The presentation was given by Katie Smith, Executive Chef of Levy Foods at the College Word Series Media Tasting Event to the media.
Katie Smith, holding microphone, describes station one, the burgers
All right, so I’m going to go over all of the offerings that we have this year for you, for our College World Series. Obviously, we have kept all of our fan favorites, but these are all the new items that we have this year.
This year we have two different burgers of our specials. We have the Big Dill, which is right here. We’ve got a grilled Omaha Steaks burger, and then it has provolone cheese, fresh red onions, our dill aioli, and fried dill pickle chips on it.
And then our next burger is our branded 75th burger, the Cubano Cutter. We have our Omaha Steaks grilled burger, and we have ham, smoked pork, dijonnaise, and pickles on top of that, so your classic Cubano in a burger. And then it is branded with our 75th logo right on top.
And our last sandwich on this display is our Mac Attack. It is a chicken sandwich—a fried chicken patty on a brioche bun with pepper jack, fried mac and cheese bites, our spicy ranch that is made with our chocolate habanero sauce from Volcanic Peppers, and then it is topped with pickles as well.
Katie Smith, holding microphone, describes station two, the hotdogs
We’ll move on to our dog selection. So this year we have three new loaded dogs. You have three options, but our Big Island Dog is our footlong, but we also have an Island Dog is just our normal hot dog with the same toppings on it. So we have a larger version and then we also have a smaller version. Our Big Island dog is our Omaha Steaks footlong hot dog topped with a mango pineapple pico, and then it is drizzled with teriyaki ketchup.
For our next dog, we tried to take a spin on a classic Chicago dog and we made a Midwest dog. We named it The Flyover Frank. It is a classic Omaha Steaks dog topped with red pickle relish, diced onions, sliced tomatoes, and a pickle spear.
Katie Smith, holding microphone, describes station three, the pork tenderloin sandwich and the shareables
We’ll come over here. These are more of the items we really want to show you. We have two shareable items. Our first shareable item that I’m gonna talk about is our Double Dipper box. Our Double Dipper box is boneless chicken meat and crinkle cut fries. And then it comes with four of our signature sauces. We have our house made buttermilk ranch, a sweet chili sauce, a hot honey BBQ, and our house tender sauce, which is called our Walk-Off Sauce. This all comes in that beautiful big box that are NachOmaha comes in… very easy to share, very sit on your lap, at your feet.
Our next one that we’re showcasing this year for our 75th anniversary of the College World Series in Omaha which is our pork tenderloin. We decided to go back to some Midwestern classics with this one. You can’t get any more Midwestern than a pork chop. So we’ve branded the bun as well with that 75th logo. So you have a beautiful golden fried large pork tenderloin with our branded bun.
Our next shareable item, and something that I am really super excited about this year, is our You’re Killing Me S’mores. Not only do I love the name, I love everything that’s in it. And we have churro chips, creamy marshmallow, chocolate chips, and toasted marshmallows.
Katie Smith, holding microphone, describes station four, the tots, fries and pizza
And then over here for our last section, we have some loaded fries and tots and then we’re showcasing a new pepperoni pizza that we’re doing this year. We switched out all of our pepperoni to a cupped pepperoni. It’s a beautiful, crispy, cupped pepperoni on all of our pizzas, and you can put hot honey on top of it. So we’ll have regular pepperoni pizzas, and then we’ll also have an option to have a hot honey pepperoni pizza.
For our loaded tots for this year, we tried to go back to a classic once again. We have a classic cheeseburger tot—our crispy golden brown tot topped with seasoned Omaha Steaks ground beef. Then you have lettuce, tomato, onion, and then topped with our burger sauce. So everything that you would find on a burger right here with our spicy nacho cheese.
Our last loaded fry that we are doing this year is our Carne Asada fries. You have crinkle cut fries, our queso blanco, and then it is topped with a fajita-style beef and fresh pico.
Katie Smith, holding microphone, concludes her talk and smiles
The College Word Series Pre-Game Press Conference was held this morning at the Charles Schwab Field Omaha.
In attendance were:
Jim Pillen, Governor, State of Nebraska
John Ewing, Mayor, City of Omaha
John “Jack” Diesing Jr., Chairman and President of College World Series of Omaha, Inc.
Anthony Holman, NCAA Vice President of Championships
Roger Dixon, President and CEO of MECA
The format this year was different with each speaker taking a turn to speak and then receive questions from the press.
Here is the transcript:
2025 College World Series Pregame Press Conference
JOEY = Joey Gardner, Marketing and Creative Manager at College World Series of Omaha, Inc.
GOV = Jim Pillen, Governor of Nebraska
MAYOR = Mayor John Ewing, Jr., Mayor of Omaha
JACK = Jack Diesing, Jr., College World Series of Omaha
ROGER = Roger Dixon, MECA
ANTHONY = Anthony Holman, NCAA
FATHER = Father Hendrickson (Rev. Daniel S. Henderson), president of Creighton University
Joey Gardner, Marketing and Creative Manager at College World Series of Omaha, Inc.
JOEY: Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I’d like to welcome our distinguished guests. We have Governor Jim Pillen, Mayor John Ewing, Jack Diesing Jr. from the College World Series of Omaha, Roger Dixon from MECA, Anthony Holman from the NCAA, and Father Hendrickson from Creighton University. I would like to start by welcoming up Governor Pillen for some remarks and questions.
Governor Jim Pillen
GOV: Well, good morning, everybody. I think the most important thing to say is “Welcome to Omaha,” and “Welcome to Nebraska.” As I was meeting some young ladies who are working with the College World Series, I said, “Do you know what’s going to happen to you in the next two weeks?” And they said, “We’re not sure.” I said, “You are falling in love with the people in Nebraska, and you’re going to stay here. You’re not going to go back home. So you’ll be welcome.” You know, let me say, on a very, very serious note, this is an extraordinary celebration. Seeing people here like Jack that have been working their whole lifetimes for the College World Series, in the 75th year. And from my viewpoint, as I said earlier, you know, I’m fighting this aging stuff. I’m working out and lifting weights and doing all this stuff because I want to be here 25 years from now when we hit 100 years and have an incredible celebration. And maybe lastly, I think the thing that’s so extraordinary that we in Nebraska gotta brag about a lot… Just think about it: Any little boy in the United States of America that grows up swinging a bat… his dream isn’t talking about Major League Baseball. The dream is Omaha: “How do I get to Omaha?” And every kid that’s playing college baseball…my guess would be if I was a coach, I’d be breaking… from the time we start to the end of every day: “Omaha, Omaha, Omaha.” It’s really, really a big deal, and we’re incredibly proud of all the work that everybody’s doing. It’s gigantic for Omaha, it’s gigantic for the State of Nebraska, and it’s extraordinary for the youth across the country that we have an event that is unrivaled to anything any of these kids are gonna experience in the coming weeks, to compete and play here. And then think about Murray State. Holy cow, I can’t wait to meet the coach of Murray State because he cuts the grass on his field. And I’m gonna get him over, and we’re going to cut the grass in the county. By the way, I love to cut grass. Any questions? I’m happy to take…
JOEY: Governor, can you start by talking about the economic impact in the state of Nebraska and what it means?
GOV: Well, the economic impact’s gigantic. What’s really incredible is people that come here, right? I have friends in a number of states, and they say, “You know, once we came, we got hooked.” So people come here more than we even know besides the World Series. The hotels are filled up, and it ends up being millions and millions of dollars, several hundred million dollars of economic activity. But it’s even far greater than that, because there’s lots of people that come here whether their team makes it or not, and then they find out how extraordinary this city is. Think about this city. We are the safest place of any city over 500,000 people in the United States of America. And we have the best people. Who doesn’t want to come here? We have people coming here all the time, so it’s kind of immeasurable.
JOEY: Now we can open it up for questions.
PRESS: Will you come cut my grass? Just asking.
GOV: I wish. I tell this talk all the time. When we’re young people… and if we all ask ourselves who are the three most important people in our life, 100% of the time—I’ll bet the farm on it—one of the three is a teacher or acoach. So I’ll come and coach you how to cut your grass. I wish I’d been a coach. I’ll coach you how to cut your grass.
JOEY: Any other questions for the governor?
PRESS: Governor Pillen, I know we’re here for the CWS, but I also feel like you can’t ignore what happened yesterday. Would you be able to comment on what the state controlled involvement is in what happened yesterday in Omaha?
GOV: We’re here to celebrate the College World Series, so I think we ought to keep it focused on that. I’ll be happy to talk to you offline. Anything else? Yes, dear.
MT: Michel Thornhill with OmahaNebraska.com. What’s your favorite baseball or sport or team memory?
GOV: I didn’t get the chance to play baseball when I was a kid in Platte Center in the summer. A couple little times, but I didn’t really get to play baseball, so I got extraordinary team memories from my high school days. And then I had the privilege to play for Coach Osborne, and a cool memory. Because when I was a kid growing up, we would play Alabama and there was this guy named Bear Bryant. And I’ll never forget…in my junior year we’re playing Alabama in Lincoln and before the game we’re going through calisthenics and doing stuff and I look over and the Bear is leaning against the uprights, leaning against the pole with his fedora hat on, smoking a cigarette. And I’m saying, “Holy cow, I’m playing against the Bear today.” It’s something I’ll never forget. It was really cool.
MT: Thank you.
JOEY: All right. Thank you, governor. So, next up will be Mayor John Ewing.
Mayor John Ewing
MAYOR: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Omaha. And as the governor said, you will fall in love with Omaha, and you will want to stay. If you would like to know more information about staying in Omaha, I have some cards that I can share. But this is the road to Omaha, the greatest show on dirt, and we’re always excited about being able to celebrate the College World Series here in Omaha 75 years… and I know the governor talked about 25 more years, but what I’ve been talking about is laying the foundation so we can be here another 75 years. This is where the College World Series belongs. We’re excited that you’re here. We’re excited for the eight teams that will be here, and this will be an amazing two weeks of baseball and also great activities for the people that come to Omaha and get to experience Omaha. So thank you all for being here.
JOEY: Mayor Ewing, can you start by talking about the economic impact on the city of Omaha and what it means?
MAYOR: Absolutely. We know last year just from the College World Series—and we can’t talk about second visits or anything like that because we don’t know—but we know this was $115 million of economic impact, 75,000 hotel rooms filled, and $3.5 million of sales tax revenue. And as a former county treasurer, I pay attention to things like that, because that tells us how well we’re doing as a city when it comes to bringing people here and sharing the good life with you.
JOEY: Any questions for Mayor Ewing?
PRESS: Mayor?
MAYOR: Yes.
MP: Mike Patterson, World Herald. Do you love baseball? Have you gone to the College World Series very often in the past?
MAYOR: I’ve come to the College World Series almost every year since I was a 21-year-old rookie police officer, and so I’d usually come down two or three times a year. This year I’ll probably be down every day, but I get this new, exciting opportunity to be the ambassador for the city of Omaha, and I am absolutely thrilled.
PRESS: You mentioned, Mayor Ewing, that you wanted this to stay here over the next 75 years. I know it’s a little early in your tenure. What plans do you kind of have in place to ensure that that happens and that contract does get renewed in 2026?
MAYOR: Sure. Well, one of the things I think we have to do is we have to be great hosts as I said. We have to build the right partnerships and continue those partnerships with the College World Series, with Creighton University, with the NCAA and other people who come here to this city, just letting them experience the greatness of this opportunity and the greatness of this event.
JOEY: Yes.
MT: I enjoy learning about economic development and how things change over time. With the College World Series right here and Hot Shops spurring a lot of growth in the area, what other types of things do you see are going forward? And I also know that’s a little early.
MAYOR: Well, one of the things I want to see is more venues for people when they come to Omaha to be able to enjoy it, but also for the people of this community…as well as looking at expanding, as I’ve talked about quite a bit, the urban core further north and south to increase opportunities for businesses there, shopping, retail, those type of things so that people can have a fuller experience when they’re here in Omaha.
MT: Thank you.
JOEY: Any other questions for Mayor Ewing? All right. Thank you, Mayor.
MAYOR: Thank you.
John “Jackl” Diesing, Jr.,President of College World Series of Omaha, Inc.
JACK: Well, good morning, everybody. Welcome to the diamond anniversary of the College World Series being hosted here in Omaha, Nebraska. We were just at an investment being made by Creighton University and others in some new baseball facilities, and it’s a testament to what this event has meant and continues to mean and all of its participants in this community and of course, institutions to the success of this event. I’ll just say that Anthony Holman mentioned this morning something that was great. He called this a jewel. So it’s definitely a jewel to be here. It’s nice to be part of it. We’ve had such a great partnership with the NCAA and various individuals who’ve been responsible, working with us to make this event the best it could possibly be for the kids who get to play this game and for the fans. We all seem to be rowing the boat in the same direction, which is a very important thing to be doing for the future. And it was alluded to this morning…it’s been talked about…we all want to have this here for another 25, if not 75 years. But think about it: 75 years ago nobody wanted to host the College World Series. Now everybody…it’s on national TV, and we…together with the NCAA and our partners here in Omaha, we’ve made this a bucket list item for fans. And as people have alluded to, they talk about the road to Omaha; they talk about getting to Omaha. One of my favorite phrases is from Mike Martin, who unfortunately passed away within the last year or so…a famous coach at Florida State…the last time his team qualified here, he said, “My favorite four words are ‘See you in Omaha’.” So there you go. Thanks, all, for being here.
JOEY: Jack, you and your father are the fifth and sixth recipients of the All Star Award. With this being 75 years, can you talk about the legacy of your father as well as the foundation you’ve helped lay for this event?
JACK: Well, it’s really an honor—I’m humbled, and I know my father would be, too—being recognized in the same breath as people like Rod Dedeaux and Skip Bertman and Augie Garrido and Dennis Poppe who is on that plaque also. So what it means is you’ve done something right and you’re working with our partners at the NCAA and the American Baseball Coaches Association. And we’ve formed good partnerships, we’ve listened to them, we’ve shown them that we care. We’ve pulled together, collaborated with partnerships and their relationships here in Omaha that’s made this all work. There’s no “I” in “team,” so one or two people can get recognition, but there’s usually a lot of people behind them that deserve the credit. And I guess I would say that in summary, to me, what it mostly means to me is we’ve been successful in forming collaborative relationships and partnerships in Omaha with the city, MECA, the business community, Creighton, and another host institution, the University of Nebraska at Omaha to pull everybody together so that we can realize how important this is Omaha. And then secondly, we’ve been fortunate enough to work closely with the NCAA to develop a level of trust between the two organizations. And nobody has an ulterior motive. Our motive is basically to do what’s in the best interest of college baseball. So it’s a great honor, and we’re very humbled.
JOEY: Any questions for Jack?
JOEY: Next up is Roger Dixon from MECA.
John Dixon. MECA President and CEO
ROGER: Well, it’s always an honor for MECA to host this great event, working with the NCAA, CWS Inc, the City, and all the people that make this happen. We couldn’t do it without a great team, the MECA employees, and the support from the community. And also the support of our board—Diane Durren is with us here today. So let’s play ball.
JOEY: Can you talk about the importance of this facility and how long… having hosted it for a number of years, what it means to have this come back to your facility each and every year?
ROGER: Well, this facility was built for this event, and—most people don’t realize it—so it generates enough to pay it off, so it’s never been a drag on the taxpayers by any sense. It’s also been a great venue for this community to showcase Creighton baseball, Big Ten baseball. And we’re too big for some things, we’re too small for others, but we make it work with the help of the community. We like to keep our facilities as if they look brand new, whether it be CHI Health Center, Charles Schwab Field, or the RiverFront, and we do that by whatever we make at these facilities we pour back into these facilities. I will say one thing: there will be a change next year. Next year you will see a video scoreboard in the left field.
JOEY: Any questions for Roger?
[None]
ROGER: Easy.
JOEY: Finally, we have Anthony Holman from the NCAA.
Anthony Holman,NCAA Vice President of Championships
ANTHONY: Well, it’s a tough act to follow, but I am excited to be here for our 75th anniversary of the College World Series being in Omaha. We’re excited to be back here, obviously. Roger just said something that’s really important. Oftentimes in my role with the association, I oversee site selections and bids and our business strategy for hosting of other championships in other locales and venues and things like that. And oftentimes we’ll hear from cities or things that say, “Hey, we want to be the Omaha of this sport” or “We want to be the Omaha of that thing.” Right? They coined that together to say that when people think about baseball they think about Omaha, right? For other folks, this has become the blueprint of a long-term partnership. And what I share with them is they’re not just the hosts, right? These are true partnerships that we have in Omaha. This is a marriage, right, that we have to nurture, we have to water. It doesn’t just happen overnight, and that comes from commitment from the city, from the state, from the leadership of MECA, the leadership of CWS Inc, and all of the community partners that were so influential in both bringing the championship here and then keeping it here. So with that kind of spirit and that kind of partnership and collaboration, I expect that not only will it be, I think it won’t be 25 years. I think we’re safe to say 75 years and beyond. I think the foundation has been laid for us to have to have that going forward. So we really appreciate you all coming out and supporting the championship, not only today for the announcements, but also throughout the next two weeks of baseball. So I’ll take a couple questions.
PRESS: I was going to ask you about the partnership. There’s a rumor that the CWS is gonna move or somebody’s gonna…
ANTHONY: I love it. Competition is excellent, right? It’s a good thing. It’s a great thing, but it’s the champ, right? Think about a price point. Nobody’s even been able to get the ring. So I think it’d be hard pressed for another city to make this type of commitment: to build a facility. Right? We’re the primary tenants. I’ve got an office here, right? So that’s a pretty cool thing. The College World Series is our second-highest grossing in terms of revenue and attendance of all our championships. And that doesn’t happen without it being in Omaha, so we’re really appreciative of that.
JOEY: Any other questions for any of them?
[None]
ANTHONY: You guys just want to eat. All right, no problem. Thank you.
JOEY: And finally, before doing that, Father Henderson from Creighton University. If anybody has any questions for Father…
FATHER: You’ve said it and the governor and others made reference to it, that Creighton’s been a host for 75 years of the College World Series. Here in Omaha, the partnership with CWS has been terrific. It’s an exciting year, because as we step into a new chapter, another 25 or 75 and another life of CWS… UNO is also a host institution with us. Doctor Lee and I were here in this room at the press conference with Jack and others and the governor and the mayor. We’re excited to share those responsibilities and privileges of working with CWS. So, thank you to Doctor Lee and to the University of Nebraska at Omaha and to my team at Creighton and Marcus Blossom and his leadership as we continue to move forward in this great event. Happy to take any questions. (Silence) That’s the way I like it.
JOEY: Thank you all for coming today. We have the media tasting, which is behind us here. If you also would like to meet with the individuals for individual comments, please let us know. Thank you all.
Amy Hornocker at College World Series at Omaha, Inc.
Omaha, Nebraska.com here with …
Amy Hornocker, Executive Director, College World Series Inc.
You’ve been now doing this for a couple years.
Yes.
And you have the one for the 75th year of hosting it.
Yes.
Tell us about it, please.
It’s the 75th anniversary of the College World Series in Omaha. The event has been running longer. So we just want to make sure that people know that it’s just the one that…for the city. But it is still very important.
Obviously, 75 years in a city is significant. So we’re just doing some things to celebrate. I think our biggest one that we’re doing is the 75th at the Riverfront. [https://theriverfrontomaha.com/events/?&eventid=7971]
Thursday, June 12th at Gene Leahy Mall, we have three bands, food trucks, and then capping it off with fireworks. And it’s free, open to the public. We want to celebrate with the community that’s given so much to this event.
We’ll also just have some other general celebrations throughout.
We have Ashley Spitsnogle. She’s a painter. She started a painting, which is basically Rosenblatt fading into Charles Schwab Field, and then she’s going to finish it on Finals Game 1. She’s going to finish the field piece of today, and then that will be available for purchase when she completes the whole painting, following the Series.
So that’s kind of a cool thing. Yes, that’s about it for celebrating.
I know you celebrate different groups of people too.
Yes.
First responders, teachers…
Yes. Heroes in the Heartland is Tuesday, June 17th. Game 10. We’ll honor heroes within the community. So that’s police, fire, doctors, nurses, military. So that’s a cool night.
Teacher Appreciation is game 11. That’s Wednesday afternoon. The first 250 teachers that show their ID get a Levy concession gift card.
We have a partnership with Omaha Public Schools on a reading initiative. We’ll celebrate some of the top readers that came out of their competition at that game too.
Is that the Readers Are Leaders?
Yes, Readers Become Leaders. We worked with Omaha Public Schools district-wide this year. Before this year, we just worked with one whole school to see if that would be like more intentional. We worked with Skinner Elementary in North Omaha. We did a couple pep rallies there, and it was fun to see the kids excited about reading.
Saturday, Game 4, we have the All Star Award. It’s usually been coaches, former coaches basically for their contribution to the game. But with the anniversary, we’re actually honoring Jack Diesing Sr. and Jr. Obviously, Jack Jr. is the chairman of our board, and his father was instrumental in keeping this event in Omaha and growing it. They’re going to be honored on Saturday night.
And then the very famous Rawlings keychain giveaway is on Monday afternoon at 1, game 7.
I have one of those and enjoy it very much.
They are very popular. People like to collect every year.
Anything the fans should know about this year? I know there’s a clear bag policy …
Yes. So clear bag. And then it will be the same metal detector walk-through. So it should be the same process to enter the stadium.
We actually do have some enhanced security in the way of road closures. This is for fan pedestrian safety mostly. Two hours before each game and one hour after, 13th Street will be closed completely from Cass to Cuming. The only way you can get down here is if you’re escorted by the Omaha Police Department … And we have rerouted the ADA drop off to over by Rocco’s.
All that is available on our website. The information is at cwsomaha.com, and we have updated maps and everything like that.
You’ve been doing this for many years now. What kind of things have you decided to add to the fan experience? And then I know you’re very active in the community as well as the CWS. It’s not just a couple weeks of the year…
Yes. So I think this year, besides all the stuff for the anniversary, we also have our normal Fan Fest that’s presented by Capital One.
The Ferris wheel will be back, which was popular, and they’re actually extending the hours of its operation on that first Saturday because they usually close with Fan Fest at 6:30, but they’re going to leave it open until the final until the game 2 is over and just see how that goes and then we’ll kind of see if there’s a lot of ridership.
The Air Force also is bringing one of their national assets, which is pretty cool. It’s a VR, it’s called the Hangar. So it is going to be like a pretty big footprint, and you’ll be able to go in and they have some virtual reality simulator.
So those are some new fan enhancements. And you know, Fan Fest is open to the public. So even if you don’t have a ticket to the game inside, you can come down and go to Fan Fest.
Some of the other things that we do besides the Readers Become Leaders program that we talked about is we have a grant program. Since the ’70s, we’ve given over $8 million to community fields and baseball and softball programs in the community.
So again, we’re trying to leave a legacy at home.
What do people need to know besides the clear bags, the scooters, the cashless…Is there anything new?
I think the biggest thing as far as access is definitely those road closures that will take place during the game days because there still is obviously the ride share programs to get down here.
Metro has adjusted some of their normal routes to come down here at more frequent times.
So that stuff’s all on our website. But also if you go to Metro’s, the scooters are around, the bikes, those E bikes and everything. So there’s plenty of different ways to get around down here.
What do you envision for the College World Series going forward?
Because there has to be this balance of the dynamics of the love of the sport, the rich history of the sport and then still going forward into the future.
How do you balance that?
Yes, and we have the contract here in Omaha until 2036.
But our organization did a strategic plan this year looking at what do we talk about next?
Like, when do we go look for an extension to this agreement, and what do we need to do to ensure that it doesn’t look to go somewhere else?
We’ve seen that happen with the Olympic Swim Trials, that there are communities that are willing to get these things.
So that’s still a work in progress. We definitely are looking at fan experience and even student athlete experience upgrades so that we can basically make sure there’s no doubt that people don’t want to leave here.
I remember many years ago I was fortunate to be able to tour the facilities here when things were changing. And it was amazing…the use of technology that hadn’t been even considered before.
Yes. So we have and we’re looking at a technology upgrade next year. It’ll actually start in the fall when the CWS ends, and we’ll have new video boards. The original one is kind of at its end of life… that technology.
Yes.
And we are going to get the long-awaited secondary board that is in left field that people have wanted and then some ribbon panels on the fascia. So being able to do a lot more stuff in the game, a lot of more sponsorship activities. We’re hoping and we’re always just trying to find the best way to make it accessible.
And we actually just had a media availability this morning. This is the first year we’ve worked with Autism Action Partnership. We will have bags at our guest services. So if you have a need, they have the noise canceling headphones, fidget spinners, those kinds of things for anybody neurodivergent, because we want to make it accessible for everyone knowing that the stadium is a big, loud, scary place. We’re trying to help families feel like they can bring everybody,
That’s fantastic.
Yes, it’s great. We’ve been talking to them for about two years, and we were able to bring that to fruition. We’re interested to see how well it does.
Alec Woockman with a table in the foreground at Charles Schwab Field Omaha
Please tell us a little bit about your creations and your favorite ones. And I notice they’re very inspired by different ethnic cultures, which is a lot of fun this year.
Yeah, absolutely. We have, I think 12 new concessions items this year, which is a decent amount for us. It’s more than maybe in years prior. But yeah, we like to feature a lot of different flavors and a lot of different…you know, our favorite types of foods. So there’s some Middle Eastern items out there. There’s kind of some Mediterranean things with our gyro and our Mediterranean brat. We have some…definitely some southwestern flavors. That’s very normal for us… jalapeno jack cheese sauce everywhere and jalapenos and things like that. And then we definitely have some breakfast items this year that we’re…you know, we’re big fans of breakfast flavors. Bacon’s great, that type of thing. So we tried to include that in a couple items this year.
I would say my favorite items… probably the Walk-Off Burger, which is a burger that is nestled between French toast. It has bourbon, bacon, onion jam which has some maple in there as well. Cranberry compote, just to add some acidity and some sweetness. And like I said, it’s nestled between two pieces of French toast. So it kind of covers a lot of breakfast slots there.
One I feel like we need to touch on is the Stealing Home Colossal Pretzel. We love having shareable options that you can buy and feed a few people. Maybe, you know, you and a couple of kids and your friends? Whatever. So it’s a giant pretzel—I mean, probably 12 inches wide type of thing. And it has three different types of meat. So we have pork carnitas, chicken tinga, taco beef, cheese sauce, poblano crema, pico de gallo, so southwestern flavors, but just on a huge pretzel that is very shareable, very filling.
And I think I should touch on a hot dog. I mean, we got a lot of great hot dog options this year. We’re doing Footlong Frank and Bean Dog with baked beans on it, bacon bits, mustard BBQ sauce. And then we also have… in that Mediterranean kind of realm, we have a loaded brat with tzatziki, lettuce, tomato, feta cheese. Just have a nice fresh take on a brat. And then the Dinger Dog is a fun one as well. So that’s also more southwestern flavors. There’s avocado, poblano crema, lettuce, tomato, bacon, stuff like that.
So those are probably the ones that are my favorite this year. I can touch on any of them if you want more specifics, but those are the few that I could think of.
You told me before how you could share inspiration, but I always find it interesting. And then each year’s got to be just a little bit different.
Yeah. You know that that is the thing. Every year, there’s maybe one or two things that stick around from the previous year’s menu. And then this year we’ve got 12 new things. So it is a group effort. We have a group of chefs that all work together on these things. We couldn’t do it with just one person. It always helps to have a lot of minds thinking on it. And we have people from different cultures and backgrounds who have some great flavor profiles to work with, so… the Big Kahuna Burger’s got the Asian Hawaiian influence. And we’ve got, obviously, lots of southwestern flavors. But it’s really a group effort. It takes a lot of people to come up with these different types of…
Of the returning ones, which one is your favorite?
Of the returning ones, I think everyone’s favorite is usually the Grounds Crew Tatch. That’s come back for years and years now, so that one’s great. The Nacho Omaha has been a big hit for a few years now. We’ve got like an Italian Meatball Slider and a Home Plate Box that’s been popular for us. So those are the big three, I would say, that are returning. Yeah.
Please, tell us about the NCAA and ways that people aren’t thinking of it, because there’s so much hard work that goes on there.
Yeah. I think one of the comments I mentioned during the press conference was about the excitement that these young men will have. It’ll be reminiscent of when they played Little League, right? They’re still playing for their institutions, for their teammates, and that’s still important to them, so we just want to make sure that that’s not lost in some of the other news media that’s going on around name, image, and likeness to (?) as employees. What you’ll see over the next two weeks is young men playing for the love of the game, and that’s what we’re excited about.
I think the balance of all those things is rather difficult to achieve, so…
Yeah, it is. I think certainly there’ll be thousands of fans here watching and cheering for them, and should they reap some benefits from that? And I would say absolutely. And I think that’s the model that we’re moving to.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you came into your position.
Well, I’ve been at the National Office for 15 years now, all in Championships. Prior to that, I spent some time in professional sport and amateur athletics and high school association and the Olympic movement, so all in sport for over 25 years. But just working through various groups and departments and connections kind of afforded me an opportunity to join the NCAA 15 years ago.
What baseball memories would you like to share with us?
Oh yeah, so I was a baseball player growing up and loved the sport. It was my first love. I was a catcher and outfielder…really enjoyed the game. I really like the…it’s a team sport, but there’s an individual component. When you’re in the batter’s box trying to figure that out or a ball’s hit to you and how you have to make a play on that, and other people are relying on you. So I remember those lessons learned playing Little League, high school, collegiate league to understand and have kind of a connection with the young men who are playing now. So, but yeah, I could never have played at the level that these guys are playing at, so I’m a huge fan. I just really like to watch and enjoy their talent and their performance.
I think that’s really key and important, and I’m glad that you’re emphasizing the love of the sport and all of that. It’s hard to have that balance between running it and preserving it.
I really enjoy seeing you year after year and all your presentations, and I’m so happy that this is finally the year I was able to interview you. So thank you.
No, no. My pleasure, and thank you for your coverage and your support, for sure.
A food tasting event was held after the Pre-Game Press Conference on 12 June.
Alec Woockman, the Executive Sous Chef at Levy Restaurants, presented his and his teams tasty offerings for the College World Series.
Alec Woockman with CWS NCAA sign in background speaking at the CWS Food Tasting
Transcript of Event by OmahaNebraska.com
Alec Woockman: I’m Chef Alec Woockman. I’m the Executive Sous Chef of the buildings here. I’ll walk you guys through everything we do around here.
So, first, on my right here, we have our Ancho Chicken Quesadilla. This is our house-seasoned grilled chicken, cheddar jack cheese blend, pickled jalapenos, cilantro and a chipotle ranch dipping sauce.
Next is our first hot dog. This is our biggest hot dog. We have a Footlong Frank and Bean Dog. So, this is a 100% beef, half-pound Omaha Steaks hot dog. A combination with hot dogs and campfire baked beans, so we’ve loaded it up with campfire baked beans, bacon bits, diced red onions and some mustard BBQ sauce.
Our next hot dog is our Dinger Dog. Dinger Dog is—once again all of our hot dogs are 100% beef Omaha Steaks hot dogs. This has avocado on it. It has lettuce, tomato, red onions, bacon bits and roasted poblano crema.
Next up, we’re going to talk about our gyros. So, something new this year, we have a portable gyro cart, which we haven’t done in the ballpark yet and we’ll be offering two different types of gyros. So, we’ll have a traditional Lamb Gyro and a house-made Chicken Shawarma Gyro. So, we’ll have both to try. It’s naan bread, house made chicken shawarma, lettuce, tomato, onion. We’ve got cheese and then of course tzatziki sauce on it.
We have one loaded fry this year. Our loaded fry is the Moon-Shot Fries. So, it is crinkle-cut fries, jalapenos, cheddar and jack cheese sauce, sliced kielbasa sausage, bacon and onion jam, which we liked it so much we put that bacon jam on a few items today we’ll talk about, and then some fresh diced jalapenos.
So, next we have our first burger of the day. Our first burger is the Walk-Off Burger. It is a breakfast-themed burger. I think breakfast food, it’s good. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. We don’t have to confine it to just in the morning, but that being said, double headers, we’ll have folks walking around here at 11:00 a.m., so maybe they’ll need something to eat yet. So, we have an Omaha Steaks All Beef Patty. It is nestled between two pieces of grilled French toast. We have pepper jack cheese and we have bacon, onion, and maple and bourbon jam. And then to round it all out, give a little acidity, we have a cranberry compote on there.
So, next we have our loaded brat option. So, this is our Mediterranean Loaded Bratwurst. So, basically, we take the same toppings we have on our gyros and put it on a brat. So, shredded lettuce, tomato, onion, feta, tzatziki. It’s a fresh take on a brat, which you can find, obviously, in any stadium.
So, next we’re going to talk about our shareable option. We always like every season to come up with something that you could buy and share with your kids or share with a couple of friends. So, this is our Stealing Home Colossal Pretzel. So, it’s this giant soft pretzel. There’s three different types of meat piled everywhere, so we have pork carnitas, chicken tinga, ground beef taco, our jack and jalapeno cheese sauce, and our roasted poblano crema.
We’ll move on over here to a few sandwiches here.
So, our last burger we’re going to talk about today is our Big Kahuna Burger. So, this is a Hawaiian-themed, you know, kind of tropical Asian take on a burger. So, we have that same Omaha Steaks burger patty, we have pineapple chutney, teriyaki aioli, cheddar cheese, and bacon.
Two different fried sandwiches here. First one we’re going to talk about is the Fried Chicken Club. This is more of a classic flavor combination, but just a new take on our fried chicken sandwich here in the stadium. So, we have lettuce, tomato, a heavily dilled ranch aioli, bacon, cheddar cheese on a brioche bun.
And the last sandwich, maybe my favorite sandwich among our concession sandwiches, is our Triple Play Pork Sandwich. This is a fried pork cutlet topped with two other types of pork called the triple play. So, there is smoked pork, and then that same bacon jam we’ve been talking about and some whole-grain mustard aioli.
And last but not least for our concessions’ items, we have our Everything Toasted Turkey Bagel sandwich, another item I think you know for our double headers, we have people walking around at 11:00 a.m. for that breakfast option at any time of the day. So, it is an everything bagel that is toasted, schmeared with chive cream cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickle, and a thick stack of smoked turkey breast. That kind of concludes our concessions food.
We have a couple of premium items too that will be available only in the suites, but I just wanted to touch on a couple of those.
So, we have our summertime fresh mozzarella, cucumber, tomato salad, balsamic glaze, basil. It’s just a nice new fresh salad for our suites. And a new salsa offering we’ll have upstairs is our roasted corn and black beans, salsa, house-fried chips.
And that concludes the food today. So, it’s a lot of concession items and premium things. I think we have a wide selection for everybody out there. So, we’re excited to be able to have all these offerings and hopefully give folks what they want. So, that’s all I have today.
Here is some of the food that is prepared for the fans!
Stealing Home Colossal Pretzel
This massive pretzel is sure to steal home and so big it might feed your team of four or more. With a hefty amount of taco beef, pork carnitas and chicken tinga for the base and three more tasting toppings (jalapeno jack cheese sauce, roasted poblano crema, pico de gallo) it is sure to be a crowd please and a win for team Levy and Alec Woockman.
The Big Kahuna Burger
This big boss of a burger is made with an Omaha Steak burger and is topped with bacon, cheddar cheese, crisp shreds of lettuce, and tomato. It also has pineapple chutney, teriyaki aioli delivering big flavor of the Pacific.
Walk-Off Burger(Left) and Mediterranean Loaded Bratwurst (Right)
This walk-off burger was my favorite. A hefty Omaha Steaks burger with a surprise. Instead of a bun, there are two slices of french toast! No need to add ketchup or mustard, It’s perfectly balanced by the maple-bourbon bacon jam and cranberry compote. Definitely a walk-off for a burger. It’s also so hearty that you may also want to … walk it off.
Grilled Chicken Shawarma Gyro
Grilled chicken nestled in a warm naan, covered with crisp shreds of lettuce, tomatoes and onions. Add feta cheese and tzatziki sauce and you have another of the ethnic inspired dishes for this year.
Ancho Chicken Quesadilla
This was another surprise for me. While I enjoy quesadillas, a lot of them taste the same from place to place. Not this one! It’s the wonderful cheddar-jack cheese blend and chipotle ranch dipping sauce that give this a special depth of flavor that goes so well with the ancho chicken.
Fire Roasted Black Bean & Corn Salsa with House Fried Chips
This was another surprise winner for me. It had an unexpected depth of flavor that with a complexity worthy of an entree.
Footlong Frank and Bean Dog
Franks and beans-always a good idea but you’ve not had them like this before! This footlong hot dog is all beef and weighs in at half a pound. It is covered by crumbled bacon and campfire baked beans. Sounds great, right, but what’s different? It’s the sweet, but not too sweet, baked beans that is different. Not sure how they got so much flavor in the beans and how it’s delightfully a bit sticky, so grab some extra napkins and take this dog for a walk to your seat!
Everything Toasted Turkey Bagel
You guessed it from the name. It’s an everything toasted bagel with layers smoked turkey. What you haven’t guessed is that it has a hefty schmear of an amazing chive cream cheese that brings this all together with a dill pickle, lettuce, tomato, and red onions transporting it from breakfast to lunch.
Summertime Fresh Mozzarella Tomato, and Cucumber Salad
This one was light and refreshing. The balls of mozzerella were light and fresh. The cucumbers and tomatoes were good sized and very fresh also. The dressing was alsp light and tied the ingredients together well.
Dinger Dog
Amazing cremas on this one make it a dinger. We have a herbaceous and satifying guacamole crema and a delightful poblano crema (my favorite new condiment this year). Next up are bacon crumbles and red onions to make this extra tasty and give some crunch. Now we must not forget the star of the bun-an Omaha Steaks all-beef hot dog!
Crispy Chicken Club
This was another surprise for me. You are thinking tasty, right, but we’ve eaten these before. Not so! This is the best crispy chicken club I have ever had. The breading was perfectly done giving food credit where food credit should be done-to the chicken! The chicken was delicious and complemented by with a dilly-ranch aioli. Add crispy thinly sliced bacon, cheddar cheese,lettuce and tomatoes for the perfect chicken club. This one is the standard to judge the others and if it were a contestant in the Chicken Sandwich Wars, it would win.
Triple Play Pork Sandwich
The triple for this tasty sandwich is pork cutlet, pulled pork and bacon-bacon jam that is sure to win. Add a grainy mustard and let the flavors play across your home plate, I mean palate.
Moon-Shot Friesa
This one was my friend’s favorite. For him, it was the creamy jack cheese sauce that put this shot of crinkle-cut fries over the moon. Add the sausage, jalapenos and of course some bacon jam and your aiming at the stars, for sure.
2024
Please check out our posts on the College World Series for this year, so far, and share!
The College World Series Pre-Game Press Conference was held this morning.
Jack Diesing
Anthony Holman
Marcus Blossom
Mayor Jean Stothert
Roger Dixon
Speakers included:
Jack Diesing, President of College World Series of Omaha, Inc.
Anthony Holman, Vice President of Championships & Alliances at NCAA
Mayor Jean Stothert, City of Omaha
Marcus Blossom, McCormick Endowed Athletic Director
Roger Dixon, President/CEO MECA
Topics included:
App is available for the CWS.
Cashless Concessions- No cash will be accepted at concessions.
Reverse ATMS- For people needing to turn cash into a card, reverse ATMS will be available.
Clear Bag Policy- Still in effect.
Paperless Tickets- Tickets will be digital. If you do not have a cell phone or computer, you will still be able to attend. Admissions will be open and you can buy your ticket there.
Food- Favorites will be returning from years past.
75 year anniversary_ It is next year not this year.
Transcript of Event by OmahaNebraska.com
Jack Diesing: So good morning, everybody. Thank you all for coming. Welcome to the greatest show on dirt. I wanted to first of all recognize some of the College World Series…my board members that are here: Herb Hames, Tarci Slaybaugh, George Wachtler, Lisa Diesing. Thank you all for coming. As president of the College World Series Omaha, Inc. I’m excited to be here leading off the start of the 74th College World Series here in Omaha, NE. Today is the…really, the culmination of the Road to Omaha Journey. Omaha has become synonymous with the Men’s College World Series, much like Louisville is synonymous with the Kentucky Derby and Augusta, GA, is synonymous with the Masters, and Indianapolis is synonymous with the Indianapolis 500.
We really are proud and privileged to be able to be integral partners with the NCAA in both the past and the successive wonderful championships that this event ends up with. So we’re really looking forward to it. And as one head baseball coach said, “There are no bad days in Omaha.”
So up here with me today are Anthony Holman, Vice President of Championships at the NCAA; Mayor of the City of Omaha, the Honorable Jean Stothert; Marcus Blossom, the McCormick Endowed Athletic Director at Creighton University, the host institution; and Roger Dixon, the CEO of Metropolitan Entertainment, Convention Authority. And all of them will make a couple of comments here in a few minutes.
Just a few other things. We really, as I said, are at the Mecca of college baseball. To be clear, it all started on a much smaller stage: typically, local community fields across the nation, and that’s why every year CWS and the NCAA provide grant money to baseball and softball programs throughout the city. The “Restore the Diamond” program is what we call it. It’s a grant program that’s been supporting the community organizations’ baseball and softball programs since 1972, and this year is no different. This year, we supported eight different fields and facilities across the Metro, surrounding areas, and over the course of time from 1972 we’ve contributed about $5.3 million to these organizations to give something back to baseball and softball in the community, and that’s not to mention some of the larger contributions we’ve been involved with… with the UNO baseball field and soon to be Creighton baseball field, both of which are serving as practice fields for this wonderful event.
Finally, I do want to say—and I hate to use the word announce, but I’ll use it and know I’ll get in trouble for doing that, but we’re going to be celebrating the … College World Series 75th anniversary here in Omaha, but not this year. We missed a year. So this is the 74th of like, old Tom should tell…. He’s a hard guy to get rid of. And I kept telling this was the deal, and he said, “No, they want to do a story anyway,” so… but as part of this process, the planning is going to almost be a year-long process, and you all will be getting more information about this what will be taking place in the coming weeks following this year’s College World Series. So our partners will share a little bit more about what else is happening this year. And now it’s my pleasure to introduce Anthony Holman, the Vice President of Championships at the NCAA…Anthony.
Anthony Holman: Okay, I’ve got a few notes here, and I’ve got to change my glasses because I’m getting older and I couldn’t hit the slider before. They didn’t know that I needed glasses. I’d tell my parents I’d be in the big leagues if only they’d got me glasses earlier.
Jack was so kind to talk about the 75th anniversary that’s coming up and what the College World Series is synonymous with. I get so many calls, emails, text messages from folks that this is a bucket list type of event for them, just like Jack was saying for the Derby and the Masters and other events like that. And part of the reason why that is… it’s not just the location, it’s the people, it’s the community, that’s embraced and taken ownership in those events. And that’s certainly what we have here in Omaha. We’re so thankful for that. So we really appreciate all the support that we continue to get.
So a couple of things that are coming up with the championship. I think everybody… hopefully you’ve seen that the teams that are going to be here, we’ve got a number of institutions that are back for returners, some who were here more recently. We’ve got one that’s making their first appearance, but we’re excited to have Tennessee here for their seventh time; Kentucky is here for their first time. The Aggies of Texas A&M, making their eighth appearance. North Carolina, in for their twelfth appearance. They’re so excited they came yesterday, so we’re excited to have them. Florida State, making their 24th appearance, and the last time they were here was in 2019. And then both Virginia and Florida were both here in 2023, so we’re excited to have them back, and then NC State, excited to have them back, and I’m sure we’ll get questions about the last time that they were here.
But we’re just excited that… how resilient all of the teams are, and the opportunities that they come. There’s been so much talk, and I’m sure you guys are paying attention to it. So we’re not going to ignore the elephant in the room about what’s going on with name, image, and likeness and student athletes as employees and all those types of things. I’ll guarantee you nobody will be talking about that on the field here this weekend, right? Those…the excitement you’ll see from these young men in competing will mirror what you’ll see in August at the Little League World Series, where they’re playing for the enjoyment and the love of the game. And that’s what we want to celebrate over the next two weeks, so we’re excited about that.
A couple of announcements about our fan fest. We’re excited that our fan fest will continue to be available and open at 11:00 tomorrow and then it will be open on each of the days of competition. There’s a number of additional activities that that we would encourage folks to take part in. Thanks to our friends at MECA for helping us secure additional space to add some additional items and activities for our fans to take part in out there, so we’re really excited about that. Our partners, Capital One, AT&T, Coca-Cola, Buick, Great Clips, Rawlings are all returning with baseball activities, photo ops, giveaways, prizes, tons of activities. So we encourage everyone, even if you don’t have tickets, come on down and check that out for sure.
And we’re never sold out. There are always tickets. We don’t say that “sold out” word. Come on down; there’s something for everybody. And one of the other… last things that I’ve wanted to talk about was that we’ll also be inducting our fourth ever College World Series All Star, recognizing outstanding contributions to this wonderful event. And I’m so thrilled and excited that this year we’ll be recognizing one of my mentors and good friend Dennis Pope. And many of you know Denny, who was so integral in the development and the growth of this championship for a number of years for… both in attendance and exposure, and even bracket expansion. We were… folks won’t remember, not everybody remembers, but this was 48 teams for a long time and it went to 64 and Denny helped to usher that in. So we’re excited to have him and Donna and his family here to recognize them during the series, so please come out and help us thank him for his support.
And then the last thing is that if you if you want to stay up to date and in the know on all of the Men’s College World Series games, news, and happenings at the stadium, we encourage fans to download our Men’s College World Series app. My social media and communication team was all over me to make sure I got a plug in for that. So download the app. Plenty of information and activities to follow through that app. So we really appreciate that.
Thank you again, Omaha, for all the continued support and excitement that that we have. Folks come here in droves for a number of reasons. We’ve got tons of people who make this an annual trip and others that it’s a bucket list item for them and they can’t wait to get here. So thank you for your continued support. And we look forward to another great Series. So now I’ll ask our Honorable Mayor Jean Stothert to come up and provide a few remarks.
Mayor Jean Stothert: Good morning, everybody. Thank you, Anthony. I’ll take my sunglasses off. I don’t need reading glasses like you do, and I believe I’m a little bit older than you. But you know, just a few months. But it’s so good to be back at Charles Schwab Stadium, and we are very, very proud to be the host once again of this of the Men’s College World Series. And just thank goodness you don’t ask me to do the first pitch. I did that once at a Storm Chaser game, and I’ll never do that again. That was quite embarrassing. But again, thank you to all of our partners, the NCAA College World Series, Omaha and Creighton University, and of course… back up, the College World Series again brings great athletic competition to Omaha and thousands and thousands of visitors. It also brings Omaha together to make the next two weeks a great success that grows even bigger and better every single year, and we are ready for another record-breaking series.
This year, fans, families, and teams can visit the Heartland of America Park at Lewis and Clark Landing for the first time. It just opened last year, August 18th, and they will have a real treat walking through our new parks. The riverfront parks have exceeded all of our expectations. More than two million people have visited the parks for family movie nights, concerts, live theater, fireworks festival, walking their dogs, and special events. And so it will be a real treat for our fans this year too.
And next year. our fans can use the Baby Bob pedestrian bridge to walk from 10th Street to the Bob Kerrey Bridge and then cross over to Iowa. So those people in Council Bluffs can walk from Council Bluffs all the way to the ballpark, and that should be done later this year, this fall, and it’s another way that we are improving connections to all of our downtown events and venues, and it’s great to be downtown right now.
I would also like to thank the Men’s College World Series for supporting our community. One example of this is their continued support of the Readers Become Leaders program, which I love. Each year the College World Series of Omaha, Inc, and the NCAA partner with our schools to encourage enthusiasm for academics. This year, they partnered with 65 Omaha public schools, 3,700 third-graders, to help increase their reading proficiency. Students received incentives to read and complete reports on books. They earned prizes for their participation, including the opportunity to attend, of course, a College World Series game. Young readers completed more than 30,000 book reports, and that’s really great. Next Monday night, we will recognize Saddlebrook Elementary as the winning school. Thank you for supporting programs that teach young people about leadership and the importance of academics. I look forward to welcoming the student athletes tomorrow night at the opening ceremony and the opening games then on Friday. It’s going to be a good week. I wish I could guarantee good weather, but I can’t. But hopefully we’ll have good enough weather during the whole season this year. So now I am very, very pleased to introduce Creighton University Athletic Director Marcus Blossom. Marcus.
Marcus Blossom: Anthony talked about expansion. You get 88 in there… I think we earn that in there this year. We could talk about that a little bit later, but I do want to start by thanking Anthony and Randy and the rest of the NCAA staff. They do a great job. I happened to work with these two guys when I was at the national office, and it is a lot of work. They work tirelessly throughout the year to make sure we put on a very, very special event. Like the great game of baseball, Creighton University is full of cherished traditions and one of our most favorite traditions is having the honor and privilege of being the host institution for this special event, the Men’s College World Series. I speak for all Bluejays when I say how proud Creighton is to be partners with CWS of Omaha and the NCAA. On behalf of our vibrant community, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to our President, the Reverend Daniel S. Hendrickson of the Society of Jesus; the entire Creighton Community; baseball head coach Ed Servais; and our dedicated athletic department, who spends tireless amounts of hours helping CWS Omaha and the NCAA put on this great event. Their efforts behind the scenes for the Men’s College World Series are definitely immeasurable. I do want to also acknowledge…I know she’s on the board of MECA, but she’s also our new chair of the board at Creighton, Miss Diane Duran. She helps a lot to bring this event to Omaha and she’s a big partner of Creighton University as well.
And now I have the pleasure of introducing one of the real big partners of Creighton and the one and only President of the Metropolitan Entertainment and Convention Authority, Roger Dixon.
Roger Dixon: Well, Diane, he introduced you, so welcome and thank you for your support. And on behalf of MECA, our extensive team of events staff, baseball management, we are proud to welcome everyone back to Charles Schwab Field. We are thrilled to be entering our 13th year as the home of the Men’s College World Series. Above all else, we are focused on creating an atmosphere here that gives fan baseball fans from far and wide a seamless experience, and that starts with hard-working staff months before the first pitch is even thrown. We are also dedicated to making the guest experience feel new and exciting every year. With the help of our talented and creative concessionaire at Levy, we are once again featuring a menu that caters and customs to the Men’s College World Series. These signature creations will be available to taste following today’s news conference, so make sure you stick around for a preview of this year’s menu.
Aside from the fun food, we want to make sure all our guests are prepared for what our venue has to offer. As a reminder, Charles Schwab Field is a cash-free environment. Only digital or card payments will be accepted throughout the building, including in our concession stands. We have multiple cash machines on site that function as a reverse ATM which will disburse a VISA gift card equal to the amount of cash deposited. Also, the stadium is digital enter only, meaning tickets must be downloaded in advance and then scanned right from the phone. Our box office staff is standing by to help anyone who needs assistance with this process.
Like every year, safety is a top priority for MECA during the Men’s College World Series. Our clear bag policy remains in place. Additionally, each visitor who walks through our doors must undergo a screening process, which will again include walk-through metal detectors at each of our gates to both enhance and expedite the entry.
We also want to remind the public that our guest service desk is available via text message for any issues or concerns that arise during the game. Simply text Omaha space your issue and location to 69050, and we will dispatch the appropriate assistance. However, it is important if you see something that requires immediate attention, never hesitate to alert a nearby MECA staff member or on-site law enforcement. We are thankful to have a productive partnership with Omaha police to ensure this event goes without a hitch. We are looking forward to another fun, exciting, and safe Men’s College World Series and our confident everyone’s visit to Charles Schwab Field will be the best one. Thank you.
Jack Diesing: Well, thank you to Anthony. Thank you to the mayor. Thank you, Marcus, and thank you, Roger, and also thank all of you in the press and everyone else for being here to help lead off the start of the 74th College World Series here in Omaha, Nebraska. Feel free after this is over to ask questions of anybody that you want to, or if you prefer to just go have food, feel free to go do that. And as we said, Omaha is synonymous with the Men’s College World Series, so it’s about time to… let’s go play some baseball, okay? Thank you all for coming.
2024
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Amy Hornocker, Executive Director of CWS Omaha, Inc. at her office
What are the family activities that will be going on?
We have Thursday, June 13 as our open practice day. All eight teams will be here at some point during the day, starting at nine o’clock and they will have some time on the field and be around. Fan Fest will be open and there’s some new exciting stuff that will be in Fan Fest.
That’ll be good, and then we have team days.
Obviously, Sunday is Father’s Day, so that’s usually a big day at the park.
Monday, game eight, is Kid’s Day, a lot of kids’ activities, mascots. The kids will hit or run the bases at the end, 12 and under because it gets a little crazy with the big kids get involved.
And then Tuesday, June 18 is our Hero’s Night that we do usually annually. There will be different recognitions for police, fire military, you know, medical folks. That’s one that’s pretty popular.
Wednesday, June 19th is Teacher Appreciation. We do gift cards for the first 250 teachers. We had an honorary captain submission where you could submit you or someone else could submit a teacher and say “why”. We randomly picked from those submissions, so four of them will be captains and they’ll get to be in the dugout and just those kinds of things.
Wednesday, June 19 is Country Night. It’s just really, there’s not a concert or anything, but it’s just wear your cowboy hat, country music, just something to just kind of change it up a little bit.
I think I came to that one year, and I had my cowboy boots on.
Yeah, that’s what we want.
…but I always have my cowboy boots on. I got lucky.
(laughter) Then we have two planned fly overs planes, so that the first one will be actually Game Three which is Saturday. It’s kind of weird. Usually, we do Game One and Finals One. But we had some aircraft availability issues and, of course, when you’re doing the military and million-trillion dollar aircraft, it’s, “We’ll take whenever you can do it …
Game Three will be two EA-18 Growlers from US Navy’s attack squadron from Whidbey Island Washington. Finals One will be F-16s from the Colorado Air National Guard out of Buckley Space Force Base in Denver. Our staff member that does all of our military stuff, she puts paperwork in through the Pentagon and then people volunteer. Anyway, that’s what’s going on that’s a little different [or] special: otherwise, just games as usual. And yeah, like I said, some potentially different teams for people to set their eyes on. It’s kind of fun.
Are there any changes to things like one year we had the clear bag policy and then we had no cash …?
No, those all remain, but there should not be any new security things.
We’ll still have the walk-through metal detectors at the gates which have increased the availability of getting people in you do not need to take things out of your pockets. Their technology allows people to just pass through.
Those are nothing nLLSU and their fan base, setting attendance records. We continue just to have a demand for this. It’s a good problem to have.
We increased season ticket prices a little bit this year and still saw 98% renewal. That’s pretty unheard of. The traditions, people wanting to come to this, is still there, if not greater and definitely rebounded from COVID and I think we see you know, it took off. It took us a couple of years to get the corporate base back. People still weren’t gathering or doing employee-client outings and now they’re back.
It was a hard time for a lot of companies and a lot of other organizations not knowing how things were going to go and what to do.
Yeah, and we have two fairly large youth tournaments that pop up around this. The kids play during the day and come at night to a CWS game. Without the GA (general admission) ticket, it became a little more challenging to fulfill some of those needs, but we did that. We increased our group ticket allotment last year. We wanted to make it a really concentrated effort to get priority to those kids to get them in here. Because that’s, I mean, those are our future fans. So, the outfield will be full of little league teams most likely.
It’s great when you’re around town and you see them and you’re seeing them have fun and the love for the sport.
Yes, I think there’s over 700 teams that are enrolled. They come in different waves, so that’s a lot of room nights and a lot of people in restaurants, so it’s pretty exciting.
We did work with Visit Omaha on a new economic impact number. They have a calculator that we worked with them on and inputted numbers. The last time we had done an official study was 2019. We were at $88.3 million in economic impact then and then this year, the 2023 Study yielded $115 million. So again, jobs, taxes, all that stuff.
That’s the next question I was going to ask. Thank you.
Yeah, yeah.
… because it’s a huge impact to the area.
It is. It definitely is, and I think what we have to be thankful for is all the support that we get from the city to support all of these folks visiting.
So yeah, we’ve had three really great years with the teams that we’ve had here. It’s not like people’s disposable income was unlimited, so we’ll see what happens with some of these different teams here.
How many people came last year?
I’d have to [check the] official number. It’s at my desk, but I think it’s uh, it was upwards of 390, some 1000 which was a record. We sold out most sessions and then a lot of them, once we sell out, we do offer about 1000 standing room only tickets, and we’ll do the same. Those are usually determined that day though. And we figured out that we can get about 1000 more in without it just being too much. I think it was an average of 22,000/game. Again, if you average it out, but the other numbers are on my desk.
What’s capacity?
We’re 24,500, just depends on who you talk to.
…And whether they’re standing or not standing.
Yeah.
How many seats are there?
Technically 24,500.
So, any new technology? I remember some time ago there was a change in the bats.
Nothing new that I can think of… ESPN continues to change how they cover this. In fact, the NCAA entered into a new agreement with them starting next year, but what actually was really exciting for us is game two of the finals, which could potentially be the championship game will be on ABC. Being able to be off the cable network and probably get into more homes is pretty cool for us. [It’s the] first time that we’ve been able to do that. ESPN continues to expand our coverage of baseball.
They used a drone the last few years and then so looking at the at the game from different lenses. That’s been kind of cool for the audience.
The technology with the drones…
Yes. The funniest story of all is we have this resident hawk over here. It lives on the light standard over here in right field. She not a big fan of drones. You’ll see her kind of causing some problems sometimes out there.
So..she feels the drone is threatening.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So she’s pretty harmless, but she does show herself well.
..You know, your babies and your home. A drone must be a pretty strange animal [to her] and it flies.
Yes. It’s been pretty funny. Some people have names for her, but . . .
I was going to ask what do they call her
They call her “Falconia” or something. I don’t know. But there’s some funny stories that come around throughout the two weeks while they’re here.
I remember one of the years, there were this couple of birds that just kept flying around, a pair.
When you have an outside venue, you’re going to get some of that stuff.
Anything else you can think of? We want to get the fans all ready and know what are they supposed to be doing.
This year is pretty similar to most, so nothing new that we need a lot of people know about other than just some of those special days and we do still have Monday, Tuesday afternoon game tickets for sale, pretty reasonably in the outfield.
We have the ticket exchange where people will go out if they can’t make it. They’ll resell their tickets. We’ll just be a normal year, but were interested in to see how the Super Regionals shake out, and see who’s coming here. And hopefully we’ll know everybody by Monday night.
There’s just a lot of surprises [which teams are coming] this year.
Yes, definitely, which isn’t all bad.
Our opening event, we used to do the parade and everything. Last year we did it at the Steel House. It’s just a more private for the teams because they are here with one goal, and so we’re doing that again where they get to see a different part. So it’s a shorter than kind of per their request, but so…
So no big parade …
No big parade, fireworks or anything. Not this year.
We just we kind of struck out a lot. We had half the time ended up with weather that ruined all of our plans. We’re like, maybe we need to look at this differen
Once those are wired, they do have to go off. It’s sad to put those off for no one really.
They’ve oftentimes gone up just for us. That’s why we need to look at this differently. You know, continue to make sure that we have the student athletes’ best interest in their time.
You don’t want to wear them out either.
Right. That’s a really long day with their media obligations and practices and stuff. We’re trying to be cognizant of that while still giving them something special here.
Something that’s interesting, and something I learned this year that I didn’t know, is Saving Grace Food [Rescue]. They work with Levy, so any food that does not come out of the kitchens here that’s made, goes directly to them so that they can provide it to different parts of the community. And we’ve been working with them to try and also get that out to some of our private people that have hospitality, so that this food isn’t just being thrown away.
Some of the other events like . . .
Baseball Village, the Hilton does a lot of catering for hospitality. That’s a really cool community piece that I did not know about until this year.
Oh, that’s great.
I’ve been wanting to do a story on them. But they had different troubles different years when I was trying to do it. So this would be really great lead in to that story, too….
Yeah.
…Because we try to promote the nonprofits and people doing good in Omaha. I told you before we don’t do bad news,
If we find, bad news, we might connect people behind the scenes. But we want OmahaNebraska.com to be that place to go to find out cool good things.
Just another…We have a renewed partnership with the zoo. We’ve had our national championship trophy out there and got a win with the penguins, and interacted with some of the animals because it’s obviously our number one tourism destination. It makes sense for us. We have obviously a lot of our visitors will also visit there. It makes sense that we collaborate, so it’s been fun. They do nights at the zoo, adult nights at the zoo, so we’re going to have the trophy there Thursday. It’s going to be a baseball themed night.
There are probably some really good puns for social media.
We’re just trying to still get out [the word], still talk about it with our community partners and all that.
