawks have not played particularly well, attendance for the season is up more than 200 percent.
As he showed his parents and me around the ballpark, he talked happily about the business decisions he'd made-how he'd switched the brand of hot dogs to the same ones sold at Fenway Park and how he'd chosen the music played on the sound system to match that offered at the Oakland Coliseum, because surveys showed Fenway had the most popular dogs in the majors and Oakland had the most popular music. He bragged that fans would be hard pressed to find cleaner bathrooms at any minor-league stadium in the country.
Berlin grew up a Cubs fan, until they broke his heart in 1969. Soon after, his father, who owned a factory at 79th and Ashland, began taking him to Comiskey Park. He's been a Sox fan since.
He began his career as a lawyer, with one of Chicago's big firms. But in 1988, his father bought a packaging company and invited Andrew to run it with him. The company has grown dramatically under the younger Berlin's guidance. This year, Berlin Packaging expects to approach $800 million in revenue.
"You see that ad for Berlin Packaging on the outfield wall," he said to his father, pointing to right field. "Most expensive ad in the whole place." Meaning he had to buy the team to get it.
After the tour, Berlin settled into the owner's box with his parents, his wife, and his two young boys, ages six and four. In addition to the two boys, he has three daughters from a previous marriage.
Usually, he said, he watches from the grandstand-not just because he wants to be among the people and get their feedback, but also because he wants the extra income from renting the suite.
Tonight, though, he wanted to treat his family to something special.
"We're very proud," said his mother, Randy Berlin, a retired lawyer who teaches college-level law and literature courses. "It's exciting to see him doing something different than we expected. But let nobody think this is a vanity project for him. It's a business." Berlin agreed. He said the team, properly run, should give a nice return on investment.
"But No. 1," he said, "it's fun."
If Berlin does go on to own a big-league team someday, let's hope he remembers that.